Posts Tagged ‘ bowery presents ’

Kathryn Calder: September 11, 2015 Mercury Lounge

November 19, 2015
By

Kathryn Calder Mercury
[photo by nyctaper]

Kathryn Calder’s solo career got a jump start this year. After Kathryn spent much of 2014 on tour as a member of the New Pornographers, a band within which she’s been a member for almost a decade, she returned to making her own music. It was the dual tragedy of the separate deaths of her parents that caused Kathryn to step away from solo material. Her 2010 album Are You My Mother? so poignantly captured the mixture of sadness and devotion involved in caring for a sick parent as Kathryn was coping with her mother’s ALS. Five years removed from that album, Kathryn Calder (self-titled) was released in April of this year. While not as profoundly personal as Are You My Mother?, the new album is consistent with Calder’s solo work — personal songs anchored by her rich and moving vocals. Her performance at Mercury Lounge in September took place on the most somber of days in NYC, but as with all of her material the message of hope was most appreciated on that particular day. Kathryn worked through five of the ten songs from the new album, some older material and one brand new song in a well-paced fifty-minute set that delivered exactly what we came to see.

I recorded this set with the Schoeps cards mounted at the front of the soundboard and mixed with a board feed. The post-production work was a little difficult reconciling the quieter and louder moments during the set, which partly explains the delay in posting this recording. However, the final product is quite excellent. Enjoy!

Download the Complete Show [MP3] / [FLAC]

Stream the Complete Show:

Kathryn Calder
2015-09-11
Mercury Lounge
New York NY

Digital Master Recording
Soundboard + Audience Matrix

Soundboard + Schoeps CCM4u Cardioids > Sound Devices 744t > 2 x 24bit 48kHz wav files > Soundforge (post-production) > CDWave 1.95 (tracking) > TLH > flac (320 MP3 and tagging via Foobar)

Recorded and Produced by nyctaper

Setlist:
[Total Time 46:54]
01 Slip Away
02 Turn A Light On
03 Take A Little Time
04 Beach
05 My Armour
06 [banter – mini tour]
07 Blue Skies
08 City of Sounds
09 One Two Three
10 New Frame of Mind
11 New Millenium
12 [band introductions]
13 When You See My Blood

If you Download this recording from NYCTaper, we expect that you will PLEASE SUPPORT Kathryn Calder, visit her website, and purchase her official releases from the Store at her website [HERE].

Courtesy Tier: November 3, 2015 Rough Trade BK

November 18, 2015
By

IMG_1581
[photo by nyctaper]

Its been too long since we last attended and recorded a Courtesy Tier performance — five years to be exact. The silver lining to that kind of missed opportunity is to witness a sort of time lapse of talent that was saw at Rough Trade last week. Courtesy Tier is a much bigger, more powerful and more refined outfit than we saw a half-decade ago. That is not to say that the band wasn’t quite excellent back in 2010, when their energy and potential excited us enough to invite them to our CMJ show that year. But in 2015, Courtesy Tier is an impressive, fully-realized unit and their set at Rough Trade was a revelation. This show was an EP release party for their newest Little Rock, a three-song collection that was performed in the heart of the set. The balance of this Courtesy Tier show was a textbook example of a trio playing on all cylinders with Omer Leibovitz’s crunchy guitar out front and supported by the aggressive rhythm section of drummer Layton Weederman and the newest member of the band, bassist Alex Picca. The band played a couple of new songs, but when it came time to close the night, one of the final numbers went all the way back to those nights in 2010, and this time around “Cold” was a kind of victory lap for a band that is definitely these days playing from the win column.

I recorded this set by placing the Schoeps cards mounted front and center of the soundboard booth, and mixing the audience capture with a fine soundboard feed provided by the band’s excellent FOH Matthew Curtis. The sound quality if this recording is superb. Enjoy!

