August 9, 2013

Friday night live at Transistor: Rows of Arrows and Protman. Sound by Jon Monteverde.

Rows of Arrows is a Chicago Americana outfit with at least one person singing with a guitar. Their debut EP was released at the end of 2011; it's called "Salt" and you can listen to it here. Recorded by Corey McCafferty and mixed by Brian Deck at Engine Studios, the five songs on the EP are nothing but the most barest bones of the story, the voice and the smoke, and the people who are in it. And some of them, every chance they get, go looking for the others: they wait and whisper at the ends, they watch the neighborhood and listen for danger.

This was a Rows of Arrows solo set by Konstantin Jace.

Also available: a Rows of Arrows Transistor performance from December 7, 2012.

Joe Hahn's Protman project is an energetic (and sometimes bizarre) composite of all manner of electro, lo-fi videogame sound effects, analog synthesizers and club music. Recording since the 1990s and a founding member of the K-Rad collective, he continues to be a prolific solo artist, having released five full-length albums since 2007. Protman experiments with alternative input devices; you're more likely to see him performing live with a vintage Nintendo controller than a standard midi keyboard. He manages the international 'Iron Chef of Music' events, in which competitors produce entire tracks based on a single surprise sample. He is a noted circuit-bending artist, which means that he forces machines to make sounds beyond their original design. All of this translates into a unique, unpredictable live set with heavy beats, squelchy bass and irresistible personality.

Visit Protman's website.