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

This almost-fascist view was completely blown away when I heard A Place To Bury Strangers. Seeing them live is an experience in itself and listening to A Falling Sun evoked the same spiritual epiphanies that I had only ever experienced before when listening to the immortal 4AD band Dead Can Dance. People class the band as shoegaze but it was psychedelic to the core. Yet the band class themselves as psychedelic rock.

A good mix of up-and-comers (Blitzen Trapper, A Place to Bury Strangers), well established indies (TV on the Radio, Franz Ferdinand, PB&J), DJ’s (MSTRKRFT, Bloody Beetroots, Gui Borato), big name headliners (The Cure, My Bloody Valentine), pay your respects but go home early-ers (Paul McCartney) got-to-see-but-never-seen-before (Dr. Dog), new and old hip hop (Lupe Fiasco, Public Enemy), the unknowns but highly recommended (Murder City Devils), the is he still arounders (Perry Farrell), and once-in-a-lifetime chancers (Etienne de Crecy, check this video), and like a 100 other bands, just check the schedule.

No, it’s not just hyperbole: A Place to Bury Strangers is indeed New York City’s loudest band. I know it for a fact. I went to one of the band’s shows and the impossibly dense, shoegaze-infused psychedelic riffs made my ears ring the entire next day.

and the evening ended with a very loud and raucous set from a place to bury strangers. they killed it! they are unbelivable live and will leave your eardrums ringing for days!

comments from people who saw the band perform at coachella

photos

So, Day One is winding down, and you want to impress your McCartney-loving buddies with your hip tastes. Well, your best bet is to drag them away from Paul on the main stage and end your night with the second (or maybe third or fourth) coming of The Jesus and Mary Chain in the form of A Place to Bury Strangers. They might be this year’s Black Rebel Motorcycle Club but that doesn’t mean their music can’t be any good.

As always with any festival there are conflicts with more than one artist I want to see performing at the same time. Heck, I will even be late for Sir Paul McCartney’s set! However, there is no way I will miss any of the set from A Place to Bury Strangers. That performance, along with the three aformentioned sets in this paragraph, could be the sets of the festival my friends.

As the band finish up with their personal favourite, Ocean, and the lights go up it’s clear by the look on everybody’s faces that they were not quite sure what hit them but were ecstatic that it did.

Interview by Clint Boon

A Place To Bury Strangers – 10 – would be a 9 on Sunday, but these guys are the hope for my kinda music

The headliners of the night were A Place to Bury Strangers. Having heard quite a few tracks beforehand I knew what I was expecting and they didn’t disappoint. This band are loud! They’re not just loud but also have a lot of substance and there are a lot of guitar effects being used extremely well in their songs. The way the lighting was being used at the gig was also great and really gave the music an another dimension.

A Place to Bury Strangers
Seemingly every few months since the dawn of Sonic Youth, a new buzz band emerge using messy, puke-brown guitar squall to wow critics and annoy everyone else. A Place to Bury Strangers are not one of those bands. They’re noisy, but their squall is sculpted, obsidian and wrapped around seductively sad vocals. Excluding My Bloody Valentine, these Brookynites’ set promises the weekend’s coolest opportunity for hearing loss.

Closer Ocean has front man Oliver Ackermann tearing the strings off his guitar while much of the audience close their eyes to avoid the nauseating strobe. Lunches stay down and all is forgiven when the band finish their set and walk into the crowd, chatting, signing merchandise and posing for pictures with anyone and everyone who asks.

These guys are something out of a dream.

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However, I am surprised and pleased to see the likes of Glass Candy and A Place to Bury Strangers among the names listed, not to mention one of my new favorite underground noisemakers, Late of the Pier.

This year’s Coachella Festival line-up has a line-up to singe the derriere. There might be no return of Ziggy Stardust, but those who make it to a very hot piece of Californian turf this April will be treated by performances by the likes of… deep breath… The Cure, Morrissey, Leonard Cohen, Throbbing Gristle, Liars, Public Enemy, My Bloody Valentine, A Place To Bury Strangers, Franz Ferdinand, Felix Da Housecat, The Killers, Henry Rollins, Turbonegro, Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Late of the Pier, Brian Jonestown Massacre, an emaciated crackhead from Camden and some bloke who used to be in the Beatles.

The line-up for this year’s COACHELLA (as of 1/30) is as follows:
FRIDAY APRIL 17: Paul McCartney, Morrissey, Franz Ferdinand, Leonard Cohen, Conor Oberst and the Mystic Valley Band, Beirut, The Black Keys, Girl Talk, Silversun Pickups, The Ting Tings, The Crystal Method, Ghostland Observatory, Crystal Castles, The Airborne Toxic Event, We Are Scientists, N.A.S.A., Patton & Rahzel, M. Ward, The Presets, The Hold Steady, A Place to Bury Strangers, Felix da Housecat, Buraka Som Sistema, Ryan Bingham, Bajofondo, Peanut Butter Wolf, Noah & the Whale, White Lies, The Bug, Alberta Cross, Los Campesinos!, Craze & Klever, Molotov, Switch, Gui Boratto, Steve Aoki, The Aggrolites, People Under the Stairs, The Courteeners, Cage the Elephant, Dear and the Headlights.

Coachella Spotlight: A Place To Bury Strangers
Today’s edition of Coachellapedia is focusing on the New York-based trio A Place To Bury Strangers.

FRIDAY APRIL 17:
Paul McCartney, Morrissey, Franz Ferdinand, Leonard Cohen, Conor Oberst and the Mystic Valley Band, Beirut, The Black Keys, Girl Talk, Silversun Pickups, The Ting Tings, The Crystal Method, Ghostland Observatory, Crystal Castles, The Airborne Toxic Event, We Are Scientists, N.A.S.A., Patton & Rahzel, M. Ward, The Presets, The Hold Steady, A Place to Bury Strangers, Felix da Housecat, Buraka Som Sistema, Ryan Bingham, Bajofondo, Peanut Butter Wolf, Noah & the Whale, White Lies, The Bug, Alberta Cross, Los Campesinos!, Craze & Klever, Molotov, Switch, Gui Boratto, Steve Aoki, The Aggrolites, People Under the Stairs, The Courteeners, Cage the Elephant, Dear and the Headlights.

Paul McCartney, Morrissey, Franz Ferdinand, Leonard Cohen, Conor Oberst, Beirut, The Black Keys, Girl Talk, The Hold Steady, A Place to Bury Strangers

After the jump, a condensed list of who I am initially excited about. Unlike the unbalanced 2008 edition, each day seems pretty solid this time around. 

//Coachella

FRIDAY APRIL 17: Paul McCartney, Morrissey, Franz Ferdinand, Leonard Cohen, Beirut, Girl Talk, The Ting Tings, The Crystal Method, Crystal Castles, A Place to Bury Strangers, Los Campesinos!, Gui Boratto

Still, you cannot beat the Woodstock-y atmosphere of everyone needing to camp in the same location, somewhere in the middle between L.A. and Las Vegas.