Primordial Undermind/Oveo at J&Js

I'm often unsure of what I should say about bands like Primordial Undermind and Oveo. I mean really, what is there to talk about? Sure, you can partially describe the music Oveo creates by discussing the equipment they use: guitar, live drum, reel to reel tape manipulation, etc. And while this might provide a reader with some basic idea of how the different parts of their compositions sound, such a description doesn't get you very far if you're trying to convey the experience of hearing this music live. And of course, you could probably tell people about Primordial Undermind by comparing them to other guitar heavy psyche rock bands from past and present, but that really doesn't touch on what the band is actually trying to do, even if it does provide a loose set of parameters for imagining what their music might sound like. No, to get to the heart of what either of these bands do well, you probably just have to accept the fact that they are attempting to engage the audience on such a highly personal level that its hard to convey exactly what you find appealing about them, even if their missteps are a bit easier to point out.

Oveo's music is generally tense, repetitive and fragile, sounding simultaneously like a challenge to the audience, a cry for help, a statement of vulnerability and a celebration of all things unsettling. On Wednesday at J&Js, Oveo's set started like the others I've seen from them in the past couple of months: trickles of swirling electro noise and manipulated tape began to rise from their amps, sounding rather formless at first but eventually developing an impressively coherent and unique texture that eventually started to command attention to the details. As these sounds continued to repeat and slowly change, it became clear that with all the talk of Denton "noise" bands just getting up on stage and freaking out, Oveo's compositions are really quite deliberate (in purpose if not in detail), and rhythm is much more of a focal point than one might guess. At about the seven or eight minute mark, just as the audience was starting to settle into the overwhelming musical space the band had created, a rather sharp, alarming bass sound started to pump from one corner of the stage area, sending the set to an entirely new place where the band attempted to control and manipulate the rhythmic atmosphere that had already taken a life of its own. As one member began banging on a drum with a tribal intensity, the commanding bass part continued to pulsate and transform, and a weakness in the band's set was revealed: the live drums, though a great way to add something raw to a highly processed set, sometimes took away from the otherwise mesmerizing nature of the band's music, as the seemingly improvisational live rhythms occasionally undermined and threw off the rest of the composition a bit. However, this misstep was a very small one, and the band was able to end their set doing what they seem to be so good at: creating an atmosphere and allowing the minds of audience members to wander a bit while maintaining a noticeable level of control over the mood in the room.

Primordial Undermind did something similar, albeit in a very different manner. Instead of presenting fragments of sounds and allowing listeners to wrap their thoughts around them, the band took relatively straight forward, bluesy psychedelic rock and infused it with sprawling, hazy instrumental passages that made their song oriented moments all the more exciting. Whereas Oveo succeeded in slowly building certain moods throughout their entire set, Primordial Undermind utilized contrasts between fuzzy blues riffs and wandering, jazz influenced breakdowns to pull the audience back and forth between head nodding trad psyche and loose but compelling improv. At certain points, the band could probably be said to share qualities with bands like Comets on Fire and Dungen, but they also seemed to approach their music in a manner similar to Ariel Pink, providing enough of a basis in traditional rock and blues to make the stranger passages seem more purposeful, and the more traditional passages more, um, strange. And with an out of this world drummer holding everything together, there was hardly a time when the band was anything but completely in control of their sound and presentation, even if the control was rather laissez faire compared to that of most guitar based rock bands.

While there were moments in both sets where the bands lost focus or failed to pull off everything they wanted to, both were quite good because they left the audience so much mental space to take what they wanted from the sets. While I enjoy house music and pop as much as the next guy, bands like Oveo and Primordial Undermind are so enjoyable to see live because they give you some space to breathe. Instead of playing "sad" songs or "happy" songs or "fun" songs, they just played, attempted to set moods, and gave the audience the freedom to move in and out of the spaces they created. In the first sentence of this review, I talked about how hard it is to describe what is appealing about these bands, which must now seem like an absurd proposition four paragraphs into a mostly positive review. But even if I can't tell you exactly why I enjoy this music with much precision, I figured I should at least try. After all, shows like these are just too much fun to ignore simply because they're a bit tough to write about.