Review: Cowboy Sadness at AyurPrana Listening Room
Atmospheric NYC-based indie rockers Cowboy Sadness enjoyed a respite from Knoxville's Big Ears Festival on March 30, landing at the appropriately ambiance-rich AyurPrana Listening Room. The building itself was once upon a time a church, then the short-lived Ambrose West arts venue. Decked out in reinforced arched wooden framing accompanied mostly by red brick, it fights right in with other pre-existing brick framed structures aligning the iconic Haywood Road corridor.
The background stage lighting maintained a western sunset impression, or perhaps the effect of an eastern rising sun contingent upon interpretation of the current musical transitions and progressions. Cowboy Sadness began by delving into the recesses of self, slowly permeating many melancholic and optimistic stones buried within the human psyche. They commanded the room with gentle, meditative, and thought-provoking stabs into the proverbial firmament.
At times, the drums of Nicholas Principe were strategically absent altogether. Yet at others, they dominated the direction and weight of the mysteriously familiar sounds this dynamic trio brought forth. He also contributed to the tapestry of sound with a synthesizer placed within arm's length of the drum kit. Taking a break from his ambient pop/drone solo project Port St. Willow, Principe oftentimes seemed to serve as an axis of sorts, although no one member dominated the role as a definitive leader.
Cowboy Sadness is rounded out by guitarist Peter Silberman (The Antlers) and keyboardist David Moore (Bing and Ruth) on farfisa and Rhodes. Together, their sound is oddly reminiscent of Jimi Hendrix’s “1983... (A Merman I Should Turn to Be),” a predominantly instrumental track that begins a little grungy but eventually becomes melodic and jazzy.
The band's set started out much more subtle than a Hendrix show, yet captured many evocations that sublime sounds and communication oftentimes are able to encapsulate best with the aid of modern technology, creative prowess, and pure raw life force.
The audience was nearly library silent for the majority of the performance with all of the attention tightly tethered into the music's texture and vibration. There was no vocalist for this collaboration, so any storytelling is imperatively experienced primarily through the drama of the cinematic soundscape. The humming and roaring “voice” conjured from within proved to be quite the vocal indeed, unleashing feelings of peace, defeat, journey, and triumph.
Although deriving from separate notable bands, these individuals have been collaborating and jamming for years. This camaraderie and rapport clearly has laid the groundwork for their current ambition and direction, and their Asheville performance left me illuminated by a seamlessly gradual crescendo as the band navigated a treasure map leading to life's elusive proverbial pot of gold.
(Photos by Jonny Leather)
