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Diverse trio of bands create strange, fun night at Ante Room

Jaguardini, Voice of Saturn, FLOOM come together for a late night set

<p>FLOOM’s booming power chords to fill the entire venue, enveloping the entire audience.</p>

FLOOM’s booming power chords to fill the entire venue, enveloping the entire audience.

At one of last week’s shows, the musical lineup at the Ante Room in downtown Charlottesville was just plain strange. The relatively small venue featured two opening artists, Voice of Saturn and FLOOM, each playing short personal sets before joining the night’s headliner, Jaguardini, on stage. These three artists cover an extremely wide array of musical sounds and genres, ranging from synth-filled electronica to doom metal and everything in between.

The night began as Voice of Saturn performed a medley of different electronic music featuring a constant thumping bass line, distorted piano synths and a saxophone which blended surprisingly well with the band’s spacey techno sound. The set was accompanied by an ongoing projection of psychedelic images along the back of the stage, creating a wonderfully trippy atmosphere to accompany their grand and, at times, eerie electronica.

Voice of Saturn was followed by Maxx Katz, known for her solo work and role in bands like Miami Nights and Face Made for Radio. Katz was presenting her latest solo project, FLOOM, a one-woman show which blends doom metal and drone with classic flute sounds. Katz’s somewhat improvisational set was built up on chunky electric guitar riffs, intense flute arrangements and occasional bouts of singing. The musician also made heavy use of a set up of recorders which allowed her to play flute or guitar arrangements, record them and set them to loop in the background for the rest of the song. The effect of this was incredible since each song that her set held blossomed out and grew more complex with time once more loops layered in together. Additionally, the shrill sounds of Katz’s flute wonderfully contrasted the deep chunky guitar riffs, leading the unconventional pair of instruments to produce an intense and diverse sound.

Katz stayed onstage to take part in the night’s main event, Jaguardini’s live scoring of the 1920’s German expressionist horror film, “The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari.” Following the smaller opening acts, Jaguardini’s onstage presence was comparatively dense, featuring two guitarists, a drummer, a horn player, Katz on flute and a lead vocalist. The band blended their varied instrumentation together into a haunting, intense sound set firmly within the genre of darkwave, with screeching guitars, distorted instruments and raw, vengeful vocals. The film was projected as the backdrop of the stage, the group’s sound and handcrafted song lyrics matched the tone and thoughts of each scene.

The relatively small size of the Ante Room worked wonders for each act, allowing Voice of Saturn’s pulsing synths and FLOOM’s booming power chords to fill the entire venue, enveloping the entire audience in their respective sounds. However, the shadowy, cramped venue worked the most for Jaguardini, as their eerie aesthetic took control of the room and allowed audience members to become lost in the distorted sounds and images of their live scoring. The night was by no means conventional — each act put forward an original experience, whether through strange instrumental pairings or whacked out visuals, while nonetheless remaining captivating and enjoyable.

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