Hooves on the Turf

Shilpa Ray has a spectacular voice, and a really likable, spunky personality, but from my first time seeing her last night at Death By Audio, it seemed that her songs aren’t quite as engaging or distinct as she herself is. “Generic” is a terrible word, but there wasn’t enough of her own brandmark to the whole thing. There is the harmonium, which sounds ten times as interesting when only she is singing over it, but gets lost when the band kicks in and everything becomes slightly predictable and non specific, leaving you to think, oh with this voice there are so many incredible possibilities! A lot of it may have to do with the aesthetic choices than the songwriting itself. She has a nice way of turning melodic phrases and leaving them low, but the songs have somehow got to match the quality of her voice. There is the amazing Shilpa and there is everything else that takes a backseat and recedes into oblivion. Good show, nonetheless.

Download “Filthy and Free”

Coin Under Tongue

Coin Under Tongue isn’t the kind of music I put on when I’m drawing all the curtains back to let the sun in, or ever, at home, but they were really great to watch! So good that they even blew up their amp. They stopped midway to say they were definitely smelling burning rubber. A smaller amp was plugged in and mic’d for the last song. Some bands just give good vibes, this was one of them.

My Education

My Education is an instrumental outfit from Austin, Texas. They reminded some of us of Explosions in the Sky. They barely spoke a word and were quite into it, the music was very space-bound. I imagine it’s the kind of stuff you write with your door shut off from the world and you listen to with your door shut off from the world as well.

El Guisante Magico

This band from Barcelona referred to themselves as EGM, probably in an effort to market themselves to the English-speaking world, which is too bad since “El Guisante Magico” sounds like a much better name. All their songs were in English, and the best comparison I can find is The Killers, of whom I’m not a huge fan at all, but I admit I listened much  more attentively because they’re from Spain, and that’s so far away, and they had to be the first band to play to a room with only a few people, in this strange place call Death by Audio, in this strange place they call Williamsburg, and they were all into it, and I kept thinking, man, music is a tough business!! The singer was a little bit of a rockstar, they all seemed nice, for the  most part. As a joke, they did a little bit of traditional flamenco intro. I was sad to find out it was only a joke because that bit was really impressive, and it had my hopes high for some sort of interesting fusion that I’d take over any version of The Killers any day.

Websites: Shilpa Ray, Coin Under Tongue, My Education, El Guisante Magico