Live Music Review // hissquiet / Dying In Space / Butt Mommy / Jeff Dragan, at Never Ending Books, New Haven CT, July 7th 2024
Additional photos can be found here :::
https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.1518398358890380&type=3
For a little while this show had been listed on the Never Ending Books calendar as "Butt Mommy / Dying In Space" and while that was all I knew of the show, I knew that I had to be there. Going all the way back to March of 2023 at FiFac's House we were at first promised Butt Mommy, but ended up with the duo of Diatomaceous Girth, which ended up just being one of those all-time great shows we couldn't recreate now if we tried.
This show opened with the electronics of Jeff Dragan. The beeps and boops you relate with electronic music of this nature came out, but at times it got loud, almost threatening. After deciding that wasn't quite long enough, Jeff Dragan played for a few minutes more. This was such a unique set but also such a great way to start the show because elements of what was heard within here would drift out into the other artists.
Butt Mommy was up next and this experience fell somewhere between harsh noise and performance art. At the start, audience members were given bells to ring as it was also a participation type of show. Butt Mommy, dressed in all black and with the umbilical cord hanging on, at one point wrestled away a baby from an audience member. But there was also that violin put in with the electronic sounds to make this a set I will not soon forget.
There was a lot going on during the Butt Mommy set and it all happened within a short period of time as well. In that way, it feels like something which won't truly be processed for some time and maybe only in the coming months as we look back at it all and speak of it fondly, then we will remember the actual impact of it all. But on this specific night, yes, it was rather punk rock and avant garde.
Dying In Space brought in the loudness with guitars. There aren't really a lot of people who will just go out there and solo guitar but be able to fill up the entire room (and then some) with their sound. In contrast to the acoustic guitars heard the night before this, it was a nice reminder of what an electric guitar can do.
This set also had two guitars being played at the same time. I realize there had to be some kind of give and take with them, maybe they had different tuning and you strum one then strum the other, but it definitely made me wonder if you could play a six string guitar and a bass guitar at the same time like that. Still, it was a really neat visual and overall the sound was just loud and rocking, which at times should be all that you want from your music.
Dying In Space might have been the loudest that this night got and when hissquiet came on things definitely got more chill. This sound was electronics, but it was more of those ambient vibes. It really just reminded me of the way one would drift through space without the company of other life and only with the computer by your side. It was definitely the type of odyssey that could send your mind drifting and if listening to it as a recording it's something you'd want to put on to just zone out and relax.
Music at shows can feel connected by the way everyone plays an acoustic guitar, as was the case the night before this, or maybe all of the bands are in a similar genre. But with this show, everyone brought their own signature sound, but between the electronics and feeling of being loud, they still all felt connected, grounded in some way. Even if everyone just got up and did their own thing it would be wonderful, but feeling that connection made this show feel like something even more than that.
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