Nov 19

Nov 19 Review: Mary Lattimore + MANAS & E.M.M. + Topographies + Jon Mueller at Eulogy

Sometimes, “listening room” feels like a pretentious appellation for a music venue, like “mixologist” for a bartender or “customer integration ninja” for a receptionist. But other times, it feels like there’s no other way to describe a space held in thrall by an artist whose work demands undivided concentration.

Such was the case with Eulogy, the room recently opened by Burial Beer Co. on the South Slope, as it hosted Los Angeles-based harpist and Asheville native Mary Lattimore on Nov. 10. A quiet, attentive audience, many sitting in rows on the floor, let her subtle music ripple with the utmost clarity into every listener.

The harpist’s approach to her instrument is exceptionally pretty, but it is not precious. For her, the harp is not some ethereal symbol of heaven — it’s a big, physical object, equally capable of skittering high notes and basslines that rattle its wooden frame. All of those tones find a place in the soundscapes she weaves by looping layers and layers of her own playing over each other, as if the harp’s strings are the outstretched fibers of a loom.

Lattimore has also become a capable integrator of electronics, both through synthesized pads (featured throughout her latest album, Goodbye, Hotel Arkada) and the manipulation of her own raw materials. She plays with an effects pedal resting on her lap, often tweaking the reverb or bending the notes of a loop while continuing to strum unfiltered notes on the harp. Although she’s a solo artist, the technique lends ensemble-like depth to her performances.

The result is multidimensionality through slightly offset layers, like a Magic Eye autostereogram for the ear. The Eulogy audience listened as if intent on resolving a puzzle, on finding a sonic image greater than the sum of its parts hidden in the mix.

If Lattimore’s music was a Magic Eye, what followed was a Willem de Kooning abstract expressionist canvas. MANAS & E.M.M. is the sporadic improvisational collaboration of the Asheville-based experimental duo paired with Efrim Manuel Menuck, best known as a founding member and guitarist for Godspeed You! Black Emperor.

MANAS drummer Thom Nguyen was absent from the Eulogy show, but guitarist Tashi Dorji and Menuck were more than capable of filling the room by themselves. With amplifiers set to what might charitably be described as “blistering,” the two shredded and fed back on themselves in an unbroken torrent.

It was in no way accessible music, and given the tonal difference, it was understandable that much of Lattimore’s crowd cleared out soon after the duo began. But for those willing to submit, the aural assault brought its own sort of liberation. I felt scourged by sheer volume and gesture, like sitting beneath a giant bell that rang in the steeple of a ruined cathedral.

Achieving a somewhat similar effect at considerably less volume was Wisconsin-based percussionist Jon Mueller, who opened the evening with a solo performance on drum kit and gongs. His approach uses a deliberate build of intensity and almost fanatical discipline, restraining himself to a particular drum for long stretches until it creates audible resonance with the room and other pieces of the kit. I appreciated the effect, but found my patience flagging by the end of the 30-40 minute set.

And rounding out the bill between Mueller and Lattimore was Topographies, the post-punk project of San Francisco-based guitarist Gray Tolhurst. Performing without his usual bandmates, Tolhurst’s moody vocals and shimmering guitar lines — inspired in part by his upbringing at the son of The Cure drummer Lol Tolhurst — had a house-show intimacy to them. But there was also an undeniable, almost poppy, beat; it was the only time the crowd felt like dancing in a night otherwise devoted to listening.

(Photos by Daniel Walton)