Au live

Au at Cafe Pergolesi, Santa Cruz, 2/13/09
Au on Myspace

Au goes from playing beautiful sing along melodies to insane cathartic noise in an instant. This sort of extreme dynamic shifting is usually reserved for epic post-rock bands, yet somehow two guys from Portland, (with drums, synth, slide guitar, and sampler) can fill a room with this ecstatic happy pop explosion music. Many jaws were dropped at Pergs.

The chain on the cymbal was a very nice touch, as well as the broken metal junk and t-shirt for the snare drum. I definitely need a set of colored bells. Probably should have been taken notes...
What in the hell was that sampler doing? He started it for the first beat on the first song and then I couldn't tell what was what.

Video from Brian, who also set up the show:

Summer Heat from This Is Not A Record Label on Vimeo.
Note: crazy-eyed dude who came into get coffee and ended up crawling up to the drummer and watching the whole show.

I caught the last half of the Luis Guitee set, which looked insane, but the bass wasn't carrying through to the entrance area so all I could hear was insane drumming over deep ambience.