Nervewheel
Sat Oct 26 at the Shack.

Every month cool events go on that don't go down in official live-music venues. From art galleries to clothing stores, there are plenty of outsider spaces to catch a show--you just have to see the right ad or read the right flier. Last Saturday, I hit three different shows happening in unofficial spaces. The A-Frames and the Spits rocked the cramped Fallout Records headquarters Saturday afternoon (one of the Spits' final shows before they head off on tour), the High Beams and the Stuck Ups got all the costumed zombies dancing to garage punk at the Comet, and around the corner at the arts collective space the Shack (12th and Pine), visuals met amped art at a benefit for the Degenerate Art Ensemble (who are heading off for a tour of their own through Europe).

Opening the DAS fundraiser were Nervewheel, a trio consisting of drummer Adam Gross, guitarist Bill Horist, and bassist Benjamin Hadley (as luck would have it, Hadley's other band, the Soils, was in an earlier One-Night Stand). Their instrumental set was a complicated fusion of prog and post-rock that also incorporated elements of jazz. The rhythms and melodies were constantly changing course within songs, evolving until the only clue that it was okay to clap came from the silence on stage. Horist put his effects pedals to use on his guitar, at times creating real-time loops that became interesting centerpoints for the songs, as the dynamics shifted between the heavier post-rock numbers and the longer, flowier jam sessions. The freeform music was fitting for an art space (we were surrounded by photographs and paintings hung to help raise cash for the headlining band), as the songs definitely had a sophisticated art bent, even as bits of metal flourish slipped into Horist's guitar work. My favorite song was the band's finale--which took up their final 13 minutes on stage--where Horist added loops that made the guitar sound like chimes, closing the set with a piece that pushed the band's far-reaching experimental boundaries even further out there.

Nervewheel play at the Liquid Lounge on Fri Nov. 1.