Mountain Oasis

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Vampyric dream sequence

Instagram by Adam Aronson

It's hard to write about William Basinski without using the words minimalist and mournful. And both were true about his Diana Wortham Theatre performance. Having not seen him before, I was disappointed that he didn't bring his clarinet or saxophone to the stage, but he did bring his magnificent head of hair and a mostly-greyscale video of a full moon adrift among the clouds. The soundtrack that Basinksi performed, in the darkened room, recalled at times the peals of distant church bells, tuned against each other. Not exactly inharmonious, but eerie nonetheless. It also would have worked well as the score to a silent film, cuing the moment when a caped vampire alighted in a window frame, inches from his sleeping prey. But not a vengeful, bloodthirsty vampire. More of an anemic, world-weary monster. It would be easy to drift off to sleep to Basinski's music, which isn't a comment on it being boring. It's the kind of sonic meandering that would lend itself to dreaming; especially to the twilit passage between wake and sleep, when the breath is shallow and half-formed visions gather just beyond the mind's eye. And who among us couldn't stand to rest our over-busy minds? To drift on a sea resonant, atonal notes with no discernible pattern or rhythm for an anchor. Just notes, minimal and mournful, falling like rain on the ears.

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The Asheville Twittersphere exploded with thoughts, observations, photos and other dispatches from the Mountain Oasis Electronic Music Summit live as it unfolded this weekend, Oct. 25-27.

I rounded up some of what attendees posted to Twitter in a Storify post, focusing on the three headlining acts: Bassnectar on Friday, Nine Inch Nails on Saturday, and Pretty Lights on Sunday.

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Around Mountain Oasis: Pop up shops popped up (Amazing Capes on Woodfin Street and Creative Allies' T-shirt shop on Wall Street), the Sound & Vision Art Show opened at Apothecary, and late night hot dogs were served up.

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Not that Darkside

In some bizarro future Pangea where Muscle Shoals, Ala., borders Ibiza, Spain, Darkside will be in every jukebox. The two men standing in cones of white light were Dave Harrington, playing a guitar funneled through a bounty of distortion pedals and samplers, and Nicholas Jaar, on all horizontal instruments. Mountain Oasis was their first live performance stateside since the release of their highly acclaimed debut album, Psychic, but you’d have never guessed a performance that tight from a project so fresh.  

Most of the songs followed a similar structure, opening in wading ambience and building toward club-level thump. Nothing was rushed. The long format — straddling the line between conventional songs and open-ended DJ music — works for the duo because they were patient enough to let the songs develop. While the payoffs were sweet — bone rattling beats topped with guitar shredding to make David Gilmour jealous — it was their subtle approaches that made the show remarkable. Like most groundbreaking musicians before, they played with your expectations, delivering solidly but not exactly what or when you assumed.  Jaar often withheld the bass for a few bars longer than comfortable or tweaked the familiar refrains, keeping the audience on its toes and attentive (seriously, I’ve never seen so many ill-timed fist pumps and so few cellphone photographers). 

A large portion of electronic music fails in a live setting. The performances either lack authenticity or clarity — you’re not sure what exactly the guy on stage is doing. Darkside avoids this problem through juxtaposed musical reference and  focused vision. Harrington’s guitar work recalled traditional blues and jazz, but cast in the relief of Jaar’s club-ready soundscapes, it sounded alien. Likewise, when coupled with the howling guitar, Jaar’s nob twisting gained a musicality typically ascribed to ‘real instruments.’ All of this could have come off as hokey or hack-y if they weren’t so damn good. Fully committed to their performance at Thomas Wolfe, the duo easily sold the crowd on what was actually some pretty weird shit.

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Autre Ne Veut, That's French for "Lady Jams"