Download the Complete Show [MP3] / [FLAC]

Stream the Complete Show:

Courtesy Tier
2015-11-03
Rough Trade
Brooklyn NY

Digital Master Recording
Soundboard + Audience Matrix

Soundboard [Engineer Matthew Curtis] + Schoeps CCM4u Cardioids > Sound Devices 744t > 2 x 24bit 48kHz wavs > Soundforge (post-production) > CDWave 1.95 (tracking) > TLH > flac (320 MP3 and tagging via Foobar)

Recorded and Produced by nyctaper

Setlist:
[Total Time 44:17]
01 Mila Says
02 Childish Blues
03 Down Easy
04 Green
05 Little Rock
06 [banter – growls]
07 Shape I’m In
08 [band introductions]
09 And We Don’t Know
10 Cold
11 Home

If you Download this recording from NYCTaper, we expect that you will PLEASE SUPPORT Courtesy Tier, visit their website, and purchase their new EP Little Rock from the links at their website [HERE].

Alex Bleeker and The Freaks: November 12, 2015 Brooklyn Bowl (2 Sources)

November 17, 2015
By

11939585_1020411458011822_1376488665_n
[photo courtesy of Jackson Richards]

Alex Bleeker and The Freaks treated us to two concerts on Thursday night at Brooklyn Bowl. As the release party for the new album Country Agenda, the first set was an extremely well-played run through much of the record with some older Freaks tunes, and one outstanding cover. The second set was the Freaks “Play Dead” — a guest-filled performance of Grateful Dead tunes, similar to what the band did in Chicago in July.

Country Agenda struck me most upon first listen as an album with superb production values. The sound quality is absurdly good, but what’s more compelling is that the songs have a feel that is consistent with the music. While others have pointed to the American Beauty / Workingman’s Dead qualities of the songs, this album very much more resembles a Laurel Canyon record and the offshoots of that movement. For the live performance, what substituted for the production values of the record was the tightness of the band. The Freaks were extremely well rehearsed and wired into each other — this is a band of both talent and commitment and the performance proved that. But this was also a night when the Freaks had some fun and let loose. The jamming aspect of this show began with the final number of the first set, an extended cover of Ricky Skaggs’ “Gone Home,” and continued throughout the second set of Grateful Dead music. Among the Dead songs, the one that jumped out most was the Martin Courtney (Bleeker’s bandmate in his other project, Real Estate) appearance for “Here Comes Sunshine”, which featured Courtney’s unique vocals and a tight three-guitar attack (thanks to the addition of Courtney) that nailed what is otherwise a difficult song to pull off. By “difficult,” I mean that the Grateful Dead themselves stopped playing it for a couple of decades because of timing difficulties. The night ended in very sweet fashion, as the uber-talent Steve Gunn led the band through a profound version of “Wharf Rat.” In total, Alex Bleeker and The Freaks provided us with two sets and well over two hours of music featuring both the band’s superb new album and a fun set of Dead covers. It was a tremendous night and fortunately it will be repeated soon. The band will once again “Play Dead” on December 30 at Rough Trade.

Acidjack and I both recorded this set with separate rigs. We shared a superb board feed provided by Brooklyn Bowl’s FOH (we need help with his name to give full credit) and we both ran Schoeps from the middle of the room. I used the Schoeps CCM4 cardioids and acidjack ran his MK41V supercardiods. The sound in the room was also quite excellent (including very little crowd chatter). The nyctaper mix favors the audience feed (about 65/35 in favor of the room), while the acidjack mix accentuates the well-mixed board feed. The sound quality of both mixes is superb but offer different approaches to this show. Enjoy!

Download the Complete Show:
nyctaper source [MP3] / [FLAC]
acidjack source [MP3] / [FLAC]

Stream the Complete Show (nyctaper source):

Stream the Complete Show (acidjack source):

Note: All of the material on this site is offered with artist permission, free to fans, at our expense. The only thing we ask is that you download the material directly from this site, rather than re-posting the direct links or the files on other sites without our permission. Please respect our request, and feel free to repost the Soundcloud links.

