Though they risk being lumped together with the surplus of bearded, new-roots
musicians inspired by O Brother Where Art
Thou Americana and their parents’ handed-down Crosby, Stills, Nash and
Young albums, Megafaun aren’t nearly as bound by tradition as most of those
acts. “I can’t read a painted picture of life as it was in the past,” the North
Carolina-based, Eau Claire-raised trio harmonizes on its 2009 album Gather,
Form & Fly, recognizing the absurdity of recreating music they never
experienced firsthand. Instead, they envision their own alternate history,
abstracting dust-bowl-era folk into restless, psychedelic collages.
Continually rerouted by tangents and tempo shifts, their songs exist in a
constant state of transition, so it seemed only natural that many of them were
radically reworked at the group’s performance at Club Garibaldi last night.
“Impressions of the Past,” a regal waltz on record, was recast as a fuzzy slab
of krautrock, while the galloping “The Fade,” the closest Gather, Form & Fly comes to traditional country-rock, took on
the heavy-hearted drone of a Yo La Tengo album closer.
The band reveled in volume contrasts, opening with Gather, Form & Fly’s title track, five minutes of sparse banjo
punctuated by pauses and empty spaces that asked for (and received) the
audience’s undivided attention. From there Megafaun fluctuated between hushed
folk and foot-stomping hootenannies, encouraged by a rapt crowd that either
clapped along boisterously or fell into a dead silence, depending on what each
song demanded.
Knoxville songwriter Sam Quinn opened with a set of achy,
wound-licking folk set to a slow pulse, warming the stage for Milwaukee’s
Conrad Plymouth, a hard-gigging band whose sets seem to grow tighter and more
distinguished by the month.
Conrad Plymouth doesn’t share Megafaun’s proclivity for
extremes, but they similarly opt not to play their folk-rock as a straight
throwback, instead coloring it with clouds of ambience. They closed their set
with “Fergus Falls,” a show-stopping song of redemption that set the bar
high for the headliners.
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