Dancing Plague and Entresol at The Green House

Working a weekend night shift while studying at UW, I have recently lost my regular sleep schedule and developed a reputation for prolonging sleep in the evening and arriving late to everything during the day due to unintentional naps and burgeoning sluggishness. Having realized I had woken up at 7 for the 7-11 show thus meant throwing on whatever clothing I found scattered on the floor and veering around corners to park on Ivinson between 11th and 10th and jog across Grand to reach The Green House, a house venue recently opened by musician and local Laramie resident Alex Soveroski. Their first advertised show in the trademark psychedelic design seen above occurred inhttps://laradisesounds.blogspot.com/2018/11/dancing-plague-and-others-at-green.html August of this year, offering what seems to be an alternative to the typical punk-oriented bar shows in the Laramie area.

Entering the house reveals a typical college living room plus differentials and algorithms scattered across whiteboard walls. Walking through the kitchen and down the stairs leads to the basement, a tight, carpeted area fit with white-brick walls, strung Christmas lights, a counter-clockwise clock, and a six-speaker PA system fit with a mess of cords running back to a mixing board under the stairs. A partition separates this from the merch table and an area consisting of computer and vinyl collection among assorted junk. 

This place also has a coat-rack, helping relieve me of some weight from my shoulders.

Having arrived 20 minutes late actually gave me about 20 minutes to stand against a wall and throw out names like Daughters and Pg. 99 to anyone who cared to hear. These local shows are fairly social settings, after all, and a few shows will reveal familiar faces and exchanged numbers while waiting for a show to start on "punk-time." But around 7:40, the time had come for Soveroski to thank everyone for coming out and move to the front stage for the opening act.

Yegarma

Yegarma is the solo project of Soveroski himself, labeled as "Math Pop," instantly suggesting for me the solo works of Zach Hill. Soveroski steps to the front of the room behind his keyboard and mess of pedals, boards, and switches, strapping a guitar and checking a mic while asking someone to say a joke. After some awkward mumbles, he delivers a sardonic "What happens when the elephant enters the room? Somebody dies." and activates a loop to trigger a noisy, effects-drenched wall of sound with a club beat fading in behind, paired with chopped, sequenced samples being scattered and looped through the room. The beat is complemented with glitchy flourishes as the beat becomes more erratic (akin perhaps to the subtler sections of Iglooghost), looped with some zany keyboard and distorted guitar, and then sang over in awkward melodies like a baritone Avey Tare. 

The song barely settles for a second before falling apart in a series of glitches and polyrhythmic suites evolving with mathematically-precise tempo shifts and washed out, often sugary waves of noise. Zach Hill sans double-bass certainly shows prominently, but not without his electronic side shown in CHLL PLL or glitchier configurations of Death Grips along with chiptune synth stylings, incredibly pervasive late-Animal Collective and Breakcore influences, further breaks in erratic time signatures and key changes, and the occasional surprise of ambiently-strummed guitar or spoken word, all heavily processed and distorted in effect pedals. 

The sound is a little claustrophobic, and incredibly overwhelmingly visceral, but one cannot help but be carried along with the entrancing frenzy, feeling carried away in the incredibly trippy and subversive sound. Soveroski is clearly working hard to keep this trance up, bouncing from instrument to modulators and filters, constantly focusing everywhere at once and yet, still keeping some kind of light, unified cohesion.

If you have not already, you can follow his music link here.

Entresol

Entresol is the "melodic noise" project of John Lervold hailing from Oregon. I had been busy in the backyard with the smell of cigarettes and faint weed when the windows began rattling from the sound, signifying a descent back to the basement.

The lights were dimmed as Lervold stood tall over a narrow table draped in a ghostly sheet, stacked with an assortment of sample boards and distortion pedals. The sound was an incredibly industrial strain of noise-drone with the occasional processed drum samples, displaying the moodiness of Coil with the full destructive power of Ramleh, all played incredibly LOUD. 

Over this, Lervold softly sings in a weak Jamie Stewart register or delivers an anxious monologue, such as the circular "I don't care, and I swear that I'm telling and I'm telling and I am TELLING, and I don't care" repeated and rising in a climactic panic attack, imitating the haunting loops he sings alongside. At other times, when the rhythms fall into a slow, heavy banger, he may sing more forcefully into an overdriven contact mic concealed in an Altoids tin, mints rattling into the thick noise.

