The Daily Swarm

Self-Titled:

Prepare to have your face melted off, and be glad you weren’t sitting 20 feet away from last night’s speaker monitors like we were…

Seattle Show Gal:

Trying to describe being at this show is like trying to describe color to a blind person; if you weren’t able to see and hear it for yourself there aren’t words or even media recreations that can appropriately convey the experience, but here goes nothing — here goes everything.

I went to the concert unprepared for what I was going to get. The tender lulls of the music were organic and spiritual; in those moments I felt motionless and fetal. The swells were so intense that the only matching physical manifestation would have been if I had run to the edge of the third floor balcony and jumped off.

I have an affinity towards music of this ilk because I crave the ultimate rush. The music had the same effect on my guests but it occurred to them as unsettling. My sister likened this concert to extreme sports and other forms of pleasure that aren’t suitable for the faint of heart. I could not have agreed with her more. MONO is an accessible realm for me to get the same type of rush as free falling out of a plane. For some, that experience is fearsome. For others like me, it is the thrill of a lifetime.

Will You Miss Me When I’m Gone:

Perhaps it was the venue (the churchlike Society for Ethical Culture on Central Park West in Manhattan), or perhaps it was the fact that the opening act was a string orchestra, but the crowd at Japanese noise rock band MONO’s sold-out 10th anniversary show last night (the show repeats tonight at Le Poisson Rouge in the West Village) was about as reverential as they come. One fan positioned near the front in the center section insisted on standing up during the performance and was eventually ejected.

It was good to see a rock audience pay attention to the music, remarkable, in fact. It’s in part due to the decisive impact that Wordless Music, which presented last night’s show, is having on New York’s music scene. Promoter Ronen Givony is certainly not the first person to pair classical and rock artists on a bill or to bring those two divergent musical worlds together. (Think of Procol Harum recording an album with Edmonton Symphony Orchestra, for instance, or many of Bang on a Can’s show, to name just two.) But Wordless Music has really struck a chord over and over again in its short life. (The inaugural Wordless Music show as Sept. 18, 2006, and featured Glenn Kotche, Nels Cline, Jenn Lin and Elliot Sharp.)

Mono, Excerpt From “Wordless Music” Show @ The New York Ethical Society from self-titled on Vimeo.

More GREAT video here.