Flotation Walls: If You Haven't Heard Them, You Haven't Heard Anything Yet

I have seen a lot of live music. I've ventured to sprawling outdoor festivals and tiny basement home shows. Huge arenas, smoky bars and places with enough exposed wiring to warrant serious concerns about fire safety. This usually involves wading through waves of mediocrity in the hope that, while sifting through grains of underwhelming talent and skewed vision, at least one bright gem will emerge.

For most music fans this search for the Good Show, at one time or another during our lives, becomes an obsession. We stalk our favorite bands hoping to hear our favorite songs given new dynamic life; the audiophiles that bothered to show up before the headliner standing in expectant judgment of the openers. We spend evenings at small clubs daring unknowns to impress us, to give us a reason to have another beer or stay past our friends' set.

Signs of a Bad Show usually make themselves known early and often with unready groups showing little direction and little sense of their own aesthetic. Whether tentatively tip-toeing through their songs or wildly flailing about without a clue how the different parts of their music should interact - a syndrome that occurs in more than a few headliners of national tours - these sour notes make the eventual discovery of a Good Show all the sweeter.

On January 16th at the Bushwick Music Studios the brilliantly anarchic Eskalators played a very good show. They didn't play with precision, but with an earnest exuberance that was at once invigorating, infectious and insanely addictive. The band was the spirit of ska blended with the irrepressible euphoria of Tilly and the Wall and the unpretentious fervor of Matt and Kim. Their 15 players dolled up in homemade costumes freewheeled through the set with one thing keeping them from being the far and away best band of the night: they happened to play with a group that was a force of nature.

Flotation Walls took the stage in a room of people that had never heard them play a note but before the end of their first song they had the entire audience eagerly hanging on their every chord progression. The Walls were displaying their acoustic arrangement on this tour and their simple set up of acoustic guitar, vibraphone, violin, stand-up base and floor tom still managed to create gigantic, dramatically shifting soundscapes. Before the end of their first song, "Sperm and Egg", every eye was turned to them and every ear was tuned to them. As the show progressed rapt listeners stomped along, memorized and sang back choruses, and joined the band as they ended the set - to the foreboding "Worms" - in a collective, cacophonous chant.

In that tiny club for those 45 minutes the four Walls were not only the center of attention, but the center of a community that they created, that was born of the expression of their art and that lived in each singalong and each raucous cheer.

Their sound, both live and recorded, is robust, deep and, for lack of a better word, complete. The bass and drums lay out a solid foundation and a huge, cavernous architecture which is filled in by myriad disparate yet complementary melodies played on any mix of guitar, violin, vibraphone and accordion. And while the instrumentations are truly wonderful they aren't even the best part; the group's vocal harmonies are the element that no other band even approaches in quality.

It's quite amazing how four (sometimes five) people on the road can simulate the 25+ people that played on their debut, Nature, but the live arrangements are equally compelling, exhibiting a dichotomy between pinpoint precision and unbridled release. It's this dual nature (ha) that truly sets the band apart, making them equally intellectually and emotionally compelling. Every booming percussive melody is met by a dynamic, fleetfooted response; every showcase of technical mastery is offset by a furious, dissonant crash. Moments of soft, contemplative beauty turn instantly into menacing, eviscerating, and sometimes even celebratory eruptions of sound.

In their last year of touring Flotation Walls have refined their vision, as evidenced by their fantastic Flophouse Session in Boston. Their unified voice is commanding and clear; completely defined and fully realized. Rest assured that any search for the fabled Great Show will begin and end any place the Walls are playing and anyone even close to the band's tour path would do well to plant themselves firmly on the route.

Music as an industry and as an organism revolves around a lot of different people. Artists, certainly, but also promoters, club owners, critics (and would-be critics), and myriad others. Before we did anything else, however, we started out as fans. And it's bands like Flotation Walls that made us fans in the first place.

Flotation Walls in NYC (last week)

Several years ago at Ohio State I was fortunate to befriend one Ryan Stolte-Sawa. Aside from meeting a great person and making a great friend, this was incredibly beneficial as she is currently a multi-instrumentalist in the Columbus four-piece Flotation Walls. When the Walls rolled through New York (and through my apartment) on their east coast tour I was able to catch both their acoustic set at Pete's Candy Store in Williamsburg and their regular, electrified, set at the Lit Lounge in the East Village, and let me tell you I was quite impressed. I was already a fan of their record, Nature, but really had no idea how much larger and fuller their live show could possibly be.

The acoustic show possessed a sort of austere grandeur projecting a far larger presence than should have been possible in such a small space with no amplification. They brought an elegance and refinement in addition to the warmth and familiarity that usually comes with live acoustic music. "Sperm and Egg", "Worms" and "Kids Look at the Waves" as well as a couple of my favorites from the album in "Body", and "Willis the Fireman".

After the fantastic set at Pete's on Sunday the 5th I had my doubts that the Lit show on the 7th would impress (further) but I was certainly wrong. Plugged in, the band's sound is enormous, dramatic and, well, electric and I have to admit I looked on with no small amount of fraternal pride as Ryan switched back and forth between keys/synth, violin and guitar. The Walls played the same set they did at Pete's which made for an interesting contrast with the patrons of each show saying the one they saw must have been completely superior to the other - the bartender at Pete's went so far as to suggest the band completely drop the electric set, though he'd never heard it.

For your enjoyment, watch some iPhone footage of "Body" at Pete's



and "Worms" at Lit



I highly recommend this band, not because I have a friend in it but because it is exceptionally good. The group is full of highly skilled players executing terrific arrangements with energy and flair. All of them are also good people and I imagine there are few better bands to have crashing on your floor for a few days.

More tracks available on the band's Myspace. These four will be touring throughout the summer and into the fall so be sure to check them out if they are anywhere near you (all both of you that read this blog).