I'm expecting an answer from a certain rolled food on this one, but who is Black Dice, and why the fuck do I care?
Black Dice is a 3 piece band from New York city. I can only describe their music as "experimental"; as they like to experiment with processing the shit out of sounds through arrays of effects pedals. They have described their influences as coming more from overstimulating visual sources rather than audio, such as television and film. And drugs. They formed at the Rhode Island School of Design in the late '90's as a full-on thrash band with drums, among the likes of noise-rock bands such as Lightning Bolt, but have evolved into more digital beat focused soundscapes with heavy use of experimental guitar. I cannot stress how much I love unconventional sounding experimental guitar.
Why the fuck do you care? If you enjoy Animal Collective, especially the instrumentation, you should care. AC's entire approach and instrument setup was directly influenced by Black Dice more than any other band. A Black Dice show flows much like an Animal Collective show, except they don't write lyrics or sing vocal harmonies. They toured with Animal Collective for Merriweather Post Pavilion, and if you liked ODDSAC, the guy who made that movie with AC tours with Black Dice and runs all of their visuals. Danny Perez: he is awesome.
My personal favorite Black Dice record is Creature Comforts from 2004, because the guitar work is at it's most prominent. However, their new one Mr. Impossible is probably the most "accessible". Everything in between is amazing.
Here's a video from Mr. Impossible (may cause seizures):
Here's another one (still may cause seizures):
Here's an older one (seizures):
As you all probably know, I was lucky enough to finally get to see them after 10 years of being a super-fan, and they put on the best show I've ever seen. I can honestly say that I enjoyed my first Black Dice concert experience even more than seeing Bjork at the Gorge at Sasquatch, and I never thought I would say that about anything.
I'm sad we missed that show. Hopefully they will be back.
It was pretty interesting seeing the contrast between both shows. The Seattle show was intimate and perfect; the only "mistake" being the power blowing out near the end of 'Pigs', but that just meant we got to hear Pigs again from the top. The Portland show, I can only imagine, would be considered by the band to be one of the worst shows they've ever played. 2 out of 3 members were having serious technical difficulties, to the point where they were just chugging beers and sweating profusely on stage. The third member (Eric, who I swear looks like ET when he plays with his eyes closed) managed to carry the rhythm throughout all of this, and it ended up coming off as more of an improvised set with many extended measures, which I always love. You know you're a super-fan when the band has the worst time and you have the best time.
I forgot to mention this when explaining why the fuck you should care about Black Dice in relation to Animal Collective: Black Dice's most active member (Eric Copeland) recorded 3 albums with Avey Tare around 2004-2005 under the name Terrestrial Tones. Dead Drunk is one of these albums, and it is a masterpiece that all fans of Animal Collective should listen to immediately.
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