For someone who created a musical project whose aesthetic has been adopted by hipsters around the world, Washed Out’s Ernest Greene has about as uncool-sounding a name as you could imagine. It comes as both a surprise and a predictability; like many bedroom electronica producers, he’s kept a relatively low profile over the years, not shying away from interviews and press, but not exactly putting much of an emphasis on them either.
This fits his musical identity well. Since its inception, Washed Out has been a project saturated in chill as a feeling and a philosophy – focus on the emotion, let the unnecessary fall by the wayside. As one of the bigger names in Salon IKSV’s concert catalogue this fall, fans in the city were happy to attend both of the concerts he gave at that venue earlier this week.
As the lights dimmed, Greene stepped out on to the stage wearing a white t-shirt whose collar and sleeves were lined with the yellow hue of the 1960’s smiley face aesthetic that dominates his latest full-length release. To his left, an unassuming and thin multi-instrumentalist, switching from MPC to bass and electric guitar, and on the right, a fantastically focused drummer that was the driving force of the night. Even when the tempo picked up during the show, the rhythm section made sure they never departed from a composed and breezy vibe. Anyone who’s been to Salon knows it’s not a huge venue, and the room had the air of an intimate jam session, becoming of a man who started his musical career in his house.
Appropriately, they started the set with “Burn Out Blues,” a song that cast such a dense aural smokescreen over the crowd you could almost smell the weed. “Feels so right/When it starts to take” Greene croons, in a laid back tone that should be bro-ishly annoying but comes across as modest and even compelling. Whether he’s referencing drugs or his own music, the sentiment is the centerpiece of the night. “Floating By” followed suit, a song that sounds like it’s wafting out of an old speaker that’s been purring in the corner of some Havana cigar bar for decades.
While the crowd synced their movements to the undulating, sultry beats and melodies of the evening, the visuals projected onto the stage produced their own kind of high. As one might expect from the man who define chillwave as a genre and an aesthetic, each song was accompanied by a frenzy of trippy visuals, ranging from vintage baseball footage with animated and somewhat creepy smiley faces drawn on top of them, to real-time projections of the band members in abstract colors and swirls, figures that almost seem more true to the band’s sound than their physical presence is capable of conveying.
The band burned through their set at a brisk pace, and even included a couple of terse instrumental pieces that apparently had no other purpose than to get the beat channeled through the crowd’s feet as quickly and joyously as possible. The whole affair drew heavily on Greene’s latest release, Mister Mellow, but they took care to include a couple of older and more obscure hits as well, like “Olivia” and “New Theory.”
Swaying into “Don’t Give Up,” a delightful song from the band’s third full-length, Paracosm, a brief air of bittersweet feelings filled the room. “Even though that we’re far apart/We’ve come so close/And it feels so right/Don’t give up,” churns the refrain, words which take on an unintentional relevance in the presence of a crowd composed of people who are trying to keep the city’s art scene thriving in a political and social climate in which it is increasingly difficult to do so.
Shortly after, and lest any heavy thoughts lingered for too long, the arpeggio that announces “Feel It All Around,” Greene’s most definitive and well-known creation, shimmered in through the delirium the smoke machines had been throwing all night. At this, an indomitable sense of glee began to ricochet around the small concert hall, and no one within earshot could dare to be annoyed with the sheer sincerity of it all.
After 14 songs, the band dutifully disappeared and reemerged for an encore which consisted of ‘Soft’, a Within and Without cut that is as fuzzy as the title implies, followed by perhaps the most galvanizing and cathartic song in the band’s catalogue, “Eyes Be Closed.” Beers raised to the ceiling, the whole crowd singing along, the tune closed out what was probably the best Monday night in the city. “In spite of all the things you did/We’ll work it out,” Greene offers up to the audience. At the end of a show like this, you’d be inclined to believe him.
Featured image courtesy of the venue. Taken by Onur Dogman.
