[tonight] Efterklang bring the sound of a ghost town to the Mid East // 2/26

It is a well known fact that the invention of recorded sound hasquickly altered human perception; we hear a tune and tap our toes, oblivious to the fact that a vast work of audio collage, piecing different sounds captured at different times and places, obliterates our sense of place and space. Meaning that when a band of well-meaning Danes like EFTERKLANG embark on a project like the recording of their new album Piramida [4AD], wherein they traipsed off to an abandoned Arctic Circle mining town to capture the sound of despair and seclusion, it doesn't take long for your ears, upon hearing the resulting songs, to notice that something different is afoot. Well, sort of: I mean, there's probably plug-ins and pedals that can replicate the sonorous decay in the air as this trio lilts through this lush song cycle-- but it's doubtful that the group could have come up with this sort of elegaic melancholy in the cozy confines of a typical studio.

When the trio last came to the States, they were tugging an orchestra under their arms, lumbering into dives like the Metropolitan Museum of Art to ply a quasi-pretentious chamber'd somber-trip. Tonight at the Middle East, though, Efterklang are lean and mean, bolstering their numbers with only an additional three players as they allow the tones of Piramida to stand relatively unadorned.