This week Seattle’s electronic-music scene will witness the extremes of extroverted and introverted approaches to performance.
Representing the former MO is Marlon Magas. The Chicago singer/synthist has had a strange career path: Under his full name, he yowled for no-wave shit-stirrers Couch and Lake of Dracula in the mid-’90s, then transformed himself into simply Magas, an electro-punk entertainer who matches Andrew W. K. for sweaty-jeaned energy onstage.
To backtrack, after LOD disbanded in ’97, Magas fell into a funk, but seeing drum-machine-powered wildmen like Quintron and Wolf Eyes rekindled his enthusiasm. Teaching himself how to use a Roland MC-505, Magas began creating aggressive Suicide-style electronic rock that stresses the “rude” in rudimentary.
After two EPs, Magas dropped his debut full-length on Ersatz Audio Records, Friends Forever, earlier this year. The disc follows the raunchy, synth-rockin’ dark alleys populated by artists like Adult., Electronicat, and Zeigenbock Kopf. The difference is Magas’ beefy, reverbed growl, which recalls Alan Vega after a heavy bratwurst and beer intake. Live, Magas gracelessly dances around the stage, flaunting a hairy paunch, heavy-metal locks, and a demeanor that toggles between parody and painful sincerity. Ultimately, though, Magas wins you over through his sheer lust for life and relentlessly driving electro-rock histrionics.
By contrast, the bill happening Monday at the Jewel Box will be bubblin’ with kitten-cute sounds that bridge the ever-shrinking gap between electronica and indie rock. Take Chicago-based producer Greg Davis: His first album, Arbor (2002, Carpark), stands as an indietronica landmark, a swoonful marriage of wood and silicon. Over the disc’s nine tracks, Davis weaves nostalgia-triggering snippets of splashing water, children’s voices, and birdsong into a Sunday-morning bliss-scape of meditative acoustic guitar, delicate digital signal processing, and complex beats. Arbor sounds like a dream collaboration between folk-guitar legend John Fahey and Boards of Canada.
Germany’s F. S. Blumm also shows a predilection for folky guitar motifs rambling over minimal electronic blips and clicks and organic percussion. Blumm’s cheerfully sad music–all played in real time–inhabits intimate spaces of the heart, and will curl lo-fi indie rockers’ toes as well as those of hardened IDMers. He makes intricately detailed music that’s simply beautiful, with a side order of whimsy.
Portland multimedia magnate E*Rock (Eric Mast) works as an illustrator/visual artist, publishes Thumb fanzine, runs the Audio Dregs label, scores music for animator Mumbleboy, and creates organically grown IDM with guitarist/vocalist/flautist Colleen French. E*Rock’s recent debut album, Conscious (Audio Dregs), crams myriad odd and pretty sounds into compact spaces with charm and ingenuity. Like all the artists on this bill, E*Rock’s music is more likely to inspire cuddling than dancing. One, two, three–aaawwww! DAVE SEGAL
Magas appears with ROBO.trash DJs Samuel Kirkland, Kris Moon, and Recess Fri Oct 3 at Noiselab, 924 E Pike St, 323-2189, 21+, $5.
Greg Davis, F. S. Blumm, and E*Rock appear with Randy Jones Mon Oct 6 at the Jewel Box Theater, 2320 Second Ave, 441-5823, 21+.
