[ATTENDED: October 29, 2022] Nina Ryser
Nina Ryser is a member of Palberta (I love that name) whom I saw live a while back. I recently also saw her bandmate Lily Konigsberg solo, so that’s 2/3 of Palberta I’ve seen solo now. (Clearly Anina Ivry-Block will be opening for someone in the near future). I have also seen Nina Ryser play drums for Old Maybe.
Like the rest of her Palbertans, Ryser is a prolific songwriter who is classically trained but who likes to push the boundaries of what music should do.
For this little set, she and her husband played keyboards (and all manner of gadgets). The set sounded improvised, but I’m sure it wasn’t.
Most of the songs were built around a beat and a simple chord pattern. There was a droney component to it and Nina’s vocals were kind of deapan.
I know she played “Shelf the Trophy.” She played another song that reminded me of a lo-fi Stereolab.
My favorite parts of the show occurred between songs where Nina would mess around with looping pedals and make these interesting collages out of bits of the song she’d just played. There was definitely some improv in here and I enjoyed watching her manipulate the sounds to create something cool.
She ended the set with the catchiest song. I don’t know what it’s called but there was a repeated refrain of “you never looked better.” It was simple, but the vocal line complemented the music really nicely.
There’s so many interesting Philly-based musicians and so many places to play. It’s quite a rich scene.
