{"id":1390,"date":"2015-10-05T00:19:41","date_gmt":"2015-10-05T00:19:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/doktorjohn.com\/?p=1390"},"modified":"2015-10-06T01:10:58","modified_gmt":"2015-10-06T01:10:58","slug":"noir-at-arkham-at-don-pedros","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/doktorjohn.com\/?p=1390","title":{"rendered":"NOIR at Arkham at Don Pedro’s"},"content":{"rendered":"

NOIR
\nArkham at Don Pedro\u2019s<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

September 26, 2015
\nBy Doktor John
\nBrooklyn, NY
\n\"Noir<\/a><\/p>\n

Synthpop trio Noir<\/strong><\/em> made a late night appearance at the Brooklyn dive bar Don Pedro<\/strong>\u2019s the last Saturday of September. Don Pedro\u2019s is a suitable venue: long and narrow, with a bar in the entry area and a performance space occupying the back half, featuring a small, raised stage. Bare brick walls, one un-lockable toilet and another \u201cout-of-order,\u201d give it just the kind of broken-utilitarian atmosphere that suits the punk\/Gothrock experience. Before, during and after the live music performance, a movie screen served as the backdrop to the stage. A continuous video loop was projected on the back wall of the stage and ran a grainy, black-&-white, silent flick from 1922 showing medieval peasants and sexually depraved monks engaged in witch-hunting, accompanied by subtitles in English and Danish. All the stuff that sets the proper mood.<\/p>\n

Such was the milieu for Noir, fronted by vocalist Athan Maroulis<\/strong>, formerly of Spahn Ranch<\/strong> and Black Tape for a Blue Girl<\/strong>. He was accompanied by two keyboardists\/back-up vocalists, Demetra Songs<\/strong> and Kai Irina Hahn<\/strong>, the latter a noted singer, song writer and performance artist in her own right, whose project, The Sedona Effect<\/strong> has taken NYC underground scene by storm of late.<\/p>\n

Noir<\/strong>\u2019s set consisted of nine songs, six of which were drawn from Noir\u2019s 2013 album \u201cDarkly Near<\/strong>.\u201d The opening number, \u201cThe Bells\u201d captures Noir<\/strong>\u2019s style of catchy hooks and undulating melodies, sung over driving electronic rhythms. The next song, \u201cMy Dear\u201d delved into even more serpentine, atonal progressions, rendered — like the entire set — hypnotic by the galloping, cadenced rhythms provided by the two synthesizers. The third piece provided an opportunity to introduce a decidedly industrial mood with the resurrection of the Spahn Ranch anthem \u201cBreath and Taxes.\u201d The crowd of thirty to fifty spectators responded with pleasure and recognition to this bit of musical nastiness.<\/p>\n

The next several pieces \u201cTime Phase,\u201d \u201cA Forest\u201d and \u201cWhen the Rains Came\u201d were drawn from \u201cDarkly Near,\u201d and each again highlighted Maroulis\u2019 unusual and undulant, sometimes discordantly melodious vocals. Before closing, there was a return to Spahn Ranch\u2019s industrial-strength repertoire with \u201cVortex\u201d and the concluding number, \u201cHeretic\u2019s Fork.\u201d<\/p>\n

The combination of originality in composition, vocal expertise and mastery of electronic musicianship held the crowd in thrall, and made it well worth it for us to have traveled out into the land of scarce parking spaces, the Brooklyn demimonde<\/em>, for this highly enjoyable late night entertainment. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

NOIR Arkham at Don Pedro\u2019s September 26, 2015 By Doktor John Brooklyn, NY Synthpop trio Noir made a late night appearance at the Brooklyn dive bar Don Pedro\u2019s the last Saturday of September. Don Pedro\u2019s is a suitable venue: long and narrow, with a bar in the entry area and a performance space occupying the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12,6,5,1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/doktorjohn.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1390"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/doktorjohn.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/doktorjohn.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/doktorjohn.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/doktorjohn.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1390"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"http:\/\/doktorjohn.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1390\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1398,"href":"http:\/\/doktorjohn.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1390\/revisions\/1398"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/doktorjohn.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1390"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/doktorjohn.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1390"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/doktorjohn.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1390"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}