Axons/Fauvely/Born Days

 
 
 
 
  I saw Axons with Born Days and Fauvely. I believe I walked in on Born Days. This was at Quenchers Sunday 20 November. So I saw everything. This was the show I did not want to miss for a lot of reasons. Alright....alright....I don't want to miss any that I want to see. Pre-existing conditions of this show have elements that will not repeat for me. Fauvely and Born Days are still debuting themselves all over Chicago and Axons....this was the first time seeing them since the changes Adele has made.  You see, when I first became aware of Axons it was heavily electronic. The two releases I got are warm and electronic. For me it was firmly part of its signature. So I was curious as to how Adele manifests her band currently. I walk in and its Melissa's solo project Born Days. Hey y'all!! In the audience Adele, and Elaine from Spaces Of Disappearance. Danielle from Impulsive Hearts, Andrew from Solemn Meant Walks and Sophie! She was next with Fauvely. It was noteworthy for me seeing all the other musicians. Its support. For me it colors the night. Quenchers stage room is small, well bigger than say Whistler and smaller than say Empty Bottle. Its easy to see who is in your audience. Its not really dark.  I noticed Scott from Astrobrite when Fauvely was on. Sophie mentioned if anyone saw Scott. I said me and there are his footprints. He was right in front of her almost, I saw. I assume since they were asking around for him, I saw him.
  Fauvely has the other-worldly sad charm of early Angel Olsen. Awh fucking hell.  Go look up Angel Olsen.....I'll wait......see? So now we are all versed in Angel Olsen. We do this so that we can better appreciate Sophie's new band. This is a rip in time-space away from her work with her old band Videotape. In Fauvely she is stripped down minimal, and still opaque and mysterious. Dreamy....not dream pop. It almost romanticizes loneliness. How do I say it better.....It gives all these otherwise seemingly negative images an angle that makes them something worth surpassing surviving. Its deep, thoughtful and therefore thought provoking. Another artist I would liken this to is Cross Record only Fauvely is even more strip down.  But that is getting ahead. This performance had her play with another guitarist. I noticed Scott Cortez, her bandmate from Astrobrite. I don't believe she noticed him, so when she asked I told her that he was indeed there to see her play. Scott was quiet as he stood right in the front of the stage. The noisy bastards were actually behind me, loudly having this conversation through the music. Sophie called them out on it. Told them it was distracting. I don't blame her, the music is not the kind to drown out voices in the crowd.
  Born Days had us spontaneously nod and kinda lightly bounce in place...no...right. It was just nodding to the rhythm, as if wanting to dance. A set of thoughts kind of emerged from me seeing Born Days right there. I started thinking of architecture, Melissa's old band with Rebecca from Panda Riot. It was at this moment where I saw an obvious rift between architecture and Panda Riot. And now seeing Born Days I started to see how it belongs to Melissa. Until now, I can see if not explain how architecture sounds in relation to Panda Riot, and how it...belonged to Rebecca. Now I can see how much that band belonged to Melissa. Now architecture is sounding like Melissa's band. And yes I have always believed that they were equal creative partners. And it took seeing her newest project Born Days for this angle that perhaps plain and obvious to them to be plain to me. All this was indeed swirling in my head, especially after talking to Andrew. I guess this is all me just trying to map out the greater picture, and seeing a new constellation emerge. And to briefly continue that constellation metaphor. They are always there even before your awareness of them. It was this one song and its natural rhythm had us nodding our heads. Don't know the name of that one song. Born Days can sound like Linea Aspera. Leans a little dark, cold wave.
  And now I finally arrive on Axons. Adele's band. I knew not to expect to hear any of the music from Axon's I was already familiar with. I arrived with the belief that I will still like this new work, and different sound.  I was really curious and confident that I will just support the band. Andrew, the drummer from Solemn Meant Walks came here for Axons as well. He did not know that Adele changed everything. It did not occur to ask if he liked the changes. I feel like I put people on the spot with that question. I loved it. And its nothing like what is on Youtube. There are a lot of videos of Axons on there. You just have to filter all the videos about science and.....things that have nothing to do with the band. So you have to specify Chicago when looking up Axons...anyway. Its all different now, its still awesome. She played guitar instead of a synth and she had a drummer.  What else, my memory keeps conjuring up her old work. The new music reminded me of Placebo in how catchy they are and still awesome. All that new work is yet to be recorded and it is something to anticipate. Damn this post is fucking long.
Zig