Soft Circle
by One of the best bands I got to check out this weekend at Transmodern Festival was Soft Circle, the solo project of one-time Lightning Bolt and Black Dice member Hisham Bharoocha. Using looping effects, a drum kit, a guitar, and a rhythm composer to generate every component of his songs live, Bharoocha pounds out joyous, gorgeously epic, percussive songs that seem like some weird nexus of post-metal and late-era Genesis with occasional African beats. The rest of the bill had been more heady, contemplative, experimental acts, but the NYC-based one-man band had the whole room pushing aside the chairs that had been provided to dance.
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Tagged: Black Dice, Lightning Bolt, Soft Circle, Transmodern Festival
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These guys practice in the space above my apartment. They’re good. They combine old school, no-wave chaos with blistering, drunken, punk elements, drawing in some influence from the electroacoustic stuff that’s going on in Baltimore right now. Sometimes they remind me a little bit of Lightning Bolt, only a little sloppier on purpose. They like to skateboard around in their space as well, which I particularly love at 2am. It’s all good.
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With his solo project, Black Pus, Lightning Bolt drummer Brian Chippendale continues to pound out muscular, unrelenting, ear-shredding thrash noise. Using pedal-triggered feedback and electronics, harsher vocals, and occasionally a saxophone, the by now iconic Chippendale does not disappoint fans of his earlier work, as the packed crowd at Tarantula Hill in Baltimore proved the other night — even after an hour-long set and an ambulance showing up, people were grinning ear-to-ear, sweaty and panting from crazed dancing.
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