Of all the bands I was looking forward to this weekend — trust me, there were a lot — Autre Ne Veut was probably in my top two. He did not disappoint. Arthur Ashin, the Brooklynite singer behind the alias, brought his brand of stubbly yet smooth R&B to the Orange Peel, perfectly crooning his affection in an earthy falsetto that would make Justin Timberlake jealous. Even Bob Boilen of NPR's "All Songs Considered" seemed pretty smitten. (On a complete side note, I think Bob Boilen must have some sort of public radio teletransport machine, for his whirlwind tour of every Sunday-night act spanning multiple venues defies the laws of physics.) R&B might be one of the hardest genres to get into as a listener (let alone as a singer). It's the Harlequin novel of popular music, ridiculed for its cheesy confessions and melodramatic crescendos. R&B requires its male artists to be clean shaven, sweet and to pour the ladies a glass of zinfandel before proceeding to remove her clothes, so to speak. Say "R&B" out loud and I guarantee an image of Babyface or D'Angelo pops into your brain queue (with Michael McCary, the baritone from Boys II Men, doing that sexy narrating thing). This is where Alternative R&B/Neo-Soul says: enough is enough. Autre Ne Veut brings the romance without the affect. He's the five o'clock shadow to Babyface's ... babyface. He can be hungover and still convince his lady that she's the only one for him. Take another example of a guy who's breaking new ground in R&B: Frank Ocean. He's trying to seduce the boys, too ("Forrest Gump you run my mind boy"). It's not all rose petals and silk sheets for these post-R&B crooners. They're masculine and melodious and backed by some serious synth. While most of Mountain Oasis skewed heavily toward dark, heavy electronica, Sunday night's Orange Peel lineup sprinkled some sugar and soul into the mix. After Autre Ne Veut came How to Dress Well (for me, a disappointment) and Mount Kimbie (pleasant and danceable, though not as heart-wrenching as ANV). A guy who showed up late to the show eagerly asked if Autre Ne Veut had already played his ultra catchy "Play by Play." That song begins with a few elongated cries of "Baaaby." It intrigued me that so many dudes seemed into this R&B singer (there were definitely more males than females at the show), so I asked the guy what he liked most about ANV. He said he reminded him of Prince, in reference to the way he was innovating the genre, not churning out some smooth or plunky butter-greased hits. When Autre Ne Veut calls you "Baaaby," he really means it. He doesn't have to wear a suit and tie and Armani cologne to prove it. A backward baseball cap and sweatshirt will do the job just fine.

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AVLephant's Haiku Roundup

All the bands I've seen summed up in verse. Purity Ring Ethereal pop. Light-up orbs and Megan James. Tricky replacement. Daniel Johnston Flipping through song lists. Girl yells, "You're cooler than you think you are." Show ends. Deltron 3030 Fun hip hop fusion. Automator Dan conducts. Easy crowd pleaser. Neutral Milk Hotel Indie icons rouse. Blaring psychedelic splash. Why am I yawning? Tara Busch (I Speak Machine) I Speak Machine pwns. "The Silence" is deafening. Sound monolith chills. Nine Inch Nails Trent Reznor: angry. Fog machine at 11. Biceps bulge, glisten. Autre Ne Veut Five o'clock shadow. Stubbly yet smooth R-and-B. Dude rocks falsetto. How to Dress Well How to Dress Well is not dressed well, looks like waiter. Friends with Quest Love. Dope? Darkside Sunday night highlight. Muscle Shoals meets Ibiza. Blues, jazz and club. DANCE! Mount Kimbie I danced a little. Soulful and pleasant enough. Time to drink with Rich.

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Godspeed You! Drunk Festival-goers

For a band that have had to deny claims of being anarchists, Montreal post-rock titans Godspeed You! Black Emperor certainly put on a catastrophic live show. That is to say, catastrophic in terms of how likely their music is to demolish buildings and cause floods as well as in terms of how poorly the Explore Asheville Arena served as a venue for this kind of music.

The apocalyptic set began promisingly with a deafening roar of bass feedback so dense you could practically swim in it. Slowly, the band (which features multiple guitars, two drum kits, an electric bass, an upright bass and a violin) began to shape the feedback into the droning opening of "Mladic" off of last year's triumphant post-hiatus comeback 'Allelujah! Don't Bend! Ascend! Accompanied by cryptic black-and-white projections of urban sprawl and typed manuscripts, the Middle Eastern-tinged number unfolded with a truly terrifying fervor—a wordless sermon for the end of days. 

But GY!BE do not dabble in short songs. After the cataclysmic tremors of "Mladic" settled down, the band plowed through a couple more meandering numbers that failed to hold the audience's attention. None of this was the band's fault. As post-rock composers, GY!BE are second-to-none. But whereas they can best be enjoyed through headphones, allowing the listener to become enveloped in the subtleties of their music, the arena setting created a great deal of echo and noise that blurred together the guitars and overwhelmed Sophie Trudeau's beautiful violin-playing. Couple this with the short attention span of most Mountain Oasis attendees, who tend to yearn for catchy, danceable numbers, and you've got a recipe for disaster. I took a break from the set to hit the restrooms and came back to find the majority of the audience getting drunk on Four Lokos and beer while chatting with one another and mocking the spacey Canadians.