Alex Bleeker and The Freaks
2015-11-12
Brooklyn Bowl
Brooklyn, NY USA

Digital Master Recording
Soundboard + Audience Matrix

Soundboard + Schoeps CCM4u Cardioids > Sound Devices 744t > 2 x 24bit 48kHz wavs > Soundforge (post-production) > CDWave 1.95 (tracking) > TLH > flac (320 MP3 and tagging via Foobar)

Recorded and Produced by nyctaper

Setlist:
Set 1
[Total Time 1:03:37]
01 Little Dream I Had
02 California
03 See You On Sunday
04 [false start]
05 Country Agenda
06 Portrait
07 The Rest
08 Sealong Hair
09 Honey I Don’t Know
10 Downright Stinson
11 Leave On the Light
12 U.H.M.
13 [banter – new record]
14 Gone Home [Ricky Skaggs]

Set 2
[Total Time 1:14:41]
15 Viola Lee Blues
16 Tennessee Jed
17 Jack Straw
18 [Martin Courtney intro]
19 Here Comes Sunshine
20 He’s Gone
21 The Other One
22 He’s Gone Reprise
23 [Steve Gunn intro]
24 Wharf Rat

*******************************************************

Alex Bleeker & The Freaks
2015-11-12
Brooklyn Bowl
Brooklyn, NY USA

Exclusive download hosted at nyctaper.com
Recorded and produced by acidjack

Soundboard + Schoeps MK41V (A-B)>KCY>Z-PFA>>Edirol R-44>2x24bit/48kHz WAV>Adobe Audition CS 5.5 (align, mix down, fades)>Izotope Ozone 5 (effects)>Audacity 2.0.5 (track, amplify, balance, downsample)>FLAC ( level 8 )

Set 1 [Total Time: 1:03:42]
01 Little Dream I Had
02 California
03 See You On Sunday
04 [banter1]
05 Country Agenda
06 Portrait
07 The Rest
08 Sealong Hair
09 Honey, I Don’t Know
10 Downright Stinson
11 Leave On the Light
12 U.H.M.
13 [banter2]
14 Gone Home [Ricky Skaggs]

Set 2 – Grateful Dead cover set [Total Time: 1:14:44]
01 Viola Lee Blues
02 Tennessee Jed
03 Jack Straw
04 [banter3]
05 Here Comes Sunshine %
06 He’s Gone> %
07 The Other One>He’s Gone %
08 [banter4]
09 Wharf Rat $
% w/ Martin Courtney
$ w/ Steve Gunn

If you Download this recording from NYCTaper, we expect that you will PLEASE SUPPORT Alex Bleeker and the Freaks, visit their Facebook page, and purchase their new album Country Agenda from Sinderlyn Records [HERE].

Luna: October 9 , 2015 Music Hall of Williamsburg

November 2, 2015
By

2015-10-09-luna-joakim-008
[photo by Joakim Bengtsson from A Head Full of Wishes]

One of the nicer things about this superb Luna reunion tour has been the band’s acknowledgement of their own history. In Atlanta, Luna performed the entire Penthouse record from start to finish (recording here), and earlier in the week of New York shows, the Bowery Ballroom night was a chance to acknowledge the location of their final pre-reunion show in 2005 and the excellent documentary Tell Me Do You Miss Me of that tour (recording here).

In Brooklyn, the band welcomed back the original drummer Stanley Demeski, the legendary percussionist from the Feelies who was the behind the kit for the first three Luna albums, including the aforementioned Penthouse. At this special night in Brooklyn, Demeski added a nice extra set of skins to three songs for which he played on the original recordings, including a particularly memorable “23 Minutes in Brussels”. The guest appearance was the highlight of one of the best played shows of the tour and what is also one of the longer sets of the reunion shows.

Kubacheck recorded this show from a stand at the right nook in front of the soundboard booth with his excellent MBHO cards, and the sound quality is outstanding. Enjoy!

Download the Complete Show [MP3] / [FLAC]

Stream the Complete Show (banter tracks removed):

Note: All of the material on this site is offered with artist permission, free to fans, at our expense. The only thing we ask is that you download the material directly from this site, rather than re-posting the direct links or the files on other sites without our permission. Please respect our request, and feel free to repost the Soundcloud links.

