A brisk 45-minute set Monday night at Strange Matter was all it took to confirm Angel Olsen’s status as one of the most entertainingly chameleonic acts to emerge on the national country-folk scene in recent years. Sidestepping the straightforward approach, Olsen spent the evening plugged in, imbuing the mostly-acoustic sensibilities of her studio output with a tough, punchy energy that was both refreshing and completely natural.
A brisk 45-minute set Monday night at Strange Matter was all it took to confirm Angel Olsen’s status as one of the most entertainingly chameleonic acts to emerge on the national country-folk scene in recent years. Sidestepping the straightforward approach, Olsen spent the evening plugged in, imbuing the mostly-acoustic sensibilities of her studio output with a tough, punchy energy that was both refreshing and completely natural.
On record, Olsen is a neo-folker whose laser-honed yodel could bury Joanna Newsom under any number of alpine drifts; on stage, she’s transmogrified into a blue-eyed soulstress whose two-piece rhythm section holds down the low end as well as any vintage Stax single. At least, that’s how the set started: she then proceeded to move seamlessly through styles ranging from bare-bones country minimalism to angular indie just this side of art rock.
The influences that inform Olsen’s repertoire are apparent enough: the aforementioned soul music, Exile on Main St.-era Stones, Hank Williams, the art punk explosion of the seventies and eighties. The same could be said for any number of forgettable though pleasant-enough bands making music now, but Angel Olsen’s particular magic lies in her prismatic fracturing and reassembling of these forebears to create something that is at once reflective and original. She deftly skirts the pitfalls that trip up less astute (and, ultimately, more derivative) artists.
The opening bands, too, reflected Olsen’s specific brand of originality perfectly: Richmond musician Nelly Kate kicked off the night with a densely textured soundscape built from ethereal vocal loops spiraling above church-organ Casiotone progressions.
The self-described interdisciplinary artist incorporated white noise and analog samples into songs whose key feature was a vocal style not so much haunting as haunted–rather than tweaking effects pedals, it seemed as if she were unleashing bands of spirits each time she ducked beneath the table to twiddle a knob or push a button. Spooky, intriguing, and spectral, Nelly Kate’s songs (sound collages? aural sculptures?) offered an appropriately twisted opening that was equal parts cerebral and visceral.
Following suit, Pillars and Tongues offered equally inventive instrumentation, albeit in a completely different direction. The Chicago-based trio employed traditional instruments–violin, bass, harmonium–in tandem with drum machines and live percussion in a tightly controlled paean whose energy occasionally soared to near-religious levels.
While lyrically exploring the darker side of the humid American landscape with the spiritual fervor of early Tom Petty (skeptics can listen to “Magnolia” or “Mystery Man” and get back to me), the group’s sound nestled comfortably in the nooks and crannies between Americana, noise rock, and freak folk. By turns easygoing and delirious, the threesome’s performance never stayed in one place for long. “Dance if you want to,” they admonished the crowd before finishing with a relatively straightforward, rollicking number.
Olsen couldn’t have asked for a better warm-up crew.
