Dread seems to permeate the air these days. Inside the Berkeley bubble, the specter of midterms, papers, pending graduation, divestment debates and general collegiate stress lurks in every conceivable corner of campus. On a larger scale, we're just starting to fully realize how screwed we are over issues like climate change, nuclear weapons and the shifting global economy. Let the collective nail biting and nose bridge pinching begin.
Dread loomed large at the Oakland Fox on Thursday night. Thom Yorke's new band Atoms for Peace headlined the night, with Flying Lotus opening. Both acts conjured divergent yet complementary types of aural paranoia.
Working off the principle that nature abhors a vacuum, Flying Lotus filled his set with dense, claustrophobic creations as moody as they were immediate. His mixing board must have had all its settings turned up to 11-a frontal onslaught of noise was hurled at the audience consistently. The crushing, pulsating bass tumbled out of the suspended PA speakers like some collapsing building in a sonic earthquake. Crooked drum patterns, blaring synths, odd blips and splintered strings floated between the gaps in this low-end vibration, producing herky-jerky, powerfully paranoia-inducing tunes that were like a lucid dream slowly morphing into an inescapable nightmare.
Flying Lotus was the perfect opener, even though a guy on a laptop might seem like an anachronistic introduction to such a primal band. Comparisons to
Radiohead may be perfunctory when it comes to Atoms for Peace, but the contrast really illuminates Yorke's new direction with this group. Lately, Radiohead have been all about intangibility; there's a reason they called their last album In Rainbows. In contrast, at the Oakland Fox Yorke sang the line "with your fingers you can touch me," a lyric from "Black Swan." Atoms for Peace's performance was all about physicality.
But rather than celebrating corporeality, they unabashedly displayed all the fears and anxieties wrapped up within the body. The percussion had a lot to do with this. The drums (expertly played by duo Joey Waronker and Mauro Refosco) dominated the mix. The vocals, Nigel Godrich's buzzy synths, Yorke's wiry guitars and bassist Flea's one-off melodica solo barely emerged from the propulsive rubble. Though they tended to drown other sounds out, the drums were effective, producing a post-apocalyptic rumbling. Many renditions, like the funky version of "Paperbag Writer," were downright carnal. The heavy percussion got Yorke to bust out his signature disturbing dance moves, and the very extroverted bassist Flea, of Red Hot Chili Pepper fame, was even more locomotive than usual. The crowd responded, swaying, nodding and grooving to the dark, controlling music.
The only respite from this tribal bombardment came during the encore. Yorke emerged from his backstage bomb shelter after the nuclear fallout of Atoms for Peace's set to play a few oddly pretty "works in progress" on solo piano, as well as an acoustic "Airbag." Otherwise, the night was relentlessly driven by ominous yet earthy beats.
Flying Lotus's and Atoms for Peace's music acknowledged anxiety, but it never let itself become consumed by it. It fought back against the impending doom it invoked. Yorke and company may have acknowledged that all of "this is fucked up" (to quote "Black Swan" again), but they didn't nihilistically accept defeat. Sure, we might be increasingly constricted by our fates, but that doesn't mean we can't squirm back in resistance to the tightening hold. We might even be able to loosen the grip.