Luna
2015-10-09
Music Hall of Williamsburg
Brooklyn NY

Digital Master Audience Recording
Recorded from Front of Soundboard

MBHO 603a – KA-500 > Naiant Tinybox > Roland R-05 > 24bit 48kHz wav file > Soundforge (level adjustments, EQ, set fades) > CDWave 1.95 (tracking) > TLH > flac (320 MP3 and tagging via Foobar)

Recorded by Kubacheck
Produced by nyctaper

Setlist:
[Total Time 1:47:05]
01 California
02 Pup Tent
03 Cindy Tastes of Barbecue
04 Sideshow by the Seashore
05 Still at Home
06 Malibu Love Nest
07 [banter – SeanEdenQuotes]
08 Tiger Lily
09 Tracy I Love You
10 Lost in Space
11 [Stan Demeski intro]
12 Twenty Three Minutes in Brussels
13 Chinatown
14 Friendly Advice
15 Bewitched
16 Bonnie and Clyde
17 Time to Quit
18 [encore break]
19 Season of the Witch [Donovan]
20 Indian Summer
21 [second encore break]
22 Fuzzy Wuzzy

If you Download this recording from nyctaper, we expect that you will PLEASE SUPPORT Luna, visit their website, and purchase their official releases from the links at their website, from Bandcamp and the Long Players Box Set from Captured Tracks Records [HERE].

Zs: September 8, 2015 Bowery Ballroom

October 26, 2015
By

zs_live_2012_hi-res
[photo from Zs website]

Our recent post of the great Greg Fox’s Hopscotch Festival duo set with Jefre Cantu-Ledesma reminded me that we had this Zs performance from September at Bowery Ballroom in the archives. The chance to go back and produce the recording gave me a second listen to what was at the time an excellent set but in retrospect is really one of the most astonishing shows we’ve seen all year. Zs opened this night for Thee Oh Sees (posted here), an odd pairing at first glance but one that gave band leader John Dwyer a chance to reunite with Zs founder Sam Hillmer after years playing in parallel music scenes. Sam founded Zs fifteen years ago, and while the band has been a fixture in the DIY scene since 2000, the personnel has morphed over the years. The current trio of Sam, Greg and guitar wizard Patrick Higgins has coalesced into a unique mix of noise, jazz, and avant to form a truly superb musical conglomeration. The band’s latest album Xe was released on the excellent local label Northern Spy in January to very strong reviews.

This performance at Bowery lasted less than an hour but kept the crowd transfixed for the entire set. For a 500-strong who came expecting some raging gararge rock, the powerful avant trio must have been a bit of a culture shock, but most picked up on the vibe pretty quickly. Zs worked through the new album in order, skipping only the opening track. The centerpiece of the set was the nearly nineteen-minute “Corps”, which gave each band member a chance to take center stage and showcase their immense talents.

Zs will be playing another local show at Palisades on November 20.

Download the Complete Show [MP3] / [FLAC]

Stream the Complete Show:

Note: All of the material on this site is offered with artist permission, free to fans, at our expense. The only thing we ask is that you download the material directly from this site, rather than re-posting the direct links or the files on other sites without our permission. Please respect our request, and feel free to repost the Soundcloud links.

Zs
2015-09-08
Bowery Ballroom
New York NY

Digital Master Recording
Soundboard + Audience Matrix

Soundboard + Schoeps CCM4u Cardioids > Sound Devices 744t > 2 x 24bit 48kHz wav files > Soundforge (post-production) > CDWave 1.95 (tracking) > TLH > flac (320 MP3 and tagging via Foobar)

Recorded and Produced by nyctaper

Setlist:
[Total Time 48:11]
01 [introduction]
02 Woolf Government
03 Corps
04 Weakling
05 Xe

If you Download this recording from nyctaper, we expect that you will PLEASE SUPPORT Zs, visit their website, and purchase their new album Xe from Northern Spy Records [HERE].