Towards the end came a furious drum duel between Aidan Girt and Tim Herzog, but it was not enough to save the proceedings. Godspeed You! Black Emperor's set ended not with a bang, but with a whimper.

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Is Numan a New Man?

In many ways, Gary Numan is the godfather of the whole Mountain Oasis Festival. His synth-bathed hits like "Are 'Friends' Electric?" and "Cars" opened up possibilities for many new wave bands and industrial acts who would go on to feature synthesizers more heavily, diverting the focus away from the ever-ubiquitous guitar. Of course, Numan kept many pop/rock structures intact within his music, allowing audiences to better embrace the newer sounds. Many electronic musicians before him (and after) were more overtly experimental in nature.

Although he has remained out of the limelight for the past couple decades, releasing a string of albums that expanded upon his signature sound outside the scrutiny of the massive audience who jumped aboard for The Pleasure Principle and Telekon, his influence still lingers to this day, especially in Saturday night's headliners Nine Inch Nails.

But one must question whether the student has surpassed the master, and in such a way that the master begins to crib notes from the student's notebooks. With several guitars adding heavy gothic riffage to the bevy of synths onstage and eerie whispered vocals dominating some of Numan's newer compositions, the electronic legend's set ended up resembling the one Trent Reznor would pull of with more aplomb a few hours later. This isn't to say that Numan wasn't an exhilarating performer, whose over-the-top stage moves shattered any argument you could make for him being a bashful musician hiding behind the crisp, digital anonymity that synthesized music often provides. His tunes invigorated the audience, especially his mega-hit "Cars," which, though subtly sinister in its day, seemed downright cheery compared to some of his more industrial fare. 

But while Numan won over the audience, it's difficult to imagine any of them going out and picking up Splinter (Songs From A Broken Mind), released a few weeks back. Anyone who'd be interested probably already spent their allowance on Hesitation Marks.

(Photo by Rich Orris.)

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I never thought I'd see Nine Inch Nails, let alone shoot them. I was one of seven lucky photographers allowed in the pit to get an up close and personal look at the man himself.

Trent Reznor looks like a totally different man than when I started listening to NIN early in high school, but he's as intense and raw as ever. His performance was spellbinding. Pair that with the most amazing light show I've seen and it made for an unforgettable performance.

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Out of Juice: On Mountain Oasis' Pedestrian Beer

Following the model of previous Moogfests, Asheville Brewing Company has created a festival specific beer for Mountain Oasis. Unfortunately, what it lacks in taste, it also lacks in a label — the cleverly titled ‘Moog Filter’ replaced by the blandly branded ‘Electric Pale Ale.’ Don't get me wrong, it has taste, probably too much of it. The beer reeks of American-style Pale Ale mediocrity, leaving you feeling as though you just made out with a hop vine. 

It's possible my taste in beer has shifted significantly since I had the first Moog Filter three years ago, but I remember the original Moog Filter being balanced, even toward the malty side. I also thought Asheville's beer palate was diversifying. With the popularity of Saisons at Wicked Weed, Hi-Wire's lager and ABC’s own successful use of  jalapeño (Fire Escape Pale Ale), this beer is thoroughly un-electrifying. 

I understand that novelty beers are, in fact, novel and that the beer needs to be sellable, but the Electric Pale Ale is a weak offering — no wonder I’ve witnessed a startling amount of FourLoco consumption this weekend.

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Highlights from Saturday night

Saturday night at Mountain Oasis was nonstop, an 8+ hour adrenaline rush for live music fans, with more awesome options than any mere human could possible take in. The energy at most shows I saw dwarfed Friday – there were more creative costumes on display, and even more of a party spirit in the air. Here's a few moments and observations from my experience trying to take in as much of it as I could.

King Britt I stopped by Diana Wortham for the first time this weekend to check out King Britt. He seemed to be in the midst of some kind of awesome sonic journey, but I felt like an outsider, like he was captaining a musical ship that had already taken off and it was too late for me to get on board. He also struck me as an immediate winner of the "DJ at the Festival Who Most Looks Like a Professor" contest.

The future looks bright On the way out, I ran into Ashley Capps, producer of the festival, and he seemed to be feeling good things. He told me he was really happy with how the weekend was unfolding, and is already thinking of how to make things even better in the years ahead. He mentioned that he's pleased with how the local musician showcases and community outreach events are playing out, and wants to do even more of that kind of thing in the future. It was good to hear that he seems to want to continue to build and invest in the festival in coming years.

