When I meet the six members who make up Balmorhea at Austin’s Mohawk, I am immediately struck by their kind spirit. It is perhaps, that very nature, full of nurture and unadulterated calmness, that fuels the singularly instrumental music they construct.
It is a breezy August night and this is a venue made for this night. As Balmorhea step on to the outside stage, it’s a homecoming. After a two-week stint throughout North America’s West and Middle America they have made their way back to the place they love and call home.
An anticipatory crowd greets ” style=”line-height: 1.3em;”>Balmorhea. The venue is full, from front to back and all the way to the second and third tier balconies, yet the setting is intimate. Perhaps it is the vitality of the six-piece, five part male/one part female group that make the moment so warm. Perhaps it is the mounds of string instruments sitting and patiently waiting to be picked and plucked for the next hour and a half that stir the emotion. Or maybe it is the pure sincerity of the band’s intention to breathe out epic music.
It is 10:30 PM and the band opens with “Masollan,” from 2012’s Stranger LP. Straightaway it is clear we are engaged in magic. A mystical madness of strings and keys fill the sonic space of the outside stage. The raw talent of members Rob Lowe, Michael Muller, Travis Champan, Kendall Clark, Aisha Burns and Dylan Rieck is impeccable. It was as if all of Austin could hear Balmorhea’s epic arrangements of pedal and string.
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