Efterklang at the Media Club

You can creating an inviting atmosphere in nearly any setting by adding a dark mahogany bar, and yes the Media Club does have those enveloping and plush seats lining its perimeter; but its small cavernous space always gives me a claustrophobic sense of dread. Maybe I've seen Deer Hunter too many times, but the prospect of an impromptu bout of Russian Roulette seems menacingly plausible in such a setting- and that rarely ends well for all parties involved. Luckily, we were there to see Efterklang, not exactly the most frightening or intimidating of gangs.

But before the main festivities, openers Buke and Gass were to take the densely cluttered faux stage. A Brooklyn based twosome, comprised of Arone Dyer and Aron Sanchez, that's heavy on the guitar and little else, Buke and Gass were quite the pleasant surprise. Despite raising concern with the crowd over the notion that their neighbourhood had been utterly decimated by what may or may not have been a tornado (in New York?), they were in high spirits and had a talent for charm. As for their sound, it was a thick syrupy blend of their two electric guitars, a one piece drum kick, and a make shift combination of bells and tambourines affixed to Dyer's leg. Honestly, the miniature set up on her leg couldn't really do much more than be hopelessly over shadowed by insurgent guitar riffs that had this guerrilla warfare way of jumping out at you- but it was a nice touch nevertheless. Also of note was Sanchez's guitar. It was some sort of steam punk hammered together apparatus. As if a globular piece of shrapnel from the corpse of T-1000 had been moulded into a such an device. I want one.

Dyer had a pretty impressive voice I believe. I wouldn't cast it as shrill, she certainly created a melodic flow with it, although she often abruptly punctuated it with short truncated wails. It effectively matched the improvisational segues of the music. She at times managed to almost overshadow the speaker's projection of her own voice, and in such a small space, it created an interesting echoing effect. If one is searching for comparative analysis or a frame of reference, I would liken her voice to that of Maria Andersson from Sahara Hotnights; It had a determinist, empowered, but not quite feminist element to it. It seemed to be something of a hold over from post 90s rock that acted as a waypoint between shallow stadium rock and the not quite gestated indie explosion that was not far off. But the late 90s are probably due for an ironic retro revival pretty soon anyways, so perhaps she is intuitively on the cusp of something.

As noted already, their aesthetic is predominantly oriented around electric guitar- not even a bass; it worked surprisingly well. Played in tandem the two were able to create a more lush and content rich sound then I would have initially estimated. Their influences and stylings were a little all over the place, with some noticeable mid 90s ska riffs and much to my surprise even some ukulele style solos and rhythms. Few if any of the songs followed a conventional arc, narrative or otherwise- rather their approach seemed to be a more professional and functional jam session. At times some of the segues from one melody to another were a bit disjointed and I wished there was an actual percussion set to fill in the gaps. For their most part however, the duo made a strong a case for themselves; I could hear more of these two.

Efterklang followed not long after and created a starkly contrasting image to the preceding group. Where as Buke and Gass was comprised of two people sitting for the entire set so as not to upset the mechanical ecosystem that had already smothered the stage, Efterklang was comprised of 6 or 7 mostly very tall swedes that had a penchant for playground baffonary and bouncing all over anywhere they could. Beyond that, Buke and Gass had an instrumental accompaniment that could easily be grafted onto a single street performer, and Efterklang brought everything they could find with them. Guitar, bass, keyboard, synth, computerized sound effects, trumpet, violin, flute, recorder (really, recorder?) and more than enough drums were well represented here. Some came threw better than others although. Any sounded precipitated by a violin sometimes has trouble permeating a room already battered by horn and drums, but they managed to balance the sound levels nicely. The same can't really be said for the flute, it was almost entirely buried under everything else, to the point where it makes you wonder why they bothered. Interestingly enough the recorder was surprisingly audible- I don't get it.

My Experience with Efterklang was certainly limited at best leading into the show. The multitude of instruments deceives one into thinking their music is too complex to find any approachable contemporaries. They're geographical origins don't provide much in the way of clues, as much of their sound carried a more celtic vibe to it, rather than Nordic- that being said I'm entirely unaware of what (if any) qualitative parameters exist to define nordic music. Glockenspiels? No? Moving on then... It was only towards the end of their set that it became glaringly obvious how similar Efterklang is to Broken Social Scene. The interplay between piano and horn, the sporadic bursts of guitar, the whole kitchen sink approach to layering instruments together is very reminiscent of BSS work. Of course the subject matter is not nearly as morose or loathing. Efterklang certainly carries a subdued affirmation to their music; it's almost evangelical even. In this sense they also share similarities with the likes of Camera Obscura and Belle and Sebastian- it is readily apparent that the music is quite good, but it at times is a little overly sweet, to the point where you're just a little embarrassed to be bobbing your head to it.

For a group with so many diverse sounds and instruments, it became a little annoying to see so many of them constantly vying for a chance to hop on the drums. Irresponsibly almost, abandoning their current role for a chance to grab some sticks and bang on- anything really, the whole affair seemed somewhat juvenile and adolescent. One of them starting smacking the drum set with such reckless and utter abandon, that it seemed startlingly similar to the scene in 2001 where the apes discover for the first time the violent uses and applications of tools. It really seemed like he was trying to mimic such theatrics. Elsewhere, the violinist, who did just wonderful things with it, dismissed his function within the group to join in with the lead singer to add even more clashing strikes to already excessively over used snare. It didn't really add anything, and meanwhile the band member on synth at the back had to start playing digitized violin tracks. Why did they need to artificiality recreate the sound of a violin, when there was a perfectly good one on stage not being used? It was a particularly frustrating kind of redundancy. Chastising them for such practices is such a cold and sterile thing to do I realize. After all, they were having a great deal of fun and it added a level of interaction and playfulness that had the audience thoroughly engaged. I just wish it wasn't at the expense of their songs. Perhaps a more euphemistic way to describe the whole affair would be to say that their live act is not engineered for efficency. Rather it is one for pageantry and festivity. And in all fairness, it was pretty cool when members of the band started using the celling vents for an additional source of percussion; the actually got a pretty good sound out of it.

Depending on quality of the vocals one of the benefits of a band the size of Efterklang is having a large pool of backup vocals to draw from. Here the band showed one of their strongest talents as multiple times throughout all of their tracks the backup singers shifted and changed. At times it was just the man on the drums doing back up, other times the female on keyboards and the fellow on bass. At times it was just a couple, during others it was damn near all of them. Doing so created an amorphous and variable sound to their music that never got old and created a lush extra layer to the rhythm. Heather Borderick, the only female in the group had a very strong encompassing voice; at times she even manged to overshadow the lead singer Casper Clausen's own efforts.

Efterklang may not be high up there on my list of must her bands, but they put on a pretty good show at the media club. All the silliness and ineptitude of the group aside, some of their music is pretty compelling (Modern Drift in particular is fantastic). I'm not sure if their theatrics would translate as well to a larger much less intimate venue, but it seemed to fit the bill here. Even they seemed at least partly aware of some of their mannerisms I have described here. As Clausen and Boderick concluded their final song of the set, a mostly instrument free, achingly slow duet, Clausen raised his arm ready to hammer on the snare once more. Instead he lightly tapped a single key on the piano, creating the faintest of blips. A nice touch.