On a recent day in September, music fans everywhere reacted to the news that R.E.M. had decided to break up. However, the same day a much less famous band, but perhaps one that still had a bit more potential for future growth, also announced that it was calling it a day. The breakup of the wonderful, inventive Baltimore quartet Ponytail was not exactly a shock — in fact their split had been preceded by a lack of touring and lots of speculation about the band’s status — but it was still sad to hear. But the band left behind one last album, Do Whatever You Want All The Time, released earlier this year before calling it quits, and it’s a worthy addition to their legacy.

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Dustin Wong’s performance at the August 12th microshow was one of the most engaging we’ve seen. Known primarily for his role in Ponytail, he’s been gaining momentum as a solo artist and Thursday’s set was a testament to his massive skills as a composer and guitarist. His solo music is a study in patterns and signal theory. His methodology is formulaic, almost mathematical, but the result is anything but expected. He builds each song or sequence by layering simple melodies and rhythms, adding one layer, looping it through his corral of pedals, then adding another. He repeats and tweaks until it reaches a swaying, hypnotic, yet thoroughly musical, cacophony. Then he abruptly stops and immediately enters into a new, suddenly quiet and uncluttered, layer. Before you realize he’s ended one song, he’s off into a new sequence.

The approach itself isn’t entirely novel. His real genius lies in his ability to edit, to pick through a seemingly infinite combination of variables, and to write and combine numerous songlets without ever sounding redundant or trite. His music draws at times from Philip Glass and Raymond Scott and hints at subtle Japanese Gagaku themes in the layering. Download the tracks from the show and we think you’ll be amazed as we were that all this came from one dude and a guitar.

Techincal info: U87/SM57 on front cab (1176), Sennheiser 441 on rear, AT PZMs for room.

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Last month Mobtown and The Windup Space produced a week-long festival that highlighted (mostly) Baltimore instrumental bands. The festival was called NOVO (ie. No Vocals).

Russell (Windup’s owner and a generally swell guy who also makes a mean Jim and Coke) curated the shows (with a little help from us) and I recorded and mixed every night with Alex, with the plan to release the tracks on Aural States as an extension of the festival.

Some of the bands included Nathan Bell (Human Bell, Lungfish) featuring Ami Dang, Microkingdom, Jason Urick (WZT Hearts), Expanding Man, Yeveto, Insect Factory, Notendo, We Used To Be Family, JDay, Dustin Wong (Ponytail), The Water and members of the Out Of Your Head collective.

We had an awesome turnout and we’re already in the planning stages for 2011. Props to David at TeamAdelle for all the hard work on the visuals and design and Tedd Henn from HennPict for the wonderful photography. Here are some audio samples of my favorite performances. You can stream and download the entire festival over at Aural States.

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Rapdragons is an incredibly cool rap group here in Baltimore. They pick stellar samples, their rhymes are infectious, they don’t take themselves too seriously, and they simply know how to have a good time.

Their forthcoming record “Featuring Baltimore” samples a ton of Baltimore bands, including: Weekends, The Agrarians, The Art Department, Mr. Moccasin, Lo Moda to name a few. It’s an interesting concept and this is a record to look out for. You gotta dig the Baltimore love.

For their microshow, Greg and Nick had the idea to, instead of using a sampler, bring in the people who performed the samples originally to play live on top of the beats. Jeff and Cory from Secret Mountains, Dustin Wong from Ponytail, Aran K from AK Slaughter and Sam from Future Islands are a few of the guests.

This set was perfect for our first spring-ish microshow. We know you’ll enjoy this set as much as we all did last night.

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