Photo Credit: Matt Condon/Darsombra
(photo by Matt Condon / @arcane93)
If Darsombra weren't attempting some kind of audio-visual magic ritual Monday night, they’re at least as good at acting as they are making transcendentally trippy music and accompanying it with perfervid filmmaking.
On their return visit to Cactus Club, Baltimore duo Darsombra, electric guitarist Brian Daniloski and keyboardist-percussionist Ann Everton, created a portal to another dimension, at least aesthetically. Their journey consisted of a performance of, as Everton put it, “the weird f*ckin’ song,” over 40 minutes long, that fills their sixth album, Transmission.
If by “weird” she meant a pulsating, mutating veritable sonic organism whose drones and heaviness simultaneously conveyed enveloping unease and comfort, she wasn’t wrong. And that weirdness manifests in different permutations throughout the catalog of what started out as Daniloski’s one-man band in the mid-’00s.
It's a good thing he got together with Everton. Their stage presences complement each other well. Daniloski plied his axe in poses of guitar heroics, his bare feet and gray-haired visage making him look like the lost brother of Robert Plant and late Source Family cult leader and musician Father Yod.
Everton's appearance on stage as a henna-tressed, yogic pixie sitting cross-legged between her keyboards and gong compounds Darsombra's entertainment value considerably. Lines of bells sewn onto each sleeve of her white, backless dress shimmered, though she occasionally rang others apart from her garment. Her flexibility and enthusiasm were such that she played the occasional note on her keys with her nose.
At one point, as lights flashing against the screen displaying Transmission's filmic interpretation of nature, fantasy and totemic scenes, she hoisted a hat that wouldn’t have looked out of place on a Busby Berkeley showgirl before tossing it into the audience. Glitter adorning Everton's eyelids and lines on Daniloski's face lent them the look of glam-rocking members of the Hindu pantheon. Darsombra's own sound forges strains of psychedelic, progressive and kraut rock to their spellbinding will.
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Even with their lone, lengthy tune, just Darsombra would have been worth the night’s cover charge. But a couple of local acts added value and variety. Playing after the ostensible headliners, Gnarrenschiff ferociously wed Celtic and Middle Eastern sensibilities. Two saz (Turkish lute) players, the long necks of their instruments facing each other in a low arch, were flanked by an electric bassist while someone beat a bodhran (Irish hand drum). The aural culture clash resulted in a set of instrumentals defined by relentless, hard-charging riffs with intermittent assistance of what sounded like gurgling pedal effects on at least one of the sazes. Could Gnarrenschiff be the Gipsy Kings from a wider geographic breadth of influence for edgy millennials? Perhaps, but their debut album can't drop soon enough if it maintains the energy they displayed here.
The newest act on the night's bill, Metavore, proffered metal that maneuvered between confrontational sludge and mathematical precision. Shouty, agitated lyrics blessed about half of their a few numbers, and the guitarist singing them sported a curly Mohawk permutation that complements his moustache-into-muttonchops facial hair. Metavore still sounds to be coming into their own, but once they get there, their formidability should be assured.
