New Age Doom drummer Eric Breitenbach is a busy guy, working prodigiously with multiple projects and running a recording studio/venue in Vancouver, where the duo is from. Fresh from a couple of Ontario gigs with Limblifter, including a show at Neat Cafe on Sunday night, he decided to use Ottawa as a starting point for the New Age Doom Ontario/Quebec tour, alongside local act Reaching Needles, and Fuzzed Out, the solo project of Sloan’s Patrick Pentland.
Reaching Needles, an Ottawa experimental/noise act got things started – creating a wall of sound, twisting knobs and dials to create a complex soundscape, evoking a sense of tension and unease.
Patrick Pentland was up next, performing solo for the first time. He’s been doing some recent shows as Fuzzed Out, which is separate from his work with Canadian icons, Sloan, but last night he decided to just do a series of Sloan songs that he wrote, with just vocals and guitar – a unique opportunity for the Sloan fans in the crowd. His set was fluid and off the cuff, asking the crowd for requests, and giving some explanation behind how some songs evolved over time. As a longtime Sloan fan, it was great to hear stripped down versions of Losing California, Scratch The Surface, and 500 Up.
New Age Doom’s set started with the other half of the duo, Greg Valou, alone on stage with guitar, coaxing out various sounds using a cello bow and various effects before being joined by Breitenbach behind the drums. What followed was a set of barely controlled chaos – music that is hard to define, but powerful and intense. Multi-instrumentalist Valou also made use of a unique guitar-like instrument, which appeared to be a mini-harp, bass/guitar, fretted/fretless hybrid, all at once, while Breitenbach drummed with a ferocity that has to be seen live to be appreciated. The band has been productive over the last few years, putting out a number of releases, including the critically acclaimed 2021 release “Lee “Scratch” Perry’s Guide to the Universe” which featured the dub legend, prior to his passing later that year. New Age Doom’s set brought in elements of dub, post-rock and world music flavours, and one of the highlights was a recently released track called There Is No End, featuring Norwegian vocalist Tuva Hellum Marschhäuser of Tuvaband, whose voice was provided via samples to add to the live performance of the track last night, adding yet another dimension to the dramatic layers of sound.
New Age Doom’s east coast tour continues with dates in Montreal, London, Toronto and Chatham. Tour date ticket details as well as many options for vinyl and other merch are available at www.newagedoom.com.
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