Almost every person I've told about Buke and Gase assumes that they'll hate this band, which isn't their fault. Individuals with an adroit sense of rawk hear the sentence "Alt-folk-ish duo from Brooklyn that prominently features a homemade baritone ukulele," and interpret: "overdeveloped trifle of an art-school experiment." So, first, let's make it clear that Arone Dyer discarded her "buke" for a more practical miniature guitar shortly after her band was named in 2008. And second, the shorthand explanation of B&G — headlining the Brighton Music Hall Thursday — belies an avalanche of skull-rattling aural immensity.
"We're not a singer-songwriter thing," says Aron Sanchez, the "gase"(guitar-bass hybrid) player, during a break from his side gig of constructing props and instruments for Blue Man Group. "We're making punk rock. We like that contrast of what you see, what you think we're doing, and what you hear. We wanted the noise . . . to be huge."
Sanchez, who alongside Dyer recently uprooted from Brooklyn for cheaper rent in Hudson, New York, uses the term "punk" very loosely there. But implying they play alt-folk, like I did a minute ago, immediately feels reductive. Observe their second long-player, General Dome (Brassland). Dyer's equally lullaby-like and enthralling intonations wrap around parades of jarring guitars and a minimal-yet-impactful clatter of percussion throughout highlights like "In the Company of Fish" and "Cyclopean." Whereas the Function Falls EP released last fall was a more somber product, General emanates a power-dirge of "heaviness" that reveals a not-entirely-shocking spiritual link with brainy strains of metal.
Transcending genres and the limits of how much noise a two-person, mostly analog band can make without totally sucking would be a feat. But Buke and Gase, in an awe-inspiring display of multitasking, pull all that off without sucking in the slightest.
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BUKE AND GASE + ALEUCHATISTAS :: BRIGHTON MUSIC HALL, 158 BRIGHTON AVE, ALLSTON :: JANUARY 31 :: 8 PM :: 18+ :: $12 :: 617.779.0140 OR BRIGHTONMUSICHALL.COM
