Live Reviews

Out: Dropping some future funk sounds with Jamaica Plain's the Craters at Yes.Oui.Si

Deep impact near the MFA

By LIZ PELLY | August 2, 2011

LIVE ART There was nothing on the walls, but plenty of fresh sound in the air when the Craters hit Yes.Oui.Si.

Multi-sensory exhibition space Yes.Oui.Si (on Vancouver Street, around the corner from the Museum of Fine Arts) hosted a "Future Funk Fest" last Wednesday, just three days after the closing of their recent gallery show "Les Animaux de l'Avenir" and two days before the opening of "Reproduction," their new show of etchings, monoprints, screenprints, and other work on paper (up now through August 12). The between-exhibits space was emptier than usual — its clean white walls and exposed-brick poles are usually covered with work by local emerging artists — but that just made more room for the psychedelic sounds of three local electronic and psych-pop bands: Protozone, Pluto Moons, and the Craters.

Protozone, a new electronic trio of musicians trained at the New England Conservatory, started the night (their debut show) with some spaced-out atmospheric instrumental covers. The trio — Ben Stepner on keys/electronics, Frank Ojeda on bass/electronics, and Moses Eder on drums — played a tight set of tracks by, among others, Squarepusher, Aphex Twin, Ace of Clubs, and Rusty.

Next up was a more straightforward funky pop set by the Pluto Moons, a bassist and drummer from Newton, who got the crowd dancing in the bare gallery. Jamaica Plain–via–Newton four-piece the Craters — largely the bedroom songwriting project of Newton native Wes Kaplan — closed out the night with their swirling experimental avant psych-pop. They were playing with a new line-up: Ben Stepner of Protozone on keys, Zach Levine-Caleb of Pluto Moons on bass, and Luke Pyenson on drums. About 30 kids bopped their heads to tracks from the Craters' 2010 tape Teenage High School, released via JP DIY label Breakfast of Champs, plus newer songs like the soon-to-be-hit "Sunsense." (Check our On the Download blog for a video.) Details have yet to surface, but we're told the track will be included on a new release that's currently in the works.

Topics: Live Reviews , Jamaica Plain, Music, funk, More

| More

ARTICLES BY LIZ PELLY

EQUAL EXCHANGE FINDS A NEW WAY TO SELL ITS JOE ON THE GO | May 31, 2012
For mid-afternoon ice-coffee pick-me-ups this summer, Bostonians frequenting the Rose Kennedy Greenway, Copley Square, and Charles Street/Massachusetts General Hospital neighborhoods need not head to Starbucks. Instead, they can look for mini-cafés on wheels, carted around by local coffee company Equal Exchange — on oversize tricycles.

BLURRING GENDER LINES WITH SPEEDY ORTIZ | May 23, 2012
During a recent Allston basement show performance with her loud, grungy pop band Speedy Ortiz, Sarah Dupuis found herself surprised.

HOMEGROWN TRANS ROCKER EVAN GREER KEEPS HER MUSIC POLITICAL | May 23, 2012
Last month, when Tommy Gabel of Against Me! announced via Rolling Stone that she's transgender (and will now go by Laura Jane Grace), I immediately wondered what Evan Greer might be thinking.

TOTAL BUMMER FEST AND THE QUEST FOR A LOCAL SCENE | May 18, 2012
In the corner of an enormous warehouse in the Winter Park neighborhood of Orlando, Florida, 40 or so kids are sitting on the floor in a semicircle, cross-legged.