Beauty and the Beast

Saturday night, I was at the Long Hall for a Wavelength show. This smaller venue, in the basement of The Great Hall on Queen St, has also been refurbished with better sound. Too bad there wasn't a big crowd tonight for some interesting music.

Saxsyndrum opened the night with some trancey music. This trio of tenor sax, drums, and vocal played through a dreamscape of instrumental loops, percussion, and singing that alternated between high notes and guttural growls. If Henry Rollins was a counter-tenor and into ambient music.

Language-Arts always put on a fun show full of muscular drumming, skittering guitar, and Kristen Cudmore's cute yet inappropriate banter. Looks like they've added a new bassist, at least for tonight. Arts fan don't tend to head-bang but there was a bearded dude this evening who was totally into their music.

Given Wavelength's typically poor time management, it wasn't a surprise that Del Bel came on much later than scheduled. By then, the small crowd was even tinier. This was a shame because their music, described as pop-noir, was wonderfully immersive in the space. You could dance to it while Lisa Conway's airy vocals and the complex instrumentation, played mostly live with the stage packed with musicians, elevated the music above most electronica.