Skull Defekts @ the Turf Club

Opting to see the 'other band playing their first US show in Minneapolis this week'  (cc: The Volcano Choir), I walked into the Turf Club this past Sunday night with few expectations.  I knew some Lungfish - Daniel Higgs' band from many years ago that boasted solid post-punk rock credentials from the Dischord label ala' Fugazi/June of '44/ Rites of Spring -era DC scene - but don't know too much of the Skull Defekts, the Swedish psych./garage-rockers that Higgs is fronting for this tour and their most recent release.
A fairly mellow scene percolated as locals whitesands/badlands set up on the new side stage of the Turf Club.  The ambient, wall-of-noise sound-scapers, w-sands/b-lands, quietly boiled up a churning stew of emo-tethered atmosphere.  Squalling then quiet noisy dissonance with a constant battering of percussion - I found them a little too tied to the vocals of Casey Holmgren who brought the otherwise ambiguously (in a good way) soaring and engaging aural explorations to a flattened level of indie-rock been-there-ism.  Overall though, a good band that I'll be excited to see again and hope they can attain some of the nuance and mystery their excellent vinyl release - Seeding The Clouds - displayed in spades last year. 

2nd Opener - Zomes (interesting for a couple songs, then, yawn...it was midnight on a Sunday...)

Daniel Higgs, first of all, seems to be a charismatic dude.  On the new Skull Defekts lp (Peer Amid on Thrill Jockey) - his first outing with them, he is an extremely competent front man for the band -  his vocals and "lyrics" carry the show (not to knock the blistering and beautiful musicality of the band).  Walking around the Turf, drinking tea and allaying any hopes of anyone else having an even slightly cool beard, he turned heads and owned the space that he occupied.  This turned out to be important because one of the roles Daniel Higgs plays for the Skull Defekts is that of shambolic shaman.  From the moment he stepped on the stage, he grasped a small wooden drum under one arm and alternatively busied his arms with loosely robotic dance undulations or the rapid beating of this hand-held Balinese percussive instrument Daniel translated the name as being 'Waves of Joy'.  He played the shit out of that thing.  His hand flicking upon it faster than I could follow - though, even when the rest of the band was totally silent, I couldn't hear a peep out of his 'Waves of Joy'...he seemed to enjoy it.
A keyboardist, guitar, bass, two drummers - one on a kit, one playing three empty 5 gallon plastic gasoline drums with mallets, and then Daniel Higgs incanting over it all.  Despite a strong kinship with bands such as The Fall, the Ex, and early Sonic Youth, a significant discerning difference is the sense The Skull Defekts are making their music and Higgs exists separately - filling in the spaces that he deems need filling - sometimes with poetic ramblings, recountings of his dreams, or with lyrics he wrote to actually fit over the music.  When he forgot the lyrics to one of the songs, he told us so and resumed beating his 'Waves of Joy' and shouting out hoots and moans over the 3 punishing chords the Defekts pounded out.  It was as if the band could play their angular, repetitive, mandalas of garage rock over and over with totally different incarnations of Higgs' contributions each time.  To the benefit of all, each rendition I heard - in concert and, even more, on lp, was unique and stood up as a testimony to both the entity of the band Skull Defekts and to the vocal/lyrical/ shamanic contributions of Daniel Higgs.

PS.  Those who dared to look, saw a scantily-clad dude in a white tank-top and brown fedora breakdancing the shit out of the 'mosh pit', replete with some boss hat-brim swipes and wind-up robot moves.  At first, I admit I scoffed at his moves, but by the end of the evening, he was poppin' and lockin' in a way that I haven't seen since I was 17...color me jealous...