clogs, olof arnalds, julianna barwick

25Mar10

Everything about last night’s Clogs show at The Bell House in Brooklyn was beautiful. The band (The National‘s Bryce Dessner and Padma Newsome, plus Rachael Elliott and Thomas Kozumplik) was joined by a handful of guest musicians to play tracks from their recently released LP The Creatures In The Garden of Lady Walton, some of the best being “Cocodrillo,” “On the Edge” and “Adages of Cleansing.” Shara Worden (aka My Brightest Diamond), who sings on Creatures, also contributed vocals to this set. Worden is captivating in any capacity, but last night she was in full-on opera-singer mode and holy wow did she sound incredible, as did Newsome’s soothing falsetto. Sufjan Stevens also took part, playing banjo and singing on “We Were Here.” But even with all the indie rock royalty on stage, it was very much a classical show and you’d only guess they all play in rock bands by looking at the audience.

Before them, eMusic Selects alum Julianna Barwick and the lovely Olof Arnalds started the night off. Barwick took her time layering so many different sounds and melodies that by the end it was impossible to keep track of what she was adding to it and what was already in the mix. Her music also made me want to fall asleep (in a good way). Arnalds’s set was beautiful and crowd banter charming (she dedicated one song to a friend who provided food for artists, and another to her son, who she hadn’t seen in 10 days); her songs are delicate and mostly sung in Icelandic, backed by finger-picked guitar. Even though I couldn’t understand any of her lyrics, I was won over pretty quickly.

Julianna Barwick