Friday night was a great start to the weekend, helped by great sets played by Lower Dens and Dirty Beaches on Pier 17 at South Street Seaport. The seaport has a great view across the river, and every summer they host a handful of free shows on Pier 17. Live music on the river as the sun sets = brilliant.
Last time I saw Dirty Beaches at Mercury Lounge left a memorable impression on me, and I’ve been keeping up with him since. This time, instead of a dark bricked in venue, it was outside while still daylight on the river. In this more relaxed and breezy setting, Alex Zhang Hungtai’s set didn’t pack the same punch, but that’s not to say his stage presence didn’t still command attention. He played his more uptempo spastic songs like “Sweet 17” while screaming with eyes closed into the microphone, as well as his more downtempo songs such as “Lord Knows Best” with brooding resonance.
He thanked everyone for coming out, remarking that he was worried no one would show up. Pass up a free show with Lower Dens and Dirty Beaches at South Street Seaport? No way. While the first time I saw Hungtai he was more wild and animalistic, this time he was more human, adding a new element to my perception of him. “Lord Knows Best” once again served as the closer to his set, prompting people to sway and slow dance on the boardwalk.
Lower Dens, the latest project of Jana Hunter, are based in Baltimore and have already started making a name for themselves with their layered atmospheric sound that channels bands like Slowdive, and at times Yo La Tengo‘s wandering jams. They’ve also been called drone-pop and new wave, but if I didn’t have any prior information about Lower Dens before listening to a recording of theirs, they could easily fool me into thinking they had been contemporaries with the best shoegaze bands in the 90s. While they’re a little more straightforward sounding and more in tune than many of the shoegaze bands from that time, but they’ve got the ethereal male/female vocals and slow-burning rhythms with pulsing bass over smart drum beats with three layers of guitar building on each other.
Hunter and co. also had the low-key demeanor that made their music sound effortless for them to create. It was easy to sit back and take them in, with the only interruptions being slightly awkward between song banter. They were best when they were concentrating on their dreamy sound-scapes that soundtracked a setting sun over the tall buildings of the financial district, illuminating the band and the water behind them. It was almost too easy to get lost in their music, while being completely content with life for the moment, when suddenly it was their last song. Lower Dens’ set was all too fleeting, but for a time it was really the perfect ambiance for breezy summer night.
Lower Dens are playing shows almost every day in July down through the east coast, including coming back to New York on July 21sst at The Music Hall in Williamsburg. Listen to more tunes on their Myspace or pick up their album Twin Hand Movement on their website. Dirty Beaches has a packed tour schedule all over Europe for the rest of the summer, but you can keep up with his musings on his blog.
