Tera Melos show:
Like I said in my Intronaut show review from this past summer, there’s something special about witnessing scarcely recognized art when it’s being performed in front of you and small group of other people. Which is why I’m glad that I dragged myself out to Asheville to see Tera Melos and Zorch play at the newly opened Isis Music Hall. I became a Tera Melos fan in 2009, since then I’ve rarely seen then come close to my neck of the woods and I knew Asheville would be about as close as they would get, but it was really giving their new record X’ed Out a chance that convinced me that I needed to be there. You see, one can only take so much mind-bending math rock, and I wasn’t hip to the fact that Tera Melos had begun carving out their own niche as of their past couple of releases that would set them apart from a scene that basically exists to try and top what Hella already more or less perfected. X’ed Out, and Patagonian Rats for that matter, are not “math-rock” per se, they are the next step forward for punk. Falling somewhere between pop, surf-punk, math, and sheer unbridled effect experimentation and noise, Tera Melos are now one of the few bands out there I can think of that isn’t having to borrow from anyone else. But enough buttering these guys up, Let’s get to how awesome this show was.
When we arrived at the very nice and surprisingly spacious Isis Music Hall on Asheville’s west end a band called Onawa was opening. I was initially under the impression that these guys were on the same tour, as it’s rare that I see a local band that I haven’t heard or done a show with in this area (Zorch later revealed that they were not on tour with them). Strangely enough, even after looking to the internet I still don’t know where the hell these guys are from, which is a shame because they were actually really good. I tend to have an affinity for bands that are hard to pigeon-hole into a genre, if the band is good of course, and these guys were a refreshing blend of groove and psych-rock that seemed to pull from alot of different areas like electronica, dub, and indie-rock. Trust me, it was better than it sounds. The huge arrays of effects along with the keys and powerful drumming brought Zechs Marquise to mind, and the bassist locked into a loud, fuzzed out repetitive groove that carried their last song well as he hammered away at a Fender jazz.
We decided that the balcony was the best seat in the house before Zorch played, not only were there chairs but no one was up there to block our view. I counted around 40 people in attendance, so it’s not like we had to worry too much about any of that. The only thing I knew about Zorch prior to this show was that they were on Sargent House, which is usually a good sign. What I know about them now is; holy crap, Zorch puts on an awesome show. As soon as I heard an erratic array of synthesizer beeps and blips while bizarre, nearly inexplicable visuals came up on the projector screen (controlled by someone in the front of the stage with a tablet) during the Austin duo’s warm-up I knew that something was about to happen to help make my $12 well spent. I’m a sucker for a good visual show, and this one proved that as long one captures the spirit of the band’s music that it need not be something extravagant. This one was obviously made by someone who was friends with the band, or maybe a band-member themselves as it displayed a better visual representation for Zorch’s colorful, pixie-stick snorting synth-pop on crack than anything I could possibly describe or come up with. Certain parts of it had me and my friends howling. particularly a 32-bit sprite of Cyclops from X-Men raving with girls in bikinis under a disco ball and skeletons having sex on a computer. Believe it or not, that wasn’t as weird as it got.
You kind of need a video to get it, but here’s where I dropped the ball as a music journalist because unfortunately my video recording equipment is out of commission, which is why my Sigur Ros review had half good and bad quality videos. Enter my smartphone; the only thing I had on me to document the show, although I did get some pretty good pictures I apologize for the poor quality videos. I also had limited memory to work with, hence the short videos. My only criticism of Zorch lies with the redundancy of the vocal melodies, which at length all started to sound similar to me. Still, the manic drum and synth duo banged out a thoroughly entertaining set, although by the time they were done I was ready for the main event.
First off, the pedal-dancing of Nick Reinhart is something that absolutely needs to be experienced by well, I’m going to say everyone. You’ve probably heard countless derivative one man band musicians stack loops but you’ve never heard anything like what this guy does. To hear someone use sampling/looping in a unique way is inspiring to begin with, but to hear the glitchy, yet highly musical layers of madness that Nick can conjure with just a Squier guitar and his pedalboard is something that should fill any musician with inspiration and hope. His bandmates certainly aren’t slouches either, Their bassist Nathan Latona relied on two pedalboards and aggressive playing that was downright scary (in a good way) and not being a drummer I cannot possibly try and explain how complex John Clardy’s percussion work is and yet, how tight the band is with him in the midst of the most schizophrenic of meters.
All the pedalboards consisted heavily of Earthquaker Devices’ awesome products, but also plenty of cheaper and more worn-out pedals. Nathan was playing a Gibson Ripper with an Aguilar Tonehammer 500 through an 8×10 cabinet. I was surprised to find that the Tonehammer was solid state, the tone was monstrous and plenty loud although he filled me in on a secret in the form of a pedal he had called the Rusty Box that he said boosts his gain to ridiculous levels. He held things together with a prog player’s precision and a punk player’s abrasion. You’ll hear what I mean, the video here hilariously and accurately displays the inability of my smart phone at capturing the room-rattling bass volume, not helping was the fact I was directly in front of the 8×10 cab’s trajectory.
Tera Melos pulled heavily from X’ed Out of course, songs like Weird Circles and Snakebite were really good even with my original vantage/listening point being so unbalanced. The beauty of this venue was getting to watch/listen from different parts of the room, and I returned to the balcony before they went back to Drugs to the Dear Youth for a couple of songs. While I might not prefer the more technical material these days it was still mind-boggling to witness. The future pop-punk of “Sunburn” came later, as did their Polaris cover. “Skin Surf” was a superb set-ender, with plenty of improvised effect-freakouts nestled in the middle of a great pop song. My first live Tera Melos experience was worth the wait, and after getting some tone secrets I walked away desperately hoping I would remember the name “Rusty Box”.
The (slightly) Discerning Bassist 