Rattletree Marimba @ Last Concert Cafe

Saturday, July 19th was BOT's first real day back in the live music swing of things after the end of the gloriousness of the Rothbury Festival. What better way to ease back into everyday life than with a relaxing night filled with world-beat music at hippie-friendly, hula hoops-and-sand venue Last Concert Cafe? Before the night was over, we'd journeyed to Zimbabwe with Rattletree Marimba and Indonesia with Space City Gamelan, and we were finally able to shake off our post-festival back-to-the-real-world funk.

Full review plus photos and videos after the jump

Shortly after arriving at Last Concert Cafe, I found myself confused. Just before we left for Rothbury, Eggs and I had attended a South Austin Jug Band show there; that was less than a month ago, so (understandably, I think) I wasn't prepared for any major changes to the venue. After paying the cover charge and getting wristbanded, I headed out back to the stage area...and suddenly stopped, startled. It seems that the folks over at LCC have been keeping themselves busy - they had significantly expanded their stage. A large L-shaped extension and a square platform now flanked either side of the original stage.

As some friends and I snagged a just-vacated picnic table, we saw that the members of Space City Gamelan were busy finalizing their stage set-up. They weren't utilizing the new portions, but it looked like they could have used the additional room - the stage was cluttered with metallophones, xylophones, drums, and a gong. The word gamelan denotes an Indonesian musical ensemble - it can be used to refer to the musicians involved in the group, but it especially connotes the set of instruments being played. The instruments that make up a gamelan are built and tuned to stay together; instruments from different gamelan are not interchangeable.

On Space City Gamelan's Myspace page, their music is categorized as 'trance,' but that's not meant in the untz untz electronic sense. Instead, the term suggests that their music is trance-inducing - and as they began their show, I quickly discovered what they meant by that. SCG's compositions are impossibly layered and repetitious in nature, and can swiftly lull you into a meditative state if you allow them to. Several of the musicians continually rotated instruments, and though there wasn't much in the way of a stage show, it was nice to watch the calm, controlled way they struck their instruments with their mallets. This was definitely not a performance conducive to gettin' down; it was more suited to quiet contemplation. For that reason, I feel that an intimate indoor venue would be a better fit for SCG. It seemed like many of the nuances present in their sound were lost in the summer air outside of LCC. I'd love to see them play at Club DubDub (formerly the Jellyphish Lounge) - in fact, a seated SCG set followed by a dance-filled Rattletree Marimba set would be a perfect fit for that magical space.

Speaking of Rattletree Marimba, they certainly weren't messing around when they included the word marimba in their name. After SCG cleared the stage of their gear, Rattletree proceeded to bring out the largest marimba I've ever seen. It had to have been five feet high and required standing on a bench to properly strike the keys. Intrigued, I felt my energy begin to rise after the mellow opening set. Frontman Joel Laviolette proclaimed that their music is made for dancing, and from their first song, the band delivered the goods. The instruments gathered onstage included the aforementioned humongous bass marimba, a couple of soprano marimbas, a drum kit, and probably some other types of marimbas - I'm not well-versed in the marimba world, so I can't really tell you with certainty. (I can tell you with certainty, however, that this is the most I've ever used the word 'marimba' in one paragraph.) Laviolette also occasionally played an mbira.

Rattletree's show was packed with Zimbabwean-influenced high-octane dance music, and it quickly lured several audience members off of the benches and into the sand. The open area in front of the stage teemed with hoopers and revelers doing their best to avoid the flailing limbs of a few overzealous spaz dancers. Laviolette was confidently comfortable in his role as leader, exhibiting what seemed like boundless enthusiasm. The music itself felt almost restorative - something about it was inherently mirthful. The four interlacing marimbas combined with percussion created a very palatable, playful, multi-layered sound that generated a distinctly positive response from the crowd.

Though it is a fascinating instrument, I felt that Laviolette's solo mbira stretches were out of place in the performance. Like Space City Gamelan's metallophones, I think that the mbira would be best experienced in an indoor setting. At LCC, the mbira's sound simply wasn't loud enough to keep the attention of the crowd, and Laviolette's work was promptly lost in the rising drone of chattering voices. I felt that these portions made the otherwise strong performance feel a bit disjointed.

I entirely enjoyed Space City Gamelan's and Rattletree Marimba's performances, and was pleased by how well they complemented each other. I look forward to seeing both bands again soon. Hopefully I'll have the opportunity to catch them in an indoor venue; I'm interesting in seeing how they sound in an enclosed space. Apparently, Rattletree have played outside the ACL Festival the past few years, so perhaps we'll stumble upon them there in September.

Cereal's rating: 7.897/10 bowls for an energetic night that made me forget that I was in Houston (if only for a few hours).

You can view more photos from the show at our Flickr account, and more videos on our YouTube channel.

--Cereal