Various Artists - Burn toShine 02: Chicago

Thu 22nd Sep, 2005 in Music Reviews

Burn to Shine 02 : Chicago – manages by means both subtle and simple to transform the familiar tropes of the live music DVD and create something that verges on the poetic. The series is produced by Brendan Canty (of Fugazi) and directed by Christoph Green. In each instalment a town is selected for a showcase of the local music scene. A curator is chosen to assemble a line-up of twelve performers. These then perform a song each over the course of a day in a condemned building. The event then concludes with the demolition of the building.

Bob Weston, renowned recording engineer and bass-player for Shellac, curates the concert. As would be axiomatic for man with such strong connections to the local scene and an admirable commitment to dynamic music, the range of artists is both catholic and inspired. 12 songs range from quirky gypsy reels to ragged bellicose rock to geeky indie slacker-dom as the day slowly dims.

Each edition of Burn to Shine takes place in a condemned house – the groups set up in the living room, backing on to a set of bay windows. The faded colours give a gentle nostalgic frame to the various bands. An effective alternative to theusual bombast and garish lights of a rock concert. The experience then becomes intimate and direct – the band isn’t playing in your own living room: but it gets pretty close. The concert then becomes something distinct. The band appears to be performing to the viewer of the disc rather than the viewer eavesdropping on the performance. Such proximity makes the performances all the more remarkable – you closely witness each note, each strike and each breath. In keeping with the exceptional nature of the day, each group performs a song previously unreleased. There are various highlights and surprises.

The disc opens with the Lonesome Organist - a slightly baffling one man band – first playing simultaneously on a small Casio-tone and kid’s drumset, then moving on to accordion with tap-shoe accompaniment. Bob Weston’s own band, the frantic Shellac, make an appearance with Steady As She Goes, a tightly wound song, fury increasing as more control is placed around its thrashing. This is not just some aesthete experience that only music makers with a “sensitive” disposition are charged with.

We also get an exultant moment with band The Tight Phantomz who pout, spit and scissor kick their way through some highly charged rock with its feet in the garage.

In juxtaposition are Wilco. The six person ensemble conjuring Muzzle of Bees a song of enticing complexity – with tender chords leading to bravura guitar solos and back again to an almost-whisper. For a band now strongly associated with studio experimentation, it is a testament to their talent and sagacity that they lose none of their subtlety when playing in a small living room. Freakwater evokes a different kind of beauty. They bring the rural earth to the urban sprawl with ghostly harmonies that evoke a timelessness rather than anachronism. Within anything of such range one is sure to find something not necessarily to their taste.

The jerky amateurism of Pit Er Pat comes across as undergraduate, and the appearance by Tortoise is formless and trying (increasingly it seems that the term post-rock signifies: musicians looking very serious whilst playing four out-of-key notes in the most irritating manner forever unto eternity).

But the weaker songs have the virtue of seeming part of the whole. The contrast of each successive band augments the playing of the previous group. With beautiful but unobtrusive cinematography, it is a joy to just watch, to see the synchronicity up close. As can be expected with an engineer of Weston’s calibre, the recording itself is faultless, each instrument filling the speaker with a muscular clarity. Even the roar and crunch of the demolition crew seem imbued with the poignancy that runs through the film.

Both Christoph Green and Bob Weston have created one of the most simple and innovative uses of the music DVD. With Portland the next city in the series, one can hope that their accomplishment will extend its influence to other artists contemplating their next live video.