Luna: October 7, 2015 Bowery Ballroom – Flac/MP3/Streaming

October 14, 2015
By

Luna Dean Keim 2
[photos by Dean Keim]

Ten years ago Luna retired with a series of shows at the Bowery Ballroom that eventually became part of the documentary Tell Me Do You Miss Me. In their return for two shows last week the band were well aware of the connection, but in their infinite jest used the reference as inspiration for their usual relaxed and often hilarious banter. When a band feels like they’re playing in front of friends, the show tends to be a celebratory affair and that was exactly feeling on this Wednesday night. In terms of the setlist, Luna pulled out a few numbers that haven’t seen much rotation this tour — “Fuzzy Wuzzy” and “Anesthesia” among them, the latter of which we are streaming below. Its going to be a good time for Luna fans here at NYCTaper. After this Bowery show, we’ll also have at least two more recordings.

I recorded this set in our usual location at Bowery. The mix in the room was terrific and we supplemented that with a feed from the board that fortified the vocals. The result is a superb recording. Enjoy!

Download the Complete Show [MP3] / [FLAC]

Stream “Anesthesia”:

Note: All of the material on this site is offered with artist permission, free to fans, at our expense. The only thing we ask is that you download the material directly from this site, rather than re-posting the direct links or the files on other sites without our permission. Please respect our request, and feel free to repost the Soundcloud links.

Luna
2015-10-07
Bowery Ballroom
New York NY

Digital Master Recording
Soundboard + Audience Matrix

Soundboard [Engineer: Paul] + Schoeps CCM4u Cardioids > Sound Devices 744t > 2 x 24bit 48kHz wav files > Soundforge (post-production) > CDWave 1.95 (tracking) > TLH > flac (320 MP3 and tagging via Foobar)

Recorded and Produced by nyctaper

Setlist:
[Total Time 1:28:48]
01 Chinatown
02 Going Home
03 Double Feature
04 Sideshow by the Seashore
05 California
06 Malibu Love Nest
07 Tracy I Love You
08 [banter – champagne cork]
09 Moon Palace
10 Lost in Space
11 [banter – different time]
12 Bonnie and Clyde
13 Bewitched
14 Friendly Advice
15 [encore break]
16 Fuzzy Wuzzy
17 Anesthesia
18 Twenty Three Minutes in Brussels
19 [second encore break]
20 Blue Thunder

If you Download this recording from nyctaper, we expect that you will PLEASE SUPPORT Luna, visit their website, and purchase their official releases from the links at their website, from Bandcamp and the Long Players Box Set from Captured Tracks Records [HERE].

Built To Spill: September 25, 2015 Bowery Ballroom – Flac/MP3/Streaming

October 5, 2015
By

BTS Will
[photo courtesy of Will at We All Want Someone To Shout For blog]

In the lead up to this show I realized that in a few months, it will be twenty years since the first time I saw Built To Spill live. That early 1996 show at the late great Tramps was a revelation — I mean, who knew that a band of guitar wizards could come from a place like Idaho. But from that day forward I’ve followed Built To Spill and seen them live consistently ever since, close to thirty times. Indeed, they’ve been on NYCTaper fourteen times. So I think I have a pretty good idea of when the band is playing well and whether a particular show is a good one. Last Friday at Bowery Ballroom, I’m pretty sure I saw one of the best BTS shows of all of them. This was a night that started with a “wow” version of “Time Trap” and never let up. The band is currently on tour in support of their new album Untethered Moon — their first new release in six years. Perhaps its the excitement of the addition of the new songs to the setlist, but there seemed to be a renewed energy on stage, and in the crowd the energy was returned. You can hear from this recording how engaged was the Bowery faithful. We are streaming two highlights from this show (of many). At eight minutes in length, “Velvet Waltz” is one of the longest tracks on one of our favorite BTS albums (Perfect From Now On), and on this night the closing jam just went bonkers and kept the song going for twelve minutes. In the encore segment, the persistent fans who had been calling all night for “Joyride” were treated to an scorching version of one of the band’s earliest singles — it was Doug Martsch’s best solo in a night filled with them.

