RIFF MARKET

Koushik + And The Lefthanded
Mercury Lounge
April 3

Download: And The Lefthanded's "Disturbing You"

Funny when people get competitive about people dying--how close they were, how much the death's like totally fucking with them man, how it's the 9/11 of deaths (never forget) or the Total Recall of dudes dying (i.e. there is a guy in another guy's stomach who reminds you your dudes died), etc. Koushik had his Dilla Dilla shirt on last night. He yanked at it, pointed to it a bunch just so you know where his heart's at, during what was effectively an amped-up Jay Dee Dee-Jay tribute set: Slum's "You Know What Love Is," D'Angelo's "Devil's Pie," some Manfred Mann and jazz breaks and space is the place mashups in the mean. Scarce to begin with, people anxiously kept to the sides of the room, as if we might all start holding hands and kumbaya and maybe a hologram of Jay Dee might spring up and start breakdancing.

Take it two ways: Koushik's is music that pushes focus out the middle to the details, wallpaper for lovemaking since it doesn't distract from the matter at/on/in hand. That, or it's so coma-inducing the Merc's side bartender actually went out to the sides of the room and brought people their beers. Koushik went several minutes past his allotted, possibly on some 'Jay Dee will live on forever!" shit; the soundman told him to stop.

Vacate the middle, move ears from the song to the sound to the mood--from Koushik's lounge-hop to Finnish trio And the Lefthanded's kraut, an easy enough jump. The band's been around forever as Larry and the Lefthanded, but guitarist Larry quit, so q.e.d.. Lazy fuzz ballad "Love Me Now" sounds more Cosmic Jokers to me than Black Rebel Motorcycle Club--lead singer Timo Kaukolampi's screamed whisper has the same shaky English affections of 'down-townnnn'--but I can see people confusing the two. "Yin & Yang" makes a good case for ATL as 'Harmonia does Pop' or kraut-pop or motorik surf, cheery, borderline goofy synth melodies over grave propulsive drones, but can't say that about "Rocket Rock"--barely a Clinic c-side (so, a Neu! j- or k-side). Kaukolampi worked a bunch with Norway's Annie on Anniemal, so no surprise to hear strains of her squiggly "Wedding" in his "Two Masters"--on record something like Ben Folds Plays the Future, but live so so so much better, the noble piano switched out for synths and fun.

So maybe ATL's a formula of sorts--take kraut, straighten the hair, cut the Tim Leary bullshit--but so is the equation I use when I want to graph quadratics or synthesize water, and I synthesize a shitload of water anymore. The band played their best cut second-to-last; it may have been called "Walking on Mirror" but it's the one with the ripped "Taxman" bassline and "96 Tears" Vox sounds regardless, a centerless jam left soft-focus by morning fog, and I could have listened immer und immer wieder.