WebliminalBlog

Don’t get me wrong, loud noise is still an important part of their sound – they play it as another instrument in a similar way to MBV – but there’s more going on. For me, tonight was about a gradual build of intensity, a slow creeping annihilation rather than a blitzkrieg. It was about Oliver Ackerman’s twisted guitar noises, about how he inhabits the music on stage, turning from retiring shoegaze/indie popster to dangerously-crazed shaman within the space of their 70 minute set.

Extraordinarily fuzzy and fried (if only such words signified something less jammy and more pent-up), A Place To Bury Strangers is a Brooklyn band given to a mix of new wave and industrial, or maybe just shoegazer rock with a mind for the ’80s. The group is the enterprise of Oliver Ackermann, who customizes his own guitar pedals and seems to really dig My Bloody Valentine and The Jesus And Mary Chain. It’s a chillingly retro sound, for sure, but one that hasn’t been beaten to death in the new millennium’s mad rush to cannibalize every form of music from the recent past.

Coachella Valley Music & Arts Festival 2009 – Day 1