I recorded this set from our standard Bowery location. But this one is special. It was mixed perfectly by the band’s tour FOH Eric and we used primarily the room mics in this mix. There’s about 25% of the board feed to supplement the vocals and overall the sound quality is quite superb. Enjoy!

Download the Complete Show [MP3] / [FLAC]

Stream “Velvet Waltz”:

Stream “Joyride”:

Note: All of the material on this site is offered with artist permission, free to fans, at our expense. The only thing we ask is that you download the material directly from this site, rather than re-posting the direct links or the files on other sites without our permission. Please respect our request, and feel free to repost the Soundcloud links.

Built To Spill
2015-09-25
Bowery Ballroom
New York NY

Digital Master Recording
Soundboard + Audience Matrix

Soundboard [Engineer: Eric Gilbert] + Schoeps CCM4u Cardioids > Sound Devices 744t > 2 x 24bit 48kHz wav files > Soundforge (post-production) > CDWave 1.95 (tracking) > TLH > flac (320 MP3 and tagging via Foobar)

Recorded and Produced by nyctaper

Setlist:
[Total Time 1:41:02]
01 Time Trap
02 Strange
03 Living Zoo
04 Nowhere Nothin Fuckup
05 Made-Up Dreams
06 Velvet Waltz
07 Heart
08 So
09 Liar
10 Mess With Time
11 Never Be The Same
12 Big Dipper
13 Carry the Zero
14 [encore break]
15 Reasons
16 Joyride
17 [thanks]
18 Goin Against Your Mind

If you download this recording from NYCTaper, we expect that you will PLEASE SUPPORT Built to Spill, visit their website and purchase their new album Untethered Moon from Warner Music [HERE]. 

Godspeed You! Black Emperor: September 30, 2015 Music Hall of Williamburg – Flac/MP3/Streaming

October 4, 2015
By

godspeed-you-black-emperor-17
[photos by PSquared Photography – full set at brooklynvegan]

A month ago we posted Godspeed You! Black Emperor’s performance at the Hopscotch Festival. It was a strange night for acidjack — as the outdoor venue and the pouring rain created a surreal experience for GYBE show. As a nice bookend of the Canadian band’s month-long tour of the US East coast, we caught one of the NYC appearances at the intimate Music Hall of Williamsburg on Wednesday (they also played Terminal 5 and Warsaw last week).

The MHOW show was more a “traditional” GYBE show as the band’s projectionist was able to provide a stunning backdrop to the thematic post-rock being orchestrated from the stage. Additionally, the venue was the perfect size for an attentive crowd — there was virtually no chatter and the audience was fully engaged in the show. The result was virtually the perfect concert experience. If so inclined, it was literally possible to get lost in the music, as GYBE played straight through without a break and the show flowed flawlessly. This show lasted well over two hours, but if you were engaged in the music the time was immaterial. The GYBE setlist was fairly consistent with the shows of this tour with a “Hope Drone” opener and a complete run through the band’s new album Asunder, Sweet And Other Distress included. This particular show also added “Gathering Storm” early in the set and late in the show featured one of the two new songs that have appeared on this tour. The show closed with twenty-minutes of “The Sad Mafioso” that faded into a long drone where each of the band members exited the stage before guitarist Efrim Menuck returned to the stage to turn off all of the amps and end the night. It was a subtle closing of a very intense evening but seemed completely apt.

Godspeed’s US tour is complete, but the band will spend the next six weeks touring throughout Europe, dates here.

I recorded this set with the Schoeps set up on the floor inside of a nook at the front of the soundboard booth. The sound in the venue was superb and this recording captures it equally well. Enjoy!

Thanks to Tim for his tremendous help throughout the week in making this recording happen in the fashion that it did!

This Recording is Available for Download in FLAC and MP3 at Archive.org [HERE].

