There is no single word which represents what happened at Cat's MusikCircus in Amsterdam last night since 'industrial' fits one part but doesn't fit many other parts of the shows which were presented first by Paris Cloyd playing speed metal and then by CellShader singing iron man vocals along with visual interpretation by SaveMe Oh and Cat Boucher pulling it all together.
Paris Cloyd is possibly one of the fastest guitarists I have ever heard and Rick Derringer previously had that title but it was such a mad speed with Derringer it became not so coherent whereas Paris Cloyd plays with immaculate accuracy and clarity. More importantly, he understands the importance of the dynamic and he brings it back from hell-raising speed to a different kind of eloquence. The alternative is to stay to a constant thrash with a singer who sounds like he has a corn cob in his backside to keep a constant thrash roar going but that only makes the head and ears hurt while it fails every time to make music or even much of a protest.
Maybe you like to hear Paris Cloyd's music while you check out the review and you can find him on SoundCloud with "
Tellurium Rapture" (opens in a different window).
The dynamic is ultra important so Paris Cloyd breaks entirely away from a constant thrash and this pic may be a bit sentimental for him but it was part of the set and, besides, we have to show you any purple guitar. This one is a B.C. Rich, a favorite of speed players, and you can hear the result in the astounding precision in Cloyd's play.
Then SaveMe started to save Paris Cloyd and she never tries to save musicians she does not think can be saved. If you are simply bound and determined to play mainstream then it's not likely you will see much of SaveMe Oh and you see where she will show. Her visual interpretations of the music are real-time and they don't come from a pre-packaged set of whizzy lights or lasers from a music store; she makes them herself.
If you look closely at the green snakes growing away from the center, all of them are covered in binary. Perhaps she means computers but it's insulting to tell you what to see and it's offensive to SaveMe since she never does; she presents her art along with that of the musician and, from both, make of it what you will. Hopefully you see, understand, and you dig it.
Here the set evolves further and Paris Cloyd seeks all the time to evolve since he often works dual stream shows with singers. There were comments before these shows started about match making and of course that's why Cat does it as she brings two great talents together so let's see what happens.
What happens?
What happens???
This happens!! Multi-dimensional music traveling at the speed of light and exploding into a million stars. You just ain't goin' see that when someone sits about covering Neil Young songs. We don't just want original, we revel in it.
After that blazing first set, enter CellShader, and I had heard one promo song from him previously which stunned me with surprise at the power he pulls with his voice. However, that immediately invites questions and the first is does he sing in other styles for kind of a comprehensive sound or does he pound his voice singing hard-core for a one-hour set and then collapse into a pile of pre-cardiac rubble.
CellShader goes with a wide-open style and he can get as industrial as you please but his voice has remarkable quality and range. He can swing from destroying the factory because of the evil pigs who run it all the way through to beautiful and convincing love songs. His voice is young and strong which adds a vibrant depth to whichever style he approaches.
One of the most fascinating aspects of Cell's music is the changes within any of his songs. Any song except a monochordal groove will have chord changes but Cell chooses unusual ones which immediately raise the musical interest of the song because the mind alerts, oy, oy, what's happening here.
Some of his music may get tagged alternative but that labeling is dismissive since it's alternative to what. There has been an alternative branch of music but there didn't seem to be many alternatives within it and there is no indication CellShader accepts any kind of constraints, restraints, anything of that nature in his music. He's almost entirely self-taught and he said much of what comes is from intently listening. That surprised me since usually the ones coming up with the most interesting changes have formal musical education behind them but CellShader put this together on his own.
Note: Cell had a specific reason for working out his music on his own. He's obviously highly-intelligent and he has a sister who did work for formal musical training but he didn't see her finding satisfaction in that or at least not the kind he hoped to find. He did it his own way ... and his own way kicks ass.
Most of the pics catch him from the same angle and that's because your roaming photog was trying to capture at least a glimpse of his eyes. Meanwhile, the images behind him are from SaveMe Oh since she was trying valiantly to save CellShader, just as she had with Paris Cloyd.
The pictures are only a taste of the excitement in this show and the entire evening as Cat looks for this kind of musical homogeneity which doesn't at all mean the musicians have to be the same but rather the music flows and grows through the entire show. That worked last night about as well as it ever could in the online world.
Cat and I danced while rest of the audience danced as they chose; it was actually much larger since the shows were well-attended but the picture doesn't show that so much as the focus on Cat who was really diggin' it. Everything was clicking since the performers came ready to play so there were no technical foul-ups and the music roared for two hours into der Nacht in Deutschland. (It was still daytime here in Fort Worth but it was well after midnight before the show closed in Germany)
