PHOTO CREDIT: Tammy Scheicher
Just as a couple of friends with widely varied personality traits can make a compatible pair, and the same principle may be transferred to a concert bill. At least, local acts Negative/Positive and LUXI made for one such instance Thursday, Sept. 19, at the Walker’s Point Anodyne Coffee with styles of music that might not at first consideration make an aesthetically sensible program.
The teenage trio of guitar-rocking young women in Negative/Positive and one-woman electronic band LUXI happen to be friends, so playing a show together made sense. It made for an evening of stark sonic contrasts that were nonetheless easy to appreciate together in one sitting.
It’s crazy to think that Negative/Positive formed six years ago at Girls Rock Milwaukee summer camp—neither member has yet had her 20th birthday. But, in a year when 17-year-old alt-pop phenomenon Billie Eilish debuted atop national album sales charts with her debut long-player, these Milwaukee girls now appear to have been ahead of some kind of curve.
Negative/Positive don't occupy the same synthesizer-lined track Eilish occupies, though. Apart from their instrumentation of guitar, bass and drums, Negative/Positive doesn’t trade in the sort of brooding and creepiness that has thus far characterized Eilish’s hits. Negative/Positive’s singing guitarist Ava Gessner isn’t exactly giddy, but there is a cheeriness about her between-tune talking. Whether speaking of how the cartoon devil and angel on a despairing soul’s shoulders can give up in frustration in describing “Existential Surf Jam” or apologizing to anyone named Douglas in the audience for the unflattering portrayal of someone with that moniker in “Goodbye Douglas,” her sunny disposition jibes with silly subject matter.
The band’s tunefully skittering, sometimes winsomely herky-jerky melodism took different turns on the two remakes in their 10-song set. Bassist Lola Flores added fuzz to her tone, and drummer Ava Antonie stepped up her tempo for a run through Bikini Kill’s “Rebel Girl.” Gessner sounded most open-hearted as she transformed Ben E. King’s “Stand By Me” from solemn directive to exultant plea.
|
|
Where Negative/Positive exuded energy despite their stationary stage presence, LUXI found a novel way for an electronic musician to engage an audience. Where most artists in her position sit or stand behind their equipment atop a table, LUXI danced as she sang. And when she would occasionally adjust a knob on her mixing board or press a key on her laptop computer, she kept her microphone in her other hand.
The sonic portion of her artistry, rife with elements of electronic-based genres of yore, collide in songs that test sonic boundaries in catchy, ethereal fashion. LUXI mingles elements of Chicago house, Detroit techno, dubstep, trip hop and other glitchy and ghostly sounds to form something informed by club music but that could easily be positioned as forward-thinking radio pop.
