The performance by Lichens, one of the artists playing before Pit er Pat on Friday night, altogether rejected my expectations for a Market Hotel show. In fact, I felt like the scene was part of a thoroughly different narrative.
In ones and twos, people approached and sat cross-legged in the spill from the only light in the space. Sustained, eerie, choral tones emanated from somewhere near the orange glow. Now and then a high-pitched obliterative drone burst over everything. I craned my neck and saw that there was a man, half-hidden in shadow, operating some kind of sound-machine. More people approached, slowly, folded their legs and lowered themselves. When that high drone rose up again, I stepped around to get a better look at the guy with the sound box. He was letting the machine loop. His teeth were bared and his hands were curled palm-up in his lap as he released that sound from what I hadn't realized were his own vocal chords. I had nothing to compare it to. I had wanted to say it was pretentious, but like the rest I found myself mesmerized, overwhelmed. The word "haunting" might actually pertain: His set left you in a fog of its sound for the next hour.
The final act, Pit er Pat, evolved as a three-some but had just begun to play sans bassist, as just guitarist Fay Davis-Jeffers and percussionist/electronic maestro Butchy Fuego. The latter started off the set drumming manically with his fingertips on an electronic sound board, producing what sounded like a jug band in a steel mill. I'd never seen anyone play electronic music so furiously before. Before the first song was over, he had broken a kick pedal. Meanwhile Jeffers, wearing a sort of sleeveless dark jacket, long dark hair falling over her eyes, not the least preposessing of lead guitarists, was escalating to a high-speed shred on the far end of her fretboard. She lingered there for a long while, inducing something like vertigo in the audience. For the following song, she bounced and swayed down by the stage while Fuego set down a funky, hip-hop beat. Then the next one took on a tropical flavor, with subtle Arabian notes. Pit er Pat has been compared to the Fiery Furnaces, and there was a resemblance—smooth but assertive female vocals, stark variations in style, aural experimentation—but this band seemed more minimalistic and wilder. At her best, Jeffers sang like she was making dark incantations. I'd never seen Pit er Pat in its full setup, and maybe the sound was denser or more lush, but something must be gained when two plucky and very talented musicians are given more room in which to work.