The effect overall is quite dark and foreboding, luring the listeners into anxious ambiance before trapping and drowning them in complete terror, flooding the space of their souls in its darkness. One feels dirty and introspective listening to such music, and the sound is harsh and depressing. The minimal setup is made up for in the peculiar sound design (such as the Altoids) and the disturbed stage presence. His list of merch included the offer of free hugs, a necessity after a show this intense.

Check out his music here.

Dancing Plague

Dancing Plague is the musical darkwave project of Connor Knowles hailing from Spokane, Washington. He music has been featured on prominent German and Italian darkwave labels as well as the Florida-based Crass Lips Records. He projects black and white footage from "old horror films and personal camera stuff" onto the wall behind him. I ask if he enjoys Begotten, and, removing his glasses and brushing a hand through his top-heavy punk cut, awkwardly states he will have to look into it. The lights are dimmed, a synth blasts sound into the room, and, after the inclusion of a film dialogue sample, a minimal 808 beat kicks in with an infectiously bouncy synth-groove and some icy, shimmering synths overhead.

Each song develops into an impressionistic sound palette of synths and sampled drum patterns, dark and retro enough for any 80s goth party. The motif of film dialogue breaks up each song, and at one point, the inclusion of John Hurt's seminal line from The Elephant Man incites a collection of grins and knowing nods from the audience. A strobe emits from below the same cloth-covered table from the last set, creating an irresistible aesthetic experience in need of only fog and heavy incense.

Much of the sound is not entirely separate from much of the modern independent post-punk like Forever Grey and Lebanon Hanover, albeit entirely synth, like a John Maus played straight with goth. But the act is truly brought together by the signer's charismatic performance, black shirt buttoned to the neck and booming shouts conjuring the haunted spirit of Ian Curits meeting perfectly halfway the wavering of more Maus and even a trace of the emotional wails of Robert Smith. His body bounces up and down with his synths, composing himself briefly before shouting lyrics like "If I took my own life, would you celebrate?!?" with full conviction in his eyes, often looking on the verge of breaking down in an emotional crisis before being propped up by the relentlessly pounding beat. His energy is something difficult to not be taken away by, and I find myself naturally nodding along moodily to the pulses of dark, yet energetic sounds.

His music can be found here.
and a music video for the song "An Endless Want" here.

Spiral Shaper

Spiral Shaper is the project of one Jason G., the local producer of a vein of electronic music he terms "cyberpunk." After the lights are turned up once again, he plugs in his laptop and mixing board to play. The electronic composition of bare synths starts off carrying a synthwave mood to the audience before really breaking in with a series of drops, wobbles, and chirps already hardwired by the likes of Skrillex and everyone else in the modern EDM/Rave scene, albeit a bit production and a little messier.

But there does seem to be a bit more variety in the music. Occasionally, a Daft Punk disco-funk sequence may feature in the sound, or a vaguely trap-influenced beat (sans rattling hi-hats and brass) may take hold. As this music continues to evolve much as a typical DJ set, it's hard to say it ever gets entirely repetitive, but after the 10th high-pass sweep segue to a drop, it does feel a little exhausting.

I will admit, this has never been quite the type of music that appeals to me. But there does seem to be an audience for it, as what remained of the crowd this far into the night witnessed a few individuals, as pictured left, dancing in a trance, a short woman in a black sweater matching part flowing hand motions, part jerking with a tall lanky man wearing plaid pajama pants and a psychedelic cat shirt with the phrase "Drink water" printed in large block letters on the back. Vape mist flowed through the air as someone excitedly proclaimed "This music, this is like Zelda!!" before wildly thrashing to another drop. The audience would occasionally clap to a section of music as if applauding a horn solo, to which the producer would raise his hands and point fingers in bravado. If not my cup of tea, it was all at least quite a scene to behold.

If this is your style, his music can be found here.

But surely, the energy died out by the end of the night, and Spiral Shaper was the only one still dancing to his set. He played a fast tempo jungle piece to close the night and thanked everyone for staying through his set. This particular show featured a chess-set raffle, the winner of which was luckily still around. The crowd had diminished to a fourth of its size from the beginning of the night; a four line-up show can be tedious on a Monday night. But alas, everyone exchanged thanks for what was certainly an interesting evening, grabbed their coats, and headed home to the drones of tinnitus singing lullabies of restless sleep.