Café DuNord August 14, 2004 Imagining Things? by Andre Perry Soft noises. Distant clouds. Blurry spaces in the back of your mind.Fall into a dream and let Audio Out Send play the soundtrack. Thismellow dream-rock quartet from Oakland, California has a specialtalent for putting their audience in a pleasant placewithout puttingthem to sleep. They take their sound from any number of spacey influences; ”Pink Floyd, Grandaddy, Sigur Rós but what they create is quite unique. They have designed a sound that breathes out the fumesof urban living and also blesses the big-sky sepia tones of the countryside. One of their songs may begin with nice country-rockguitar strumming while ending with a sweep of sampled sound effectsand overdriven electric piano chords. On this Saturday night, at Café Du Nord, they are opening up for dios and Sensations. I show up at the club just minutes before the band begins. I grab a drink and head to the front of the crowd. It's amostly silent audience but no one come across as stuffy or stuck-up. Everyone seems snuggly eager to hear some music. The set proves to be a quiet one, even for Audio Out Send. Through steadily paced songs, they keep the audience calmly transfixed with the music. Heads andbodies sway back and forth, keeping time with the pulse of the kickdrum. While the band released a record late last year ('Does It Explode?') many of the songs are brand new. And the new songs arequite good. Most of them begin with quiet vocals and subduedinstrumentation. As the songs move foreword, drums, bass, and keyboards slowly work their way onto the canvas to help create richlycolored soundscapes. Some of the tunes are more rock-heavy thanothers but as a rule the band swings through their set like a handfulof Vicodin. They close their show with a comedown song called "Oakland Seas," which begins with holiday season sleigh bells and ends with a lonely guitar right back where they began. They smile and say goodnight. The audience quietly claps. One member of the crowd energetically shouts, "You guys are great!" I finish my drink and consider sticking around for the headliner, dios. Yet, I feel my night has already beenfilled with good sounds and songs. My mind has been put at ease andmaybe it's time to hit up a party. It occurs to me that while somedream-rock and shoe-gazer bands send their fans into dull comas,others put them in a beautiful and welcome trance. Audio Out Send is one of those bands in the latter category. |