REVIEW: Skeletons & the Kings of All Cities

February 23
Brooklyn, NY
http://www.uniondocs.org/projects

At first glance, Brooklyn's Union Docs doesn't seem like a concert venue — it's more like a really cool place to watch the World Cup. Set against the far side of the room, a long, wall-length screen catches the flickering light of the digital-video projector above. Benches with welcoming red cushions face the screens, lending way to a series of beach-chair-style beds positioned almost directly below the canvas. The beds allow one to lie comfortably and gaze up at the images, completely surrounded in sound. Wired through a mixer and high-end stereo, large speakers loom on each side; you can feel the subwoofers rumbling below. It really is the end-all-be-all in home entertainment, except for one little, nagging problem: there's no place to perform.

Walking into the small, one-room space, it takes a long moment to figure it all out: the screen is there, alive with the black-and-white visage of the UK's Sian Alice Group. The speakers are blaring with that tinny rasp that certifies genuinely live sound, and the images are vivid — even in grayscale, the singer is noticeably pale, thin-cheeked, and broody. But there's no flesh-and-bone band in front of us, and when the folky echo-vamp ends, no one claps. Instead, the 30 or so bench-sitters begin to stamp their boots on the hardwood floor. It's only when the figures on the screen look into the air that it becomes clear: the band is playing directly underneath us.

By the time the Sian Alice Group bring their whispery set to a close, it's fully registered: the owners of the space have converted their unfinished basement into a small band space with carefully positioned cameras. Sometimes, a single image is beamed to the large screen in the upstairs room; sometimes the picture segments Hollywood Squares-style into four parts — one for each lens. As Ghostly International's experimental-rock gurus Skeletons & the Kings of All Cities enter the frames and begin to set up, attention falls upon a monitor speaker set precariously atop a mini-fridge. This really is somebody's basement.

Bedecked in a grunge cardigan, long-haired Skeletons leader Matt Mehlan soon glances into the camera, leans forward, and begins to intone, as his band breaks into a series of avant-jazz rock riffs. While the physical separation stunts the audience's attention, allowing for a little more talk and wandering eyes, it does wonders for the four boys in the band. Stripped of pretension, accountability, and the need to "perform," they slip into a less self-conscious mindset. With no audience in front of them, they let their eyes wander as well, casting glances back and forth as their backs bend lazily forward. While their noisy rock meanderings are certainly invigorating, there's a causal air about them — as if we're glimpsing into the intimate environs of the band's practice space.

Of course, they haven't completely forgotten we're watching. Halfway through the set, Mehlan looks directly into a camera and points: "I can see you yawning." Everyone laughs at his apparent bluff, until he describes, in detail, a girl sitting stage left. It would seem we're being watched as well.

Framed by a single long sheet of peeling wallpaper, Mehlan breaks from his accusation to yowl his way into a seemingly improvised noise vamp. While the group is sometimes prone to breakdowns that scale the No Wave divide, only to fall uncomfortably into cheesy Zappa-isms and noise funk, its set is, for the most part, driving, dissonant, and — given the space — appropriately arty.

As the band brings its final song to a close, the audience feverishly pounds the ground, entreating an encore. Ellis stares mischievously into the camera. With a hint of irony and mischief in his eyes, he eggs us on with four whispered words: "I can't hear you."

-Andrew Phillips