WC Plays It Cool

The shoegazer band, Wooderd Chiarie recently played a show at Shibuya O-nest this past Friday. The band was promoting their latest album, Symbolic Elephant which was just released two weeks ago. If you haven’t gotten the album already, you’re missing out. For those still on the fence, read this live report of the concert and see if it’s something you’d be into.

Wooderd Chiarie opened with the drummer laying down the beats to absolutely no introduction. Suddenly out of nowhere the vocalist chimed in and the crimson lights illuminated the stage to reveal the band. Wooderd Chiarie’s members were all wearing worn down T-shirts and seldom acknowledged the audience was a few feet in front of them. The band’s spacy music matched with their static staring at the ground in front of them. After seeing them perform there is no doubt that this is a shoegazing band.

The second song, sputnika from Symbolic Elephant extensively used reverb followed by a wave of arpeggios. By the second song the members started to dance and move around the stage, albeit with their eyes closed. The lead guitarist was playing the melody which was an assortment of lengthy glacial paced solos.

Then the band took us to Brazil, well actually just their song Brazil but it certainly felt like it could have been Brazil. With this songs upbeat rhythm the audience started to dance. The vocalist used lots of vibrato by shaking his head from side to side throughout the song. This created the effect of fading and rising in intensity.

The fourth song of the night was the last song from their album, Symbolic Elephant entitled “Living no Zou” which is translated as living statue. I’m not sure if this song was meant to describe their stage presence when they first appeared on stage but this song significantly contrasted from all the previous songs and was the best song of the night. There were meditative drum rhythms, sixteenth notes played by both guitars to create a tonal effect that was quiet and subdued. This song was very minimal with faders used frequently. This was a mood setting sound.

The fifth song was musth which was fairly heavy and used lots of chords. With rockish and aggressive baselines, the audience really started dancing. It isn’t clear how it was done but certain parts sounded like there must have been strings playing with th eband. Great Stuff! The ascending climax was true beauty, an orgasm of sounds colliding into each other. Sounded very much like Mars Volta with feedback from the guitars at the very end shattering the continuity of the song.

The last song blue was much softer and was a good closing song to finish off the night. Despite the level of complexity in every song they sounded great and well played. Even the most chaotic parts were beautifully orchestrated. The band departed with a few bows followed by a quick departure. While this band may lack things to talk about, they get their point across with their music just fine. To hear some of the songs described in this live report, check out the samples to their new album Symbolic Elephant.