There is mysticism at work throughout a Little War Twins live performance, though it might be more incidental than engineered. Brown operated as a solo artist until about a year ago. Though her vibrant, unsettled folksy shanties remain the bedrock of the Twins, it’s the unlikely, ragtag yet disciplined auxiliaries that punch at the ceiling separating common sensibility from transcendence. McConnell refuses to rein back his proggy drumming chops, and his gusto provides a counterintuitive boon. Mark Pare strews around guitar solos that could’ve been plucked from the most stoned parts of the 1970s. Bassist, tribal drummer, and saxophonist Moses Eder comes the closest to passing for tame onstage. He’s a drum-and-bass DJ in another identity, which indicates that his tameness levels fluctuate. If this sounds disjointed, observe the tumbling crescendo of the earthy, entrancing, troubled “Mother Pulls.”
“We’re like these big interlocking puzzle pieces that make this big awesome quilt,” continues Brown, back at the Roxbury picnic table. “I say I’m a medicine musician, because we’re the child, we’re the adult, all the time. It’s about wearing different faces. We’re not one thing all the time, we don’t constrain our band like that.”
LITTLE WAR TWINS + STREIGHT ANGULAR + SOLO SEXX + HOOKERCLOPS | Middle East upstairs, 480 Mass Ave, Cambridge | July 27 @ 8 pm | 18+ | $10 | 617.865.3278 or mideastclub.com
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Music Features
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