Jon Brion
Largo; Los Angeles, CA

Jon Brion’s long running monthly show at Largo in many ways has become a major pilgrimage/rite of passage for fans of the songwriter/composer. Despite Brion’s widespread success writing more classically minded film music and the fervent cultish love that surrounds his lone solo album, 2001’s Meaningless, the dude rarely promotes himself as a solo performer. As a result, his decadeslong residency at Largo has become a near tourist attraction of sorts. Dedicated lovers of sophisticated pop flock from all over to see Brion take the stage and (as he humbly put it that night) “disappear up his own ass” for a few hours.

Despite having lived in Los Angeles for almost a year, this was my first experience seeing Brion live. My expectations were pretty high considering the mythos surrounding the composer’s Largo gigs. There’s always talk of someone like Fiona Apple showing up or the chance that Brion will tackle some completely outrageous cover (a lot of the show involves audience requests). Luckily, I walked away from the experience feeling extremely satiated even though some of my concert going peers did not.

When Brion took the stage, he mentioned that he hadn’t the slightest notion what he was going to play so he sat down in the midst of an elaborate keyboard setup that consisted of a mellotron, a toy piano, a few synths, a modified upright piano, and several mixers. For the first several minutes of the show, Brion created one of the most beautiful drones I’ve ever heard out of warbly, lush Mellotron chords and a sine-tone-y synth bass. Somehow, this turned into a slow, dreamy cover of the pop standard “Everything Happens to Me,” and all of a sudden my dreams of vaudevillian pop, shoegaze, and drone combining into a singular genre seemed totally tangible. Brion played a few other brief tunes including a fascinating solo piano piece before taking requests. It became apparent this audience contained its share of Brion diehards when the crowd started shouting for tunes from Meaningless and soundtrack one-off’s before yelling for covers. As a result, Brion played a ton of his own pop tunes, which he typically tackled in an extremely stripped-down fashion, as opposed to the repeatedly looped versions he’s been known for in the past.

After acknowledging a few initial requests, it was clear Brion wanted to pursue his own muse. He unveiled a work in progress that has much more in common with the experimental music world and the sampling notions of vaporwave and John Oswald than both the pop and soundtrack work he’s known for. Brion had two projector screens setup and a device that (using some sort of Max/MSP or Jitter patch I’d imagine) would loop, tune, and change the speed/pitch of found video clips in real time. On top of these time stretched/processed videos, Brion began structuring one of the best pieces of fractured pop music I’ve ever heard. It was impossible to tell if it was an old, obscure Brion number, a cover, or (hopefully) a new work, but the way the warped video/audio blended with Brion’s live instrumentation and plaintive vocals hinted at a new world of possibilities for the marriage of true plunderphonics and traditional pop song craft. Brion would go on to employ this new video processing instrument of his on a spirited cover of David Bowie’s “Moonage Daydream” and a wonderfully dissonant/cathartic version of his own “Same Thing” that closed the set (on the latter, the processed video became an impossible soloing tool of sorts).

Throughout the evening, Brion frequently joked about it being “one of those days” and his lack of an ability to play “upbeat” material. While the selections from his discography hinted at a possible underlying personal melancholy permeating the set, a sing-along cover of “Bohemian Rhapsody,” and a truly remarkable interpretation of a Les Paul tune more than made up for the perceived imbalance. However, upon leaving the venue I overheard several audience members complaining about the dourness of Brion’s set. I found this shocking. Even Meaningless’ sunniest moments barely mask the pain, self-loathing, and paranoia hidden beneath the songs’ sugary surfaces. One of the mystical things about Brion’s live set was how the stripped-down versions of his songs, along with the additive chaos of his looped pieces, highlighted the emotions underneath in the same way. The combination of the wistful with the instrumental shimmer of Brion’s arrangements is what makes his records so endlessly listenable, but it’s equally thrilling to watch the composer alternately strip it all away and pile it up live. Perhaps, this different vision of Brion’s aesthetic is why his live shows are so legendary. All I know is I’m not going to wait nine months to experience one again.

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