The Spin ducked into East Nashville multi-use performance space Soft Junk Saturday night, and it felt good to get inside on a dark, rainy evening in Music City. We were there to see New Material II: A Variety Show, a new work by former Nashvillian Ann Catherine Carter, who has made a huge mark as a visual artist and an avant-garde musician. Among an impressive number of other genre-spanning accomplishments, Carter has created compelling music under the name Lambda Celsius.
A recent move to Athens, Ga., to pursue a master’s degree in sculpture has seen the multitalented artist gaining notice for releasing well-crafted minimalist synth music, like this year’s track “R&R,” a tough-minded examination of the corrosive effects of social and gender hierarchies. Carter was a co-curator at Nashville gallery The Packing Plant — the building still bears the name, and it’s home to several galleries and studios — and under the Lambda Celsius moniker released a fine 2017 full-length featuring Nashville DIY pioneer R. Stevie Moore. Carter is a fascinating artist interested in erasing outdated lines of demarcation, and we leaned forward in our seats, ready to experience an evening of boundary-pushing performance.
Ann Catherine Carter as Ana Echo
Introducing the show, Carter performed under the name Ana Echo. “This is the avant-garde of the local DIY scene,” Carter-Echo told the audience. We found Echo’s stage patter refreshing: “This [mic] cable, it’s like a fucking dick,” went one of the host’s bon mots. It was a fitting introduction to a night of disco-funk-synth music that questioned the primacy of gender and the inadequacy of socially determined roles in modern culture.
First up was Nashville synth-pop artist Eve Maret, who performed as DJ.53. We’re fans of Maret's 2018 EP No More Running, a set of nuanced music exploring the relationship between organic and manufactured forms. No More Running is a great example of the post-post-modern state of Nashville electronic music scene, complete with shifting rhythms and beguiling synth textures.
Eve Maret as DJ.53
Wearing a hood and singing in a powerful voice that was often deliberately scrambled and filtered, Maret embodied the character. The synth patterns suggested a fusion of North American R&B and a distinctly European sensibility. We also got off of Maret’s poetry reading. Exploring the effects of male narcissism, the singer created powerful music and even more challenging social commentary.
We noted the interplay between Carter and Maret, which was choice. Mocking the bland pleasantries of Nashville music business interactions, Carter smugly told Maret, “We’ll be in touch. Let’s totally co-write.” In a show devoted to exploding long-held misconceptions about gender, power and the role of the artist in a rapidly evolving society, the performances asserted the need for new power structures.
Internet Boyfriend as EXTRA! EXTRA!
We also dug Nashville rapper Internet Boyfriend’s segment, which demonstrated the skills of a very funny performer who seemed to have no problem connecting with the audience. Playing the character of EXTRA! EXTRA!, Internet Boyfriend, who is also known as Kahlo Mtz, brought the news. Whether making the case for leading a gloriously problematic lifestyle in a tune titled “Problematic,” or describing dead-end relationships in Los Angeles in “L.A. Boy,” EXTRA! EXTRA! helped cement the theme of New Material. Dressed in a mostly transparent plastic outfit and walking through the audience, Extra! sang about the vicissitudes of modern love. “I got a man in Bel-Air / I let him play with my hair,” went the funniest line in “L.A. Boy,” and the crowd whooped and hollered in response.
Sassyopathic as XYXXXO
We thought New Material handled its weighty themes with subtlety and restraint. In some ways, New Material was materially new, but we did detect a certain blurring of the through line during the show. All of the performers were just fine — we admired EXTRA!’s stage moxie, which included standing upon a table and rapping. The character known as XYXXXO, played by drag artist Dévon Jefferally, aka Sassyopathic, dramatized what we thought was a clever rip on soul singer Joe Tex’s 1972 proto-disco hit “I Gotcha.” We also heard some evocative, spooky piano textures in one song. All of the performers, including Crystal Wood, Flesh Eater and Diatom Deli, inhabited a sonic space that seemed both liberatory and evocative.
What the show ultimately lacked, though, was dramatization. The theme came through well enough, but there was almost no exposition, so the show seemed episodic. New Material had plenty of musical smarts, but it didn’t hang together as well as it could have. The message of empowerment was implied in everything the performers did, but we couldn’t detect any interior life in the proceedings. Still, the synth textures were great, and there were moments when we believed in the characters. New Material was, as its creators advertised, a variety show, so we accepted the format’s limitations.
Flesh Eater as The Simulations
Walking out into the rain, we thought New Material, despite its admirable emphasis on radical self-definition, lacked an edge. Internet Boyfriend, who is a rapper of weird potential, was particularly lighthearted, and even the angst of Eve Maret seemed more theatrical than real. There were times during New Material when we got the feeling that struggle was a thing of the past, and that may not have been part of the show’s message, after all.
See our slideshow for more photos.
In The Spin — the Scene's live review column — staffers and freelance contributors review concerts under a collective byline.
