Drab Majesty Casts Its Spell at Exit/In

“It kind of demystifies a city to see how many weirdos come out in black,” said Alex Nicolaou, standing at the merch table inside Exit/In Sunday night, waiting for his sweat to dry completely. Nicolau is better known as Mona D, the keyboardist half of Los Angeles synth-pop duo Drab Majesty, which had just wrapped its third show at the venerable venue. The stage costumes worn by Mona D and his colleague Deb Demure (aka guitarist Andrew Clinco, who started the band as a solo project) make them look like Greek marble statues draped in iridescent garments — the kind of duds you might expect to be worn by dignitaries of an alien race on Star Trek. Nicolau seemed genuinely humbled by the outpouring of Drab Majesty fans and the connection they appear to feel with the band. “There’s a strong freak scene here,” he added with a smile. 

Sunday was definitely a night for music with a theatrical bent in Music City. On the west bank of the Cumberland, Kyle Gass and Jack Black were headlining at Ascend Amphitheater as falsetto-endowed comedy-rockers Tenacious D, while king of rock ’n’ roll stage theatrics Alice Cooper held court at the Grand Ole Opry House. Over on the Rock Block, a particular strain of fans (some of whom sported their own eye-catching costumes) congregated for a night of warm, dark, pulsing melancholy delights. 

As I approached the venue, the silence of the humid night was broken by a bell tolling nine times in a nearby tower. Once I opened the door of Exit/In, a throbbing drone coming from the darkened stage heralded the arrival of Body of Light. Brothers Alex and Andrew Jarson have been making music as Body of Light since 2012. The Arizona electro duo (not to be confused with the currently inactive Nashville band of the same name) has cultivated an ’80s club-music sound that has as much in common with The Pet Shop Boys and Erasure as it does with artists like Bauhaus, who might come to mind first when you hear the word “goth.” The Jarsons’ music is a mixed bag of synthesized violins and arpeggio keyboard effects, all backed by buoyant Kraftwerk-esque beats. 

Whatever levity Body of Light brought to the stage came grinding to a halt when Chicago’s HIDE got their turn. The duo of visual artist Heather Gabel and noise musician Seth Sher creates a harsh industrial sonic wasteland. HIDE’s set was a barrage of hard-pumping soulless distortion that would be a point of pride for industrial legends Throbbing Gristle or power electronics progenitors Whitehouse. It was hard to make out Gabel at all through the haze of dark fog and flashing strobes, but it was clear she was there from the corrosive chants bursting from her throat. Her dismal howls were matched with Sher’s leviathan beats, like a giant prehistoric beast stomping across the land. 

Perhaps the most memorable moment of HIDE's set came between songs, when Gabel called Nashville out. She pointed out that the nine photos prominently displayed on the venue’s walls near the ceiling were all of male musicians, and noted how many of them are associated with casual racism and sexism in their music. Late rock legend Chuck Berry got the most intense criticism: Gabel recounted Berry’s long history of mistreatment of women, most famously involving videotaping women in the restroom of his St. Louis restaurant. The righteous fury seemed to propel Gabel through HIDE’s final song. 

Bringing the show full circle, the final act in the trio of duos took the stage. Filtering the lights shining from above, fog from the fog machines cloaked the stage in dense pinks and purples. The aforementioned freak scene was primed and ready for the headliners. Mona D and Deb Demure were happy to oblige, and from the first Chameleons-esque chord, the whole room belonged to them. 

Drab Majesty has mastered the art of having fun with desolate gloom. On the surface, the pair is nearly blank. Their emotionless faces bore smoothed-out features that might as well be masks, and they moved between songs from their recent LP Modern Mirror without so much as a word. Even so, there was an air of reverence that seemed to go both ways. The crowd danced, hands raised, and occasionally broke the silence that some acts might have filled with banter with shouts of “I love you!” Demure occasionally acknowledged the fans with silent gestures that seemed to carry more weight than you’d expect from a slight wave of the hand. It felt like everyone was in agreement that what was happening was a sacred, ancient ritual of synth pop performed by great masters. All of this came to a head when Demure began to strum the opening chords of the Modern Mirror-ending “Out of Sequence,” which led to a bum rush of dancers center stage. The icy dance beats broke down any shred of resistance that might have existed in the crowd — the whole show seemed to focus on this congregation of sound and color and light. 

At the merch table, Nicolaou pointed out that the band gets a similar response wherever they go. It seems clear that this in-person connection is a big part of what drives the group. Their records are great, but these remarkably ceremonial shows — and the connections they cultivate among fans — have become integral to Drab Majesty. It sets them apart from an increasingly crowded field in synth pop, and from the typical experience of enjoying a band.

See our slideshow for more photos.