Though they risk being lumped together with the surplus of bearded, new-rootsmusicians inspired by O Brother Where ArtThou Americana and their parents’ handed-down Crosby, Stills, Nash andYoung albums, Megafaun aren’t nearly as bound by tradition as most of thoseacts. “I can’t read a painted picture of life as it was in the past,” the NorthCarolina-based, Eau Claire-raised trio harmonizes on its 2009 album Gather,Form & Fly, recognizing the absurdity of recreating music they neverexperienced firsthand. Instead, they envision their own alternate history,abstracting dust-bowl-era folk into restless, psychedelic collages.
Continually rerouted by tangents and tempo shifts, their songs exist in aconstant state of transition, so it seemed only natural that many of them wereradically reworked at the group’s performance at Club Garibaldi last night.“Impressions of the Past,” a regal waltz on record, was recast as a fuzzy slabof krautrock, while the galloping “The Fade,” the closest Gather, Form & Fly comes to traditional country-rock, took onthe heavy-hearted drone of a Yo La Tengo album closer.
The band reveled in volume contrasts, opening with Gather, Form & Fly’s title track, five minutes of sparse banjopunctuated by pauses and empty spaces that asked for (and received) theaudience’s undivided attention. From there Megafaun fluctuated between hushedfolk and foot-stomping hootenannies, encouraged by a rapt crowd that eitherclapped along boisterously or fell into a dead silence, depending on what eachsong demanded.
Knoxville songwriter Sam Quinn opened with a set of achy,wound-licking folk set to a slow pulse, warming the stage for Milwaukee’sConrad Plymouth, a hard-gigging band whose sets seem to grow tighter and moredistinguished by the month.
Conrad Plymouth doesn’t share Megafaun’s proclivity forextremes, but they similarly opt not to play their folk-rock as a straightthrowback, instead coloring it with clouds of ambience. They closed their setwith “Fergus Falls,” a show-stopping song of redemption that set the barhigh for the headliners.
