Review: The Informati, The Cambiata, and The Baltic Sea at SPACE

Saturday night brought in SPACE's first show of August. It was a night of the progressive; it was a night of the experimental; it was a night of music whose genres aren't so clearly defined; something to make you think outside of the boxset.

The Informati

Boston-based The Informati took the stage first with an ambient-dub session of songs. The setup consisted of guitar, bass, keyboards, turntables and electronic drumkit. The first song they played was the most appealing. The guitarist slid his guitar with a bow to make a hauntingly celestial hum while the ghastly echoes of a new age singer was spun on the DJ's turntables. My brain fluttered with green, luminescent moths as if I was overtaken by this force of music. The way the bowed guitar and the new age singing came together was very beautiful and ethereal. The songs following didn't grab me as much. A lot of them seemed too repetitive and didn't have enough changes to hold my interest for the duration. I'm keeping my mind open, though; a second listening could change my mind about the rest. For comparison's sake, The Informati is like Sigur Rós without all the vocal ee-Yoooing.

Read about my impressions on Cambiata and The Baltic Sea after the cut...

The Cambiata

Cambiata went onto the stage next to play a very energetic and dramatic performance. Their first song didn't have a great impression on me because the levels were fairly low on the guitars and vocals, but after the sound guy figured out the levels, the next song, "All in All (Julie)", was performed very well. Jaye Drew described The Cambiata almost perfectly in her recent article on Mainetoday; their performance and music has reached an almost theatrical level. Beyond their complex and hit-making compositions, the stage presence of the band was very alive and taking. Undoubtedly, the band wouldn't be Cambiata without leadman Chris Moulton. The way he exerted his entire body and soulful vocals onto the audience makes for a very genuine and poignant.

"Purple", from their latest EP To Heal, was the highlight of the night. A six minute song of epic proportions, "Purple" started very softly with an extravagant and helpless Moulton singing, "All that we see (thirsts all that I love) shall glow. Remember my name when all of this tide is cursive and cursed", which later became the chorus that is played in different dynamics and levels throughout the song. The song progressed into a furious wave of aggression with quick guitar-bass-drum attacks that jived into an eventual symphonic pre-chorus and a more chilled-out chorus, only to increase the intensity again. "Cut Your Losses" brought out some jazz-influences with an emphasis on keyboards and jazz-styled stops and drum fills. The addition of the slide guitar and a calmed-out Moulton created a great contrast to Cambiata's heavy hitters. If these songs are a prelude to what the future brings Cambiata, I'm very excited.

The Baltic Sea

The Portland Phoenix Best Live Act of 2007 was followed by a worthy contender for the Best Live Act of 2008. One of the first noticeable things about The Baltic Sea was their amazing visually-oriented set. They had a white backdrop on the stage and then large white sheets on both sides of the stage where three projectors projecting a homemade, experimental montage of locations from Maine and other surroundings. The point of view slowly crept around and wandered through scenes from the woods, cities, highways, and interiors as The Baltic Sea matched the level of contemplation and profoundness with their progressive, post-rock music.

Most of the songs were fairly long, allowing for great build-ups and loud instrumental breaks where the guitars turned on distortion and turned it up to 11. The softer elements of the songs included peaceful, low rhythms of one guitar while another guitar howled out falsetto cries with leadman Todd Hutchisen's gentle voice floating over the instruments. This would soon lead into noise rock breaks and then a breathtaking chorus where Todd's voice was no longer gentle, but a bit on the fierce side while guitars clash and made intriguing, heavy sounds to please the ears. "Monswoon" had some amazing instrumental breaks with some metal-esque repeating riffs that progressively built to the pinnacle of intensity and then dropped down to Todd's soft vocals while a piano played a soothing tune with a typewriter jotting over. The band did some cool experimentation with computerized phaser sounds that connected one section of a song to another. All in all, The Baltic Sea performed a very solid set, full of perfectly drawn-out cerebrations of progressive guitars and deep vocals and lyrics.