All photos: Ryan Kelly
From Colin’s last review of Kishi: As the old saying goes, never bury the violin virtuoso who seamlessly creates intricately layered music by seamlessly looping himself throughout songs better than anyone you’ll ever see. The last bit’s slightly hyperbolic, I’ve only ever seen a handful of solo ‘loopers’ but Kishi Bashi does so in a way that makes you think he’s pulling off the musical equivalent of “Man on Wire” before your ears.
Looping can be a bit tedious if done slowly. It’s difficult. Performing this way is like putting together a living being (not a human but maybe a mouse or some other small critter) by skeleton, flesh, then endocrines and nerves and blood in a sequence of minutes. Or less graphically, building blocks of sound one at a time. Bashi does this at times with the speed and subtlety of a hummingbird. He slaps together loops so seamlessly you almost miss the movement between played notes and looped, he incorporates quick bursts as sudden and brief as a supernova. He does so with enviably precise technique, but warmth as well, even when deconstructing a carefully yet quickly convoked song. This is hard to appreciate on his studio recordings; check him out live, or in the absence of doing so this video of his complete performance at the Hamilton. You would not expect a voice that ranges as powerfully as his from a violinist, not an instrument who many sing so well and play, but he seems to reach into another dimension for his falsetto. And no, drugs did not contribute to the composition of that description.
Round House Theatre Bethesda
The smash hit comedy about romantic errors and bad manners
When Suzanna sets up her best friend Max on a blind date with her husband’s co-worker Becky Shaw, she puts into motion a series of cataclysmic events that forever change all of their lives. Like the Victorian upstart Becky Sharp, this modern Becky is unsure, overdressed and socially ambitious. But she’s no shrinking violet, as the silkily cynical Max soon learns.
A Pulitzer Prize finalist and an Off-Broadway hit, Becky Shaw is a savvy, sharp comedy of romantic errors that keeps audiences on the edge of their seats guessing what will happen next.
I just wish everyone in the audience would’ve shut up a bit so we could actually hear the music.
I agree — what a pain in the ass. The entire back half of the audience was apparently just there to hit on hipsters and not actually listen to the music.
where have I seen that Banjo player before???
/talking some shit, as requested