Tapis Bleu At The ½ Lounge Sunday June 7, 2009

Words by Tim Lewis.

After shows for the past two days I was looking foreword to a day off. I had a pretty lazy Sunday and contemplated not going, but as the hour drew near the siren called and I slipped into the black and headed downtown.

One drink. I’ll just go and have one drink. That won’t take too much time or resources, and Sean and Caroline’s project is so easy to listen to. That will be easy enough, right?

I arrived at the fairly full ½ Lounge a little after the 7:30 published start time and they were onstage getting set up. I grabbed a drink and a seat at the end of the bar. After a bit Sean came up and asked if I could give them advice on how it sounded after they played a warm up song. Tapis Bleu began building the drone with Caroline playing a note and Sean recording it, then she plays another and another and Sean records them all into loops, which he mixes into a drone. Once established he begins playing the drum and she takes off on sax and the song is under way. The first song was pretty cool, as are all of them, but a bit loud even for me in the tiny bar. I told them so and they took it down from blisteringly loud to deliciously loud.

I sipped my drink really slow as song after song entered this cool flow of music. The sound is warm and friendly and intoxicating. The drone drifts and sparkles. The hand drum keeps a steady cohesiveness to the songs. Caroline uses the sax to define the songs and melodies. She adds the final piece of structure while driving the songs through the ocean of sound. It’s very easy to loose yourself in a world of contemplation at a Tapis Bleu show.

And that’s completely where I was for the show. My mind was adrift as the sound wrapped itself around me and filled me with a buzzing sensation. It was a delightful place to be.

While the enchanted part of my mind was enjoying it the most, the rational part got some attention as well. It was interesting to watch the evolution of this band. They have become more song oriented in the last few shows but tonight it seemed they had taken another step. There were times when Sean would pull a single part out of the drone while keeping the rest of it going and Caroline would duet with herself before Sean mixed it back in and she went off in another direction. The show is cool as hell and only getting better.

After a couple of minutes or hours I finished my drink and got another. Shortly after that they played one more and took a 5-minute break. I chatted with Kevin from Lendway for a while. They will be playing Saturday at the Monkey House with Alice Austin (with a full band, woo hoo) and Tapis Bleu. Apparently they will be releasing a new ep soon. Yea.

When Tapis returned to the stage they had two more left. The spell returned and the next few minutes regained the previous sonic bliss. It was wonderful and when they finished I was full. I skipped out the door with a quick goodbye and headed for home with a very happy and content feeling in my mind.

This post was originally published by Tim Lewis at his personal blog, https://timstriangletribune.wordpress.com.