ED SHRADER'S MUSIC BEAT PROTHELYTIZES THE BEGINNING

Let's be honest, Ed Shrader's MusicBeat is awesome. Part performance art, part ground razing minimalism, part resurrection, part anarcho-aggression, Ed and Devlin induce some of the most bristling, sweat-inducing, drum driven songs that strip everything down to their most malleable and fluid parts.

Yeah, adjectives.

Bear with me: I like to envision ESMB as some psycho-revivalist who eschews tents in the middle of the bible belt for any legitimate PA they can find. Once plugged in, Ed and Devlin proceed to perform miracle after miracle, offer you the face of whatever being you think exists beyond you, and then drench it in chaos. It's palpable but insufferably indescribable. The chanting rhythms, uninhibited angst, and wonderfully tongue-in-cheek subtlety challenge you to let go of what you hold dear. Guitars? Who needs them? It's a crazy construction that threatens to devolve into unrelated, illusory corollaries, but somehow retains its center and discharges something close to 1980 Mt. St. Helens or the immanent event of the Yellowstone caldera.

Shit is crazy, heavy is what I'm saying.

I like music that challenges me, that pushes me to new places, that forces me to question what's what in the sacred ground of DIY punk, but also makes me feel alive, strips me of complacency, and shoulders me with anxiety. Additionally, I want music to reciprocally challenge itself and the ground it rests on at the same time. Disappointment only exists when we have expectations; things that strip away our ability to frame it and to define it allow us to roll with it and to enjoy the odd juxtapositions it erects: a sublime proliferation of sonic matter.

So there. Ed Shrader's Music Beat brings their feverish, echoes to Missoula this year. You know that scene in the Sorcerer's Apprentice when syncopated chaos is arrested by salvation? Not here. There's no nostalgia, no reckoning force, no powerful overseer to shepherd you into tranquility. And that's how we like it: raw, driving, experimenting, maneuvering relentless fun. Beyond definition.

Ed Schrader's Music Beat from GONZO CHICAGO on Vimeo.

TYMPANIC SHREDDING: MULTICULT

Multicult.

Multicult.

Multicult.

It's a name that we've been hearing for a while now. The Baltimore trio has been steadily garnering attention and praise (apparently, aside from one silly ass dude who seems stuck under some Big Black-Steve Albini rock). They've released a few recordings, and, in 2012, (Total bros and sisters) Sleeping Giant Glossolalia released Spaces Tangled. I plead some ignorance about this band. I'd heard the rumblings and listened to a few tracks from their 2010 S/T, but it wasn't until I saw the SGG's release last year that I did some more legwork, which basically meant hanging out on Multicult's bandcamp for about an hour. 

If Multicult is anything, it certainly isn't background music. Mulcult pieces together solid noise-rock jams with elements ranging from mathy / jazzy beats to straight-up abrupt hardcore. The record pushes up against abrasive, yet it doesn't sacrifice rhythm. The songs get stuck in your head, clawing and shredding your cochlear labyrinth, and leaving you in a blissful trance. In ways, Multicult feels paired down, but the trio offers awesomely constructed songs that allow for each component (drums, guitar, vocals, bass) to tangle around each other but without any of the sounds eclipsing the others. 

It's really very pleasing. 

Chaotic and technical at the same time, Multicult is infectious and overwhelming in their ability to split open tonal spaces and fill them with a technically sound blunt force.

Charm City Rockers: Roomrunner

Look. I'm the first to admit that when I google a band and see a handful of links that include spin.com and pitchfork.com, I'm more likely to start eating meat again than I am to buy a record. It burns that deep. It's not hipster resentment or anything like that; I just see those two rags as good filters for stuff I don't need to pay attention to.

Too much? Maybe.
Point taken.

I could have started out talking about how the only things I know about Baltimore are: The Wire takes place there; I lost more than one skateboard there; I was punched in the face five separate times there; G.I. made funny comments about skinheads from there; Dan Deacon and Double Dagger are from there.

I'm sure Baltimorites would be pissed at me. They should be. I missed a lot. I always thought we were friends, or maybe estranged cousins. Truth is I dig that city. I felt bad for it, in a way. It existed in D.C.'s shadow for too long. Cal Ripken, anyone?

Enter, Roomrunner.

The Charm City's quartet of Denny Bowen, Dan Frome, Sam Garrett, and Bret Lanahan (Yes, Bowen of this band you may have heard of) does successfully what many bands fail at: being interesting and relevant while resurrecting that 90s sound that we've all grown to love. So they're influenced by Nirvana, who isn't? It's feedback and riff heavy, but it strips away all the marketing zeal that's taken place over the past two decades and replaces it with a self-generated reverence for simple rock. The music swims through waves of abrasive noisiness but wraps it in catchy hooks that leave your head wondering what continent you're on. It drips with that Pacific Northwest feeling, but it Baltimorizes it, adding some crazy, tweaked vocals and muddy guitars. You can head bang and bounce all at the same time. With two albums under their belt, S/T and Super Vague, these cats have found a way to weave in a revitalized aesthetic that you could only find by digging through your tape drawer. Oddly poppy, fantastically brash. It's like they took the textbook of indie-rock, carved out the center and found those juicy morsels, chewed 'em up and put the book back on the shelf. Hopefully you find it before the roaches and ants do (oh, wait. I already mentioned spin).

Simple: This is good. Total Fest and Missoula are damn lucky to have them. It's the stuff your pants and socks want. Eat, drink, be merry.