Zola Jesus and JG Thirwell Walking across town to Thomas Wolfe, I was immediately mesmerized by Zola Jesus  and her collaboration with JG Thirwell. The power of Zola's (her real name is Nika Roza Danilova)  voice far exceeded her petite frame – think a much more artsy Christina Aguilera. Thirwell's minimalist beats and string arrangements complimented it perfectly. (Also, Thirwell looked remarkably like David Bowie). A funny moment of the set came when Zola wondered into the crowd aisle to sing. She started singing very close to the face of someone who was so busy looking at his phone, he didn't notice. When he looked up and saw her close, he gave a perplexed look that made her interrupt the song for a moment to laugh. Many in the crowd chuckled along. Later, she declared her love for our town, telling the crowd: "This city is so beautiful. Those mountains. I can't take it."

Gary Numan At the next-door ExploreAsheville.com Arena, Gary Numan put on a great show. He took a short interlude to bring us back to the 80s when he revisited his hit, "Cars," but mostly he focused on newer material, revealing in sharing his inner industrial vampire. A highlight was his haunting cover of Chris Isaak's "Wicked Game."

Chromatics

The best surprise of the night came next, with Chromatics putting on a much better live show than I expected. They transformed the Thomas Wolfe theater into a ranging 80s dance club, with tracks from the Drive soundtrack and others forcing heads and hips to shake involuntarily. Several guitar lines, played through reverb that gave the strings the sound of rubber bands, brought to mind the Knight Rider theme song (a very good thing in my book.)

Godspeed You! Black Emperor

Probably one of the poorer decisions I made all night was leaving their set early to catch the beginning of Godspeed You! Black Emperor. I think some of the subtleties of the influential Montreal rockers sound was lost in the cavernous ExploreAshevillle.com arena. Their heady, dark layering didn't exactly match the Saturday night party vibe, and I heard a few folks mumbling that it was a buzzkill. Once I let myself adjust, however, I got into it, reliving days years ago when I worked a crappy job filing folders all day at DSS and relied on their sonic expressions of angst to help me get through the day.

Nine Inch Nails The next couple hours presented many festival goers with a tough choice between  Animal Collective and Nine Inch Nails, which were scheduled to overlap. I caught a few songs of Animal Collective and loved it, but it wasn't enough to keep me from abandoning the set in favor of Nine Inch Nails. Nine Inch Nails didn't disappoint. I thought their set was completely mind-blowing from start to finish. Trent Reznor's insanely huge biceps were flexed and ready for a fight, perhaps a physical manifestation of the uber-aggression and angst he so wonderfully manifests musically. The new songs from the Hesitation Marks such as "Came Back Haunted" were on par with older classics like "The Hand that Feeds" and "Head Like a Hole." I have no idea how Reznor maintains the kind of creative intensity he has over all these years, but it was well-displayed every second of the hour-and-half show. His performance and incredible new backing band were as perfectly tight and orchestrated as could possibly be, but with just enough spontaneity and freedom to let the songs breath and come to life. At different moments, NIN had me dancing, bumping my fist, and siting down, closing my eyes and soaking it in, concentrating on the multitude of subtleties and layers as they unfolded. It was difficult to keep my eyes closed for long, however, because the band was accompanied by one of the most masterfully choreographed light shows I've ever seen. Before exiting the stage, Reznor thanked fans for coming, noting: "There's been some good shit up here on this stage today." (Earlier that evening, he was spotted at the Asheville Pinball Museum playing pinball with his wife.) Reznor encored with a mesmerizing version of "Hurt," off 1994's The Downward Spiral. A beautiful, almost other-wordly expression of pain, it hurt so good.

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Somewhere Over the Rainbows

Picking up with Mountain Oasis on the second night after forsaking Neutral Milk Hotel and Bassnectar for the shred on arrival shenanigans of Diarrhea Planet in Charlotte, I needed to ease into the warm bath of EDM, molly and pretty lights (not to be confused with Pretty Lights—that comes tonight) with the help of a more guitar-centric group, as befits my prejudices. I never cared for the Mars Volta. I found their angular, Latin-tinged prog vomit needlessly complex, and Cedric Bixler-Zavala's testicles-in-a-vice singing distasteful. But Omar Rodríguez-López has unmistakeable guitar chops, especially when reeled in a bit, as per At the Drive-In. He takes a similar understated role in Bosnian Rainbows, his latest collaboration with former Mars Volta drummer Deantoni Parks, keyboardist Nicci Kasper and vocalist Teri Gender Bender of Mexican garage punk act Le Butcherettes. 

