greenideas

Speaking of Sufjan Stevens, we couldn't be happier to announce that his live shows now deliver on the promise of his records. Saturday's show was hands down the best show of his we've seen yet. Although, the most significant improvements weren't on Stevens's part (he was right where he needed to be). The awards for most improved definitely go to his supporting players for getting some much-needed self-confidence and to the sound engineer for figuring out how to eq a banjo.

As for last night's show, you couldn't ask for a better bill. Nmperign ventured out for an increasingly rare live performance and boy are we glad they did. If you don't know these guys (and you're a fan of free improv), do yourself a favor and track down something of theirs to listen to. Nmperign (pronounced "NIM-prine", as we were relieved to finally learn) is soprano saxophonist Bhob Rainey and trumpeter Greg Kelley. Their improv/sound-art stylings come off sounding eerily electro-acoustic (only, last night, there was no electro to be found), with Rainey's sax emitting what could easily be mistaken for pure sine waves and Kelly's mute + sheet metal robo rumblings.

Also, Rainey hooked us up with a copy of this outstanding found-sound opera thing he's working on. We don't want to say too much about it, lest we ruin any surprises, but when this thing eventually sees release, you are soooo going to want to pick up a copy. Like, for reals.

Another exceedingly pleasant surprise was that Nmperign played several songs with Damon & Naomi. Rainey and Kelly play some uncharacteristically trad (but nonetheleless very nice) horns on the forthcoming D&N record, and they played some of those tunes last night.

It was also really nice to finally see David Grubbs, since we've been a huge fan of his since way back when and we'd never seen him before last night. He did some really fantastic solo acoustic stuff, very much in the vein of his Drag City records. Very nice.

Lastly, we'd be remiss if we didn't mention how awesome Kurihara's guitar work was. Holy cripes, the sounds he was getting out of that thing were so unbelievably warm and... can we say uterine? Does that make sense? Anyway, it's not like Damon & Naomi need any help to break our hearts, but god damn if it doesn't help to have a supporting cast like Kurihara and Nmperign.

We're just tickled that it's finally paying off to live a couple of blocks away from a rock club, but we're also a little miffed that it happened as soon as it became likely that greenideas' Brooklyn HQ will be relocating to god knows where else on the Eastern seaboard.

For those of you keeping track at home, the emotions expressed in that last sentence were "tickled" and "miffed."