Drkmttr's Return Is a Beautiful Thing

"The Spin spent Saturday evening at Drkmttr" feels great to say. It was our first time back at one of Nashville's dedicated DIY venues since they all shut down in December following the increase in safety concerns that came after the tragic fire at Oakland, Calif.'s Ghost Ship. After months of working with Metro codes, the fire marshal's office and other city entities — plus many volunteer hours and donated dollars, something that's also going to be needed at beloved East Side spot Queen Ave — the noticeable differences, as compared to times we've visited the former barbershop just north of Charlotte Avenue weren't huge, but they were significant. The stage moved from the corner of the main room to a side wall, promoting good traffic flow to doors on either side in case of an emergency; the door that faces the street had a crash bar fitted; a small ramp and some rails in the bathroom helped with ADA compliance; and a prominently displayed permit certified that 100 people could occupy the room.

What hasn't changed is just as important. Throughout the afternoon's grand reopening barbecue and the nighttime show that followed, folks (mostly young ones) were meeting up, getting to know each other, sharing ideas and sharing art in a space dedicated to celebrating differences. The close-to-capacity crowd hanging out in the afternoon dwindled to 20 or so people who watched the final set of the night, but that didn't stop the venue from performing its most important function — bringing folks together. We overheard two local folks talking with a touring artist about collaborating. We chatted with one person who'd recently moved to town and came to the show seeking music from outside the mainstream — the look of glee on his face at the end of the evening was a clear sign that Drkmttr was firing on all cylinders.

When we rolled up around 6 p.m., the sun was shining, the breeze was blowing and burgers and hotdogs were on the grill. We cruised around the backyard where clusters of people — some we recognized and plenty we didn't — chatted and played with a sweet dog named Basil, while artist Daniel Lane put the finishing touches on some enormous canvases he'd been painting on all afternoon. Friends and family of Tyler Golden (one of the venue's numerous co-caretakers) dropped by to wish his daughter a happy seventh birthday. At the sound of feedback, we piled inside to catch a short and sweet set of surf-tinged hardcore-leaning punk from Negra. It felt pretty appropriate for the room to be lit mostly by the glow from a cigarette vending machine with a 1985 tax stamp and a hand-written sign reading "Soon to be a Zine Machine."

We took a ride down the block to have a beer and collect our thoughts, and came back around 9 p.m. to join the crowd pregaming for the night's slate of solo electronic performers. After a few minutes of griping with strangers about the city's mass transit, as one does, we poked our heads inside to find that Jess Chambers had already started her set as Dream LVR. Bathed in slow, swirling patterns of cool colors by the Labrys Light Show crew, she coaxed her imposing nest of gear into playing gentle ballads and dreamy dance pieces, to which she added layers of diaphanous vocals. Cocteau Twins' Elizabeth Fraser is a clear point of reference, but Chambers has a special way of conveying a fairy-tale quality along with the sense of weightlessness offered by her voice.

Atlanta's Sequoyah Murray was our favorite discovery of the night. Two things set his work apart from most of his contemporaries that we've heard: First, his compositions play with a kaleidoscopic array of rhythms and textures from different jazz traditions and Afro-Cuban music. Second, he's a man of a thousand voices, with outstanding ability in bass, baritone and tenor ranges, and not unlike the late, great Prince, he can voice a whole cast of characters in a single song. Within a few minutes of taking the stage, Sequoyah turned the room into a Brazilian space disco. His debut album True Fun is a great introduction, but his ideas have already evolved even further.

Sequoyah's tourmate Pamela_ and her sons, aka multimedia artist Alessandra Hoshor, made a fascinating counterpoint. Their set began with a sample of their voice that they slowly built into a menacing microtonal tangle using keyboards and effects. After a short while, that melted into a hum, which crystallized into icy dance beats that got faster and faster. In some of the later pieces (many of which you can hear on their new record Hurt Plaza), we picked up sounds that reminded us of ’90s video game soundtracks, but molded into an entirely new, ominous context. If there's a story arc in a future season of Bob's Burgers where Gene Belcher discovers The Residents — and we really, really hope there is — we humbly submit that Pamela_ and her sons should be the first call seeking someone to write the music. The thunderous applause at the end of the set inspired Pamela_ to call up Sequoyah for an unplanned encore, featuring a song they'd written together the day before. 

Ann Catherine Carter closed out the night with a set from her project Lambda Celsius, aka Λ°C. The project is in constant evolution: A couple years back, when it was still called Lavender, the sound was composed noise with elements of funk, which took on influences from dream-pop over time, and the songs that have emerged continue to focus on alienation. We got to see the latest incarnation, which features insistent, spare beats and aggressive synths overdriven to the point that they sound distressed — a Terminator stripped of its fake skin. We interpreted that as being related to what Carter does in her visual art, in which she bends manufactured shapes into something more organic. To be honest, we kept wanting the songs to speed up. But this was work in progress, and if any place is the right one to share something you're working on, it's at Drkmttr.

In The Spin — the Scene’s live-review column — staffers and freelance contributors review concerts under a collective byline.