Blurrrred: Salem at Glasslands 1/05/10

So Chicago-based death-crunk-goth-tech-slowcore trio Salem hit Glasslands in Brooklyn for Pendu's Tuesday Nite Disco over a week ago now, and we've still yet to say anything about it. It's possible that's because, um, The New York Times was there and missed the point, and we're not much on cleaning up messes. It may be because Michael Stipe, also, was there, and he and I never get along when we encounter each other (it didn't happen this time). 

More accurately and more in the realm of possibility, though, it's because the friends I went to Glasslands with and I have been throwing around words, ideas, concepts, trying to get a handle on what exactly we lived through that night.

Salem is a band that lives in the shadows that darken the edges of its group mythos. Nameless and faceless until recently, they bring to mind the secrecy that shrouded the Knife for the longest time, only taken to a more horrific degree through the brutal imagery and video clips they choose to let speak for them.

SALEM - DIRT from ACEPHALE on Vimeo.

Split between the devil-on-codeine songs fronted by John and the darkly angelic heartfuckery of Heather, the recorded output of Salem barely gave any indication of what their live performance at Glasslands would turn out to be: on this night, the trio operated much closer to the chopped, screwed aesthetic of southern hip-hop than one would guess at first, muffled through underwater filters, and bookended with two unexpected, stunning turns at the microphone by third member Jack, who unleashed a horrific, demonic hip-hop torrent on the unsuspecting crowd. As cars exploded into flames on the video screens above the stage, it was nothing short of death battling death. And it was fucking incredible in how vital the whole show has become in recent days.

Salem: Trapdoor

(photo taken from Salem's flickr account)

By opening with "Trapdoor" and closing with "Tent", Jack proved to be the knife-twist to the dismantling of the Salem mythology that would inevitably occur by seeing them live. The Knife took to their live performances behind projection screens and in masks, whereas John, Jack and Heather could very well have wandered in off the streets to take their places behind their v-drums, midi keyboards and microphones. The goblin-voiced fury Jack brought to the stage, an underformed presence in Salem's music up to this point, left my jaw on the floor-particularly with "Trapdoor" and its foreboding chorus of "it's all blurred out, hey, bitch, I can't see nuthin'". Music for drunk driving? Music for crying on cough syrup? Music for dying.

The other highlight of the night for me was during Heather's first rotation to the front for a turn on vocals, during which she sang "Whenusleep", the commentary on modern romance that asks an unnamed if s/he is awake "jacking off/to the thought of me".

It was days later, though, when pointed to John's interview in Butt Magazine, that things began to cohere for me-and the slightly dismantled image of "knowing Salem" began to reconfigure, as I realized that no, seeing Salem didn't mean knowing Salem at all.

Here. Read. I'll wait.

Salem: Tent

It was "Tent", the final song of the night and Jack's most intense composition for Salem to date, that hinted most at what the painful and yet playful Butt commentary would be:

“Smoke it out, let me choke you out, I’ll choke you out till the ghost come out your mouth.”

At times, the live show felt like choking. At times, it felt like swimming. And at times it was easy to realize both of these feelings would be what would happen were the lungs and the brain to intake too much carbon monoxide.

I brought these two Jack-fronted songs, the interview, and the link to the Flickr account to Salem/soldoutmusic contest winner Dr Zachary via AIM, and his commentary:

i was thinking today that we kind of have to break my rule a bit
my rule being that normally i hate it when pitchfork/etc writes reviews and it's hardly about the music
but with salem.. you have to review THEM
the music, the concert, the flickr, the interviews, the videos, and especially the mythology
all of that as a whole
is an artistic experience

And it is. At the ultimate end of the Salem experience is the same as what's at the start: a few cloudy pictures, photos like this

and three figures who may or may not all come from tragic pasts, and the music. Ultimately, it's the music that will last, and that's why they can get away with this bullshit. Is it even bullshit? It doesn't matter, because the mythology stands in front of music that cuts through race and genre and gender and kills as it begs for death, and it's hip-hop and shoegaze and tech and crunk and is basically the only important thing happening in modern music at the moment, if for no reason other than the way it cracks the vein of sound open until everything bleeds out.

It's very possible we all just died that night.

Comments

[bob]

"basically the only important thing happening in modern music at the moment"?
hahahaha

NO

[Russ]

response to bob:

i mean other than gaga, and hyperdub, and bpitchcontrol. salem is killing genres and genders.