Wednesday, January 16, 2008

Dan Deacon / Ultimate Reality




I went to the Dan Deacon / Ultimate Reality / H.E.A.L.T.H. / Abe Vigoda show at the El Rey last night and it was really awesome, but the biggest surprise was Ultimate Reality. They were the only band in the show I hadn't heard of before and they completely blew the crowd away. From what I can figure out, they're sort of an extension of Dan Deacon's music, but I can't find any albums under that moniker. I'll try to describe it as best as I can, but it really has to be seen to be believed.

Two drummers sit motionless and expressionless in front of a projection screen while a Deacon created loop plays hypnotically. Text scrolls on the screen, and a guy comes out and does his best to read it as fast as he can, it is a prologue to a nonexistent movie that mashes up the plots of Terminator, Kindergarten Cop, Junior, and some other Schwarzenegger movies. That guy leaves, the loop grows more intense, and suddenly without warning the two drummers break into perfectly synchronous drum activity while behind them distorted images from the various Schwarzenegger movies play in sync with the music. And it never stops, it just keeps building and growing.

Truly amazing stuff. I grabbed this off of Deacon's myspace page, it's some of the visuals from the Ultimate Reality set, so you can get an idea. Don't miss this show!

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