author: Guy
ORQUESTA DEL DESIERTO (usa) & MOTHER KINGDOM (swi) in Sojo, August 18th
Click to read interview with DANDY BROWN (Orquesta Del Desierto, Hermano) .
CONCERT REVIEW
On with Orquesta del Desierto and I’ll immediately tell you it was – again – one of those
“Wow, hey, I didn’t expect THAT!”-nights. Even though I was fully aware of both the weight
this band carries (the members having played in/with bands such as QOTSA, Fatso Jetson, earthlings?,
Goatsnake, Hermano, etc) and the extraordinary direction of this project’s music, they’d exceed
my expectations. By far. It’s not that easy to pinpoint the band’s sound, as it’s much lighter than
any of the other bands I mentioned: instead of ultra-blues riffs, you get acoustic textures, sweet
melodies and a desert vibe that has more in common with Calexico than Kyuss. Conjuring up images of
an excruciatingly hot day in New Mexico/Arizona/Nevada/California without an insane stack of
Marshall amplifiers, it is possible and the way in which Orquesta del Desierto delivers the
goods is easily as gratifying. That said, from the first song onwards, it did become clear that the
band was out there to rock. “Reaching out” was an awesome combination of force and melody,
classic rock and gentle desert vibe, the six-piece sounding like a modern update of Led Zeppelin,
but with accessibility instead of excess and the continuing presence of acoustic guitars (Mike Riley
would play in the background, Country Mark Engel switched from acoustic to electric and back, while
the genre’s unofficial father, Mario Lalli, remained his own awesome self on electric guitar). But
it’s not just the triple guitar attack that sets this band apart as the rhythm section of Dandy
Brown (bass) and Bryan Brown (drums) laid down rock solid grooves and Pete Stahl… well, I honestly
can’t think of any vocalist he can’t compete with. Even though the variety of bands he’s been a
member of is quite baffling (ranging from the hardcore punk of Scream to the traditional doom of
Goatsnake and the experimental rock of earthlings?), he’ll always remain instantly recognizable,
with a great tone, range and knack for damn fine melodies. That’s another thing that sets this band
apart: they’re not about crushing you, about molesting you with down-tuned guitars and lumbering
heaviness. Instead, they want you to shake your booty, sing along or let yourself be carried away
by the images the music may evoke, because despite the rock-format, the music possesses a very
strong cinematographic power. The band continued as dedicatedly and tore through its first and
second album with songs about being stuck in the same old places and discovering new ones, from
“Quick to Disperse” to the grand Dos-opener “Life without Color” and the mighty “Summer,”
which even topped the already wonderful studio version. It’s hard to point out highlights in a set
that was filled with ‘em, as “Smooth Slim” (‘about a friend who passed away’) switched from a
gentle intro to rumbling, galloping verses that made you yell for more and “What in the World”
brought shuffling ‘70’s rock (complete with extended solo by Lalli and harp playing by Stahl)
into the ‘00’s without becoming derivative or uninteresting. Unexpectedly, the band also
launched into an energetic take on Cream’s “Deserted Cities of the Heart” and (less unexpected)
a few songs from other ‘side projects’, such as Fatso Jetson’s “Monoxide Dream” (sung by Lalli),
and earthlings?’s “Nothing.” The band ended the set with the intense climax of “Someday,” delivered
a fierce take on “Scorned Liver” during the encore (drinking songs are always enthusiastically
received at the Sojo, so it seems) and returned for a second encore (I mean, the crowd may not have
been huge, but it was hysteric!) to do a semi-improvised monster jam. With the volume
and pragmatic limitations of a live gig, the concert couldn’t offer a sonic experience the equivalent
of the actual albums (where you have more percussion details, organ, piano, some trumpet, etc) but
they somehow managed to keep the soul, charm and Mexicali vibe of many of the songs intact,
giving them a more straightforward interpretation. Because of their particular direction and
refusal to conform to the given standard of desert rock, Orquesta del Desierto will probably never
be the subject of mass hype, but that’s cool. Some bands deliver bad-ass stuff under the radar
of mass production and those who make an effort to find out about original new music that’s worth
your time and money will eventually stumble into them. May they continue in this (or any other)
direction for a long, long time.
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I have no idea how Swiss four-piece Mother Kingdom ended up on the Sojo’s stage, as they’re
not exactly the kind of band you’d think of when skimming over the list of bands that’d been playing
there the last few months. But hey, diversity often keeps things interesting, so why not? Well… the
problem is that Mother Kingdom, though obviously founded by skilled musicians, didn’t exactly manage
to leave a lasting impression. Falling in between harmless & radio-friendly alternative rock and
confessional singer-songwriter stuff, the band delivered a rather subdued set (two acoustic
guitars, electric bass, drums) that simply lacked a few highlights and could’ve done with a few more
barbs. Don’t get me wrong, singer/guitarist Didier Rieder and his fellows certainly have the chops,
but as one song segued into the next, you’d start to wonder when they were gonna give the finger to
the traditional mould and do something else for a change. Europeans that they are, they’d never
actually descend into the realm of what Alicia Silverstone would’ve called “complaint rock” (
Clueless anyone?), but there were only a few songs I could still vaguely remember a few days
later; one of them being “Dazed”,” the other a catchy and propulsive tune called “Broken” that had
‘single’ all over it. I’m pretty sure there’s an audience for this kind of alt rock, but speaking
for myself, I think it’s just too respectful towards its American inspirations, which is kinda
unfortunate, since they probably have more of an identity than they actually showed the Sojo’s
audience that night.