Ensemble Economique, Tonstartssbandht, Jerry Paper + Monck

The Poortgebouw offer up a quadruple dose of new music spanning brooding psychedelia from Ensemble Economique, delay-heavy shambolic indie pop from Tonstartssbandht, oddball lo-fi pop from Jerry Paper and intricate math-pop progressions from NL three-piece Monck.

Attend event:

Brian Pyle is from California, but in the kind of way Brian Wilson was from California – a bleak, outsider existence at odds with all the sunbaked revelry. At least, that’s what you’d think from his music: unlike The Beach Boys there are certainly no sunny harmonies here to hide the anguish. All the yearning is well and truly surface level: horror soundtrack ambience, agoraphobic soundscapes and eerie digital deterioration. For all we know Pyle, behind the gratuitous drones of solitude, is partying all the time.

Admittedly, on much of his output – and there’s a lot of it, more than fifteen LPs and live recordings released on labels like Not Not Fun since 2008 – there is a cosmic kind of psychedelia washing out the variety of tones on offer. But the overwhelming impression is of oblique cinematic references and an evocative sense of open space.

Tonstartssbandht make music that’s slightly more comprehensible than their name – similarly stumbled together with overlapping delays and shambolic percussion. Their 2013 split with Dirty Beaches is a satisfying case in point.

If you were to believe his Bandcamp writeup, you’d take Jerry Paper for a mariner, multi-million record label signing and occasional spiritual. Only two things are for sure: one, he’s an amusing bullshitter; two, he makes oddball lo-fi pop songs that everyone can enjoy.

NL three-piece Monck are spare on the details, self-described “Two Drummers, Two Singers, Three Synths,
One Guitar, Three Composers, One computer”. Between their instrument-swapping and vocal sharing, their intricate music is dense, melodic and unpredictable in its shifts between time signatures, dynamics and genre.

ENSEMBLE ECONOMIQUE

//www.youtube.com/embed/02QXfjJ21iY

More Ensemble Economique:

TONSTARTSSBANDHT

//www.youtube.com/embed/m9cY4Fo-kTM

More TONSTARTSSBANDHT:

JERRY PAPER

//www.youtube.com/embed/ht8Q4ZJFjtI

More Jerry Paper:

MONCK

//player.vimeo.com/video/89394652