OORUTAICHI, Drawlings and Lights @ Cake Shop
c/o Yoko Sawai
A week or so ago I popped into the Cake Shop to hear the musical meanderings of Japanese experimental musician OORUTAICHI as well as Rings side project Drawlings and Lights. While musically the bands seemed pretty disparate, it was a surprisingly entertaining set. I wish more of you had been there.
Lights was everything you want out of an opener. They were energetic, welcoming, rocking and dressed in white. Sometimes the songs felt a little like Heart, but their charisma is all their own.
c/o Yoko Sawai
Many people have had controversial reactions to Drawlings. I admit I too was on the fence. However, this show proved to me that Abby Portner might just be able to make it work. Maybe it was the intimate setting– but gone was hiding behind the baby sample and here was Portner: vulnerable, a little nervous, no frills singing, playing the piano lightly and sometimes improvising.
It’s easy to draw comparisons between OORUTAICHI and Dan Deacon. The quirky sounds, the propensity to make people dance, playfulness and color are all here. I don’t think Deacon corners the market on future shock. As we become more and more embedded in the digital age, our sense of time and tempo speeds up; this type of music happening cross-culturally is a sign of things to come. OORUTAICHI has been doing it for ten years and continues to do it the best.
