American Analog Set live The concert took place last Thursday night in the small Dreikönigskeller in Frankfurt-Sachsenhausen. We had been waiting for almost 1 1/2 hours before the support act Don Lennon, a young singer/songwriter from Boston started around ten o'clock. He sang with a pleasant baritone and articulated the words of his often rather trivial lyrics centering on himself, on parties and girls very well. I thought the song in which he repeated his name in three languages was ingenious as it prevented me from forgetting it as it happens so often to me with support acts. His last song Dance Music was outstanding. He finished it without guitar just humming and making other strange noises with his mouth. That reminded me a little of Bobby McFerrin. Around 11 o'clock the five guys of the American Analog Set from Austin, Texas arrived on stage and started tuning their instruments while Murray Street, Sonic Youth's excellent last album was still playing on the stereo. AAS music is almost purely instrumental, the singing is subordinate, soft and rather high, more like a background effect, the lyrics are quite difficult to understand. Though AAS have existed for more than seven years the guitarist/singer seemed to be very young. He was extremely sympathetic and laid-back. Somehow this guy was so sweet that he radiated sunshine. He even apologized for playing a song they had performed six months ago when they had already been at the same venue. His guitar playing technique is rather economical and careful. At the end when his band already had left the stage he asked if there was a drummer in the audience to continue jamming a little. Of course there wasn't. The drummer was the motor of the music. He provided the frame to fit in for the others. His drumming was very focussed, mostly rather energetic, sometimes more restrained. The peculiar thing about him was that he sticked out his tongue while drumming. I can think of the following adjectives concerning the music: hypnotic, addictive, psychedelic, warm, mellow, serene, tender and tuneful. Many songs are rather minimal and repetitive. Some explose in a small crescendo. Besides drums and guitars there was a bass, keyboards and percussion (often xylophone). I had the impression that the keyboards sometimes played the same notes as the xylophone but with a small delay. The effect was like a kind of echo. During the second half of the concert I often closed my eyes to concentrate and enjoy the music better. The musicians did the same. For one song the guitarist used a black box which he stroke over the strings. The resulting sound was very low and full. Almost symphonic. In another song there was only drums and xylophone. I had difficulties to hear the bass. The bass player always turned his back on us. Overall I loved the concert and bought their singles compilation Through the 90s: Singles and Unreleased after. It seems that they have changed their style slightly on the last record. The keyboards which have been dominating on many older singles have been pushed more into the background whereas the drumming has become more prominent. To me this is like a shift from psychedelic (keyboards) to hypnotic (rhythms). On the other hand it could be that this impression is mainly due to the concert where the drums have been louder than on the records.

• Genre: Drone-pop (due to AMG)
• Similar bands: Yo La Tengo, early Stereolab, Luna (for the singing and mood)
• Mp3s: "The Kindness of Strangers"(3.2 MB) and "The Only One" (2.1 MB) from their latest album Know By Heart and "Weather Report" (2.7 MB) from the album The Golden Band.