I Just Read About That…

[ATTENDED: November 30, 2018] Preoccupations

Preoccupations is a band from Calgary Alberta Canada.  They were originally called Viet Cong. They put out a stunning album called Viet Cong and then met all kinds of grief for the name (shows cancelled, etc), so they changed it to Preoccupations.  It’s amazing that a band as minor and indie as them would get so much grief, but whatever.

The name is different but the sound is mostly the same–abrasive angular guitars, washes of synths and/or feedback and what I will describe as lead drums, because the power and rhythm of Mike Wallace often distinguishes the songs from each other.

But despite the abrasiveness, they are not just a band of noise.  There is melodicism in many parts (interspersed with great unusual sounds from both guitars).  Plus the lyrics are really good as well.

What’s interesting about many of their songs is that bassist/singer Matt Flegel is often playing a distinctive bass pattern or chords while the guitars, especially Daniel Christiansen is playing all kinds of sounds and messing with effects pedals.  Flegel is something of a calming force with his sometimes spoken, sometimes sung and occasionally screamed vocals.

They opened with three of the first four songs from the Viet Cong album.  The first song was the first one from the album “Newspaper Spoons” which saw guitarist Daniel Christiansen standing in front of his amp coaxing whatever feedback and noises he could out of this instrument.

For “Continental Shelf” Scott “Monty” Munro played a lot of the big loud chords while Christiansen played the higher notes.

I really like the way the band can turn from noisy, almost psychedelic noise into a kind of mid-80s indie rock sound, like on “Sihouettes” in which Flegel’s bass is more or less playing lead while Munro is on synths and Christiansen is playing almost rhythm high chords.

I was so intrigued that the high notes in “Decompose” actually came from the keyboard, and that Christiansen could get just as into that instrument as the guitar (it’s not easy to head bang on the keyboard).  Although I was possibly more intrigued that Christiansen  lost his shoe.

I have the newer Preoccupations album New Material.  They played four songs from that. But I know the Viet Cong album best so I was excited that the ended their set with two songs from the album.  I just love everything about “March of Progress,” the 8 minute song with the fantastic opening drum salvo from Mike Wallace.

The show ended with “Death” which proved to be a great set-ender.  The song is 11 minutes long on record with many parts, multiple time changes and some great noisy jamming.  That jam feels so much like an ending that when it jarringly switches to a 5/4 section of strict tempo, it’s quite a shock.  Especially since they are totally using controlled chaos but maintain that challenging rhythm.  There’s a live recording of the song from KEXP that is 14 minutes long.  Ours wasn’t quite that long I don’t think, but it was still awesome with great guitar sounds, cool bass and impressive drumming all around from Wallace.

SETLIST

1. Newspaper Spoons ∇
2. Continental Shelf ∇
3. Espionage ℵ
4. Silhouettes ∇
5. Antidote ℵ
6. Decompose ℵ
7. Zodiac ¶
8. Disarray ℵ
9. Memory ¶
10. March of Progress ∇
11. Death ∇

ℵ = New Material (2018)
¶ = Preoccupations (2016)
∇ = Viet Cong (2015)