Stream the Complete Show via Archive.org:

godspeed-you-black-emperor-15

Godspeed You! Black Emperor
2015-09-30
Music Hall of Williamsburg
Brooklyn NY

Digital Master Recording
Recorded FOB

Schoeps CCM4u Cardioids > Sound Devices 744t > 24bit 48kHz wav > Soundforge (post-production) > CDWave 1.95 (tracking) > TLH > flac (320 MP3 and tagging via Foobar)

Recorded and Produced by nyctaper

Setlist:
[Total Time 2:09:19]
01 Hope Drone
02 Gathering Storm
03 Peasantry or Light Inside of Light
04 Lambs Breath
05 Asunder Sweet
06 Piss Crowns Are Trebled
07 Moya
08 [New Song]
09 The Sad Mafioso

If you download or stream this recording, PLEASE SUPPORT Godspeed You! Black Emperor, visit their website, and purchase their new album Asunder, Sweet And Other Distress from Constellation Records [HERE].

godspeed-you-black-emperor-6

Of Montreal: September 18, 2015 Music Hall of Williamsburg – Flac/MP3/Streaming

October 1, 2015
By

Of Montreal
[photos courtesy of Will at We All Want Someone To Shout For blog]

In between 2007 and 2010, we recorded Of Montreal seven times, but in some ways it feels like a lifetime ago since the last time I saw them perform live. It was in January of 2010 at Highline Ballroom when the band delivered another outlandish gig which memorably featured Susan Sarandon applying corporal punishment to a man dressed as a pig, and also saw Kevin Barnes “nailed” to a cross. Those types of stage antics were common for the band at that time — the show at Roseland with a live horse for instance — but it seems that for Barnes the act had reached a saturation point, and frankly for me it had too. Between 2011 and 2013 the band itself seemed to be disintegrating, as is excruciatingly chronicled in the doc-bio The Past Is a Grotesque Animal. Ultimately, in 2013 Barnes and his longtime band departed ways (either fired or quit depending upon who you ask), and Of Montreal became Barnes and a completely different set of musicians.

It was not long after Barnes split up with the long-time band that his marriage was also dissolved. The resultant upheaval led to the dark new album Aureate Gloom released earlier this year on Polyvinyl. While the tour in support of the record isn’t exactly a toned-down affair, gone are the days of horses and pope outfits and full-sized wooden crosses. The guest characters still appear in costumes, but the 2015 Of Montreal stage show is more dependent upon the back lighting and at Music Hall of Williamsburg last week, if the star of the show was Barnes, his co-star was the band’s computer-generated lighting director, a woman whose name I unfortunately did not catch. The vast arrays of shapes and colors gave a nice flow to the set and created a three-dimensional effect to the music and the pantomime of the guest characters in a way that the massive stage antics of years past had not. The setlist of this show drew virtually all of its numbers from three of the band’s 13 albums — the new Aureate Gloom, 2008’s Skeletal Lamping, and a full seven tracks from 2007’s Hissing Fauna. We are streaming a Hissing Fauna track below that ended the main set. The band’s tour continues through mid-November across the US, dates here.

I recorded this set with the Schoeps cards mounted at the Soundboard. The sound quality is excellent. Enjoy!

Download the Complete Show [MP3] / [FLAC]

Stream “A Sentence of Sorts in Kongsvinger”:

Note: All of the material on this site is offered with artist permission, free to fans, at our expense. The only thing we ask is that you download the material directly from this site, rather than re-posting the direct links or the files on other sites without our permission. Please respect our request, and feel free to repost the Soundcloud links.

Of Montreal
2015-09-18
Music Hall of Williamsburg
Brooklyn NY

Digital Master Recording
Recorded Inside SBD Cage

Schoeps CCM4u Cardioids > Sound Devices 744t > 24bit 48kHz wav > Soundforge (post-production) > CDWave 1.95 (tracking) > TLH > flac (320 MP3 and tagging via Foobar)

