Although much of the MP3-devouring world spent last week on hipster
spring break hunting for a new live band to champion at the SXSW music
festival in Austin, I feel no regret that I was not among them. Thanks
to Portland’s enigmatic Italo disco scions Chromatics, I found one
right here at home.
As impressive as I’m sure the SXSW-showcased acts were, and as
electrifying as it must have been to be swept up in the music-loving
mob mentality of the annual Texas pilgrimage, I am confident that even
the best concert of the Southwest festival, in all of its Bacchanalian
splendor, could not hold a candle to the dark DIY dance celebration
that overtook Southeast Portland venue Rotture on the night of Friday,
March 14, as a capacity crowd rapturously two-stepped to the alluringly
sad, emotionally distant sounds of Chromatics, their Italians Do It
Better labelmates Glass Candy, and Loose Control. This was the most
aesthetically coherent, yet emotionally dissonant, show I’ve seen in
some time, and, for that reason, the most memorable.
In one of the strangest and most impressive acts of onstage
charismatic alchemy I’ve ever witnessed, Chromatics were able to
conjure a festive mood from the murky depths of their essentially
melancholy, deconstructionist synthpop. Hundreds of surprisingly
well-kept urbanites danced exultantly to spare, slightly downtempo,
vaguely disturbing music in a room filled not only with bodies, but
also with a variety of blue and pink paper-craft wall decorations and
backdrops, as well as white balloon set pieces that Chromatics bassist,
beat-maker, graphic designer, and production whiz Johnny Jewel had,
instead of sleeping, constructed the night before. This was a party, to
be sure, but one scored by Chromatics, whose music evokes the
weariness, confusion, and despair of the post-party comedown.
Experiencing this disorienting collision of emotional cues was totally
exhilarating, and made me finally understand what makes Chromatics
worth celebrating.
Prior to this show, I had been struggling to comprehend why I found
the Chromatics album Night Drive, released late in 2007, so
captivating when their musical touchstones, most of which are firmly
lodged in the dance floors of European discothèques or the
Bedazzled jackets of Anglo-American dance-pop stars of yore, leave me
totally cold. It now seems to me that, unlike so many contemporary
bands who are exploring the thin, synthetic sonics of the 1980s in a
kitschy manner rooted in warm nostalgia for their childhoods,
Chromatics understand that there is something inescapably upsetting and
sad about the inhuman tones that defined that era, and they are making
music that embraces this innate coldness. Rather than emulating the
faux-optimism that plagued mainstream music and politics in the ’80s,
Chromatics deploy the absolutely bewitching affectlessness of singer
Ruth Radelet’s voice, the chillingly hollowed-out tone of guitarist
Adam Miller’s repeating arpeggios, and the spaceless-ness of Johnny
Jewel’s beats and bass to resituate the American noir sensibilities of
David Lynch and Raymond Pettibon in the shadowy no man’s land between
disco, new wave, and no wave.