S. Carey - White Hinterlands -- Rock'n'Roll Hotel - Dec 14 2010

White Hinterlands - We begin with a male/female duo. He plays various electronic boxes and equipment creating various drumbeats, squawks and rhythms. She plays a keyboard, ukulele and sings. There are looped vocals and plenty of the usual electronic trickery at work. I am slow to grasp their output as I hear some really good vocals at work, but don't find the melodies and overall sound engaging. To be fair, that is par for the course with electronic music and myself. They stop a song because of some unwanted buzz which I did not notice as it is hard to tell what is wanted and not wanted in this genre. However... as the set went on, I did find myself enjoying the set more. There was a jazz quality and the vocal work was up front, fairly clean and of good quality. And it was nice to see the full S. Carey lineup join in on the closer. It was a quiet, cold night, but the set went over well enough with the growing crowd.

S. Carey - I reviewed the debut album of Bon Iver's drummer in the latest issue of Folkworld. I found it to be fascinating and it was my favorite of the original Bon Iver music and the Gayngs offshoot. Mr. Carey arrived playing keyboards, floor tom and guitar while doing the lead vocals. He was ably backed with a drummer/keyboardist, guitarist, bassist (acoustic and electric), and viola/guitar. They have a lovely restrained indie pop sound that is not bouncy pop, but rather accessible dreamy captivating simple music. There is a light psyche edge which goes a bit wild during one fun song where they have a bit of a freak-out ending (which they said they enjoyed to no one's surprise). They did much of their album and finished with a song by an interesting German band Notwist (Consequences) with White Hinterlands' vocalist. There was a nice crowd tonight that braved the cold and was warmed by this lovely music. It is always a pleasure to see intriguing and subdued music like this draw people into its world.

Quote of the Night: From the bass player to the soundman... "Could he have less vocals and less scarf?" as the viola player had a scarf that was at least 3 feet taller than he was.