And, at least in a live setting, Gender Bender becomes Bosnian Rainbows' focal point. Her urgent vocals recall Savages' Jehnny Beth, and she has a comparable commanding stage presence. Her jerky stage moves inhabited the middle ground between the robot dance and Madonna's "Vogue" video. She flitted back and forth across the stage like a woman possessed while the other band members maintained a tight unit in the background, with no one in particular seizing the spotlight from Gender Bender. Rodríguez-López did squeeze in a few masturbatory guitar solos, but they never derailed the proceedings. 

But Kasper's subtle synthesizer lines stood as a constant reminder that I was at an electronic music festival, and things were only going to stray further from my usual live music comfort zone from here on out. I had gone over the Bosnian Rainbows, and I sure as hell was not in Kansas anymore.

(Photo by Rich Orris.)

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Nine Inch Nails. Enough said. 

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King Britt at the Diana Wortham Theatre.

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Return of the Lizard King

I'd read about the band Sorne's performance at SXSW. I'd heard the comparisons of front man Morgan Sorne to Jim Morrison. And some living saint (whatever that means). I'd watched his videos. And even still, I was utterly unprepared. He walked on stage at Asheville Music Hall with a black scarf draped, hoodlike, around his head, prostrated himself before the mic stand, wrapped the mic chord around his neck and let out an earthly howl that shook loose every preconception I'd carried in. 

Mostly I though things like, "Wha—?" and "How?" and "Holy hell."

So, yes, there is a definite nod to the reincarnation of Jim Morrison, his ghost dance intact. But Sorne (the guy) is light years beyond those early forays into spirit rock and psychedelic-tinged showmanship. Sorne (the band) is drummer Dean Cote (who plays standing up). And Kevin Naquin on samples and mallet percussion (mainly a huge bass drum), and then Mogan on additional percussion (mainly a frame drum, which he alternately pummels and dances with) and an impossible vocal range.

It's not just Morgan's range so much as the fact that he seems to contain dozens of different singing voices, from fierce to ethereal. 

And, while the melody is carried by electronics, this band is decidedly earthy. Rooted in rhythm and wilderness. Possessed by something magical, some sort of voodoo that is frightening and yet compelling.

Sorne, although given possibly the absolute worse festival time slot — the band's schedule was changed at least three times and they finally arrived on stage, after 48 hours with no sleep due to a tour with Beats Antique just as both Nine Inch Nails and Animal Collective were set to play other venues — were absolutely committed from the the first note. At the end of the show, Morgan staggered from the stage in complete exhaustion.

But up to that final moment, he rode a current of wild energy. Dark-eyed and sweat-drenched, he seemed born of the deep heart of the forest as night is falling and strange animals are stirring. Or of the core of a nightmare that doesn't instantly dissipate on waking. Or else he came to battle those demons, to exorcise them with his army of drums and his vocal schizophrenia. His terrifying and gorgeous multiplicity.

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King Britt's space Odyssey

  The set up for King Britt's show (a long table with a single mic, a number of laptops and other gear), at Diana Wortham Theatre, looked more like the producer/DJ was going to lead a panel discussion about music and less like he was going to perform music. But his program, "Fhloston Paradigm featuring Pia Ercole" (a U.S. premiere) proved to be bass-y, at times dancey and often transcendent.

Against a backdrop of rocket ships, sound wave charts and other visuals, the musicians produced a sonic tapestry of some very personal Odyssey of both inner and outer space. Britt managed top compose a sound that was at once huge and thoughtfully dynamic with chest-rattling bass paired with moments so subtle you could hear camera shutters clicking.

Two questions: How much of Ercole's haunting, angelic non-verbal vocal was pre-written and how much was improved during the set? She used loops to expand the effect to both its chilling and awe-inspiring end.

And, the guy on the end with the lap top: What was he doing? How cool would it be if his role was to intuitively VJ the set by listening to each song and then quick-like Google "space ships" or "Saturn's rings" or whatever came to mind?

Because, even as Britt's "Fhloston Paradigm" was a complete artistic expression, it also felt like a presentation of the creative process, in how creativity is not necessarily a means to an end but a process (like outer space itself) continuing to unfold into infinity.