Recorded and Produced by nyctaper

Setlist:
[Total Time 1:45:09]
01 Lanc’s Theme
02 Bassem Sabry
03 Triumph of Disintegration
04 Suffer for Fashion
05 Empyrean Abattoir
06 [banter – Taylor]
07 Gratuitous Abysses
08 Bunny Ain’t No Kind of Rider
09 Id Engager
10 Beware Our Nubile Miscreants
11 Like Ashoka’s Inferno of Memory
12 Obsidian Currents
13 And I’ve Seen a Bloody Shadow
14 Plastis Wafer
15 [Rave]
16 The Party’s Crashing Us
17 Gronlandic Edit
18 A Sentence of Sorts in Kongsvinger
19 [encore break]
20 For Our Elegant Caste
21 She’s a Rejecter
22 Heimdalsgate Like a Promethean Curse
23 The Past Is A Grotesque Animal

If you download this recording from NYCTaper, we expect that you will PLEASE SUPPORT Of Montreal, visit their website, and purchase their new release Aureate Gloom from the Polyvinyl website [HERE].

Thee Oh Sees: September 8, 2015 Bowery Ballroom – Flac/MP3/Streaming

September 14, 2015
By

Thee Oh Sees 2
[photos by Will from We All Want Someone To Shout For]

I’ve been pronouncing Thee Oh Sees at one of the best live bands around for several years now. As our readers can now attest — since we’ve compiled a nice live archive of their NYC shows — this band is an aggressive, tireless, and a thoroughly committed live act. The band added a second drummer earlier this year and for recent shows, Thee Oh Sees are featuring the two percussionists side by side at center stage. The new configuration accentuates the rhythmic qualities of the band’s music, but make no mistake bandleader John Dwyer is still in the spotlight. The band is currently on an extensive Fall tour in support of their new release Mutilator Defeated At Last which for our money is one of the best albums released in 2015. These new songs have become quite familiar over the last year as we’ve watched their development live going all the way back to last Summer at McCarren Park and through a pre-release show at Hotel Vegas for SXSW. In between, last year’s Bowery show was our best sounding recording of the band thus far. Tuesday’s show mixed in the newer songs with older classics seamlessly, as the first eight songs rotated old and new but kept the crowd bouncing and jumping throughout. Thee Oh Sees even managed to slip what appeared to be three completely new songs into the setlist. We’re streaming the punky “Rogue Planet” from Mutilator and the final jam, a lengthy version of the oldest number of the night “Contraption/Soul Desert” which the band stretched for more than twelve minutes before bidding the sated crowd goodnight.

Thee Oh Sees also played two nights at Warsaw later in the week before continuing the tour throughout the South, dates here.

I recorded this set with the Schoeps cards mounted in the balcony and mixed with an excellent board feed provided by Bowery legend Kenny. The sound quality is superb. Enjoy!

Download the Complete Show [MP3] / [FLAC]

Stream “Rogue Planet”:

Stream “Contraption/Soul Desert”:

Note: All of the material on this site is offered with artist permission, free to fans, at our expense. The only thing we ask is that you download the material directly from this site, rather than re-posting the direct links or the files on other sites without our permission. Please respect our request, and feel free to repost the Soundcloud links.

Thee Oh Sees
2015-09-08
Bowery Ballroom
New York NY

Digital Master Recording
Soundboard + Audience Matrix

Soundboard + Schoeps CCM4u Cardioids > Sound Devices 744t > 2 x 24bit 48kHz wav files > Soundforge (post-production) > CDWave 1.95 (tracking) > TLH > flac (320 MP3 and tagging via Foobar)

Recorded and Produced by nyctaper

Setlist:
[Total Time 1:21:08]
01 I Come From the Mountain
02 Tunnel Time
03 Poor Queen
04 The Dream
05 Turned Out Light
06 Tidal Wave
07 Toe Cutter-Thumb Buster
08 Withered Hand
09 [new song 1]
10 Dead Energy
11 Encrypted Bounce
12 [new song 2]
13 [banter – light]
14 Sticky Hulks
15 [new song 3]
16 Rogue Planet
17 Web
18 [banter – thanks]
19 Contraption – Soul Desert

If you download this recording from NYCTaper, we expect that you will PLEASE SUPPORT Thee Oh Sees, visit their website, and purchase Mutilator Defeated At Last from Castle Face Records [HERE].

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