Fig. 3: Love, Volume Closing Reception

Saturday, February 24th 2018

ART/ifact, Lakeland, FL

Like most sensible people, I don’t care much for Valentines Day.  I do however like sharing my birthday with it for a number of reasons, such as when a love-themed art show stretches the fabricated hearts out with a closing reception ten days after the fact, I can feel like it’s still all about me (the real geeky celebration for this year, though, will be June 16th, when I reach 33 ⅓).  And Love, Volume is much more fun than the shite you will encounter if you’re evil enough to regularly shop in an employee-grinding corporate party supply store.  Nothing says romance like looking at an adorably crude stop motion video on an old phone in a mannequin’s bottom.  Reusing is love!  The name of the showing comes from Volume Collective, an ensemble of multi-medium artists based in Lakeland’s relatively new ART/ifact studios.

Combining one VC with another we have Venture Compound alumnus Vallam and musician, featured artist and comic fantasy author Christopher Moore with their debut collaborative performance.  Valentines Vallam creates a gritty noise of urban widescreen undertones for Moore’s moody saxophone, with the occasional strum on some kind of cigar box violin.  The city blues imagery reminds me of a rave-era shadowy electronic track that I can’t place (had a good time listening to Orbital and 808 State trying to figure it out, though).

Is there any more Abstract Machine than the heart?  Ben Holley has the most traditionally romantic aesthetic of the evening, and not only uses minimal machinery but is far from machine-like in his performance.  He organically stitches together what he calls an audio montage of cuts and clips, the only one I picked out being of Al Pacino in Carlito’s Way yammering about all the stitches in the world.  Neat trick. New cuts Ghostwriter and Two Rose Petals are some real ticker-teasing torch songs, with Holley at times sounding like Clive Farrington of late-80s “New” wave band When In Rome.  Seeing as he’s been working longer than they managed to without splitting in half and getting into a legal battle with himself over the Abstract Machine name, he’s arguably had a better career than them.  I was somewhat distracted by people milling about behind him during his set preparing, which seemed a bit uncool, and may have contributed to its relative shortness. That said, there are many artists waiting in the wings.

Flying dog wings, that is.  Sarasota's i_like_dog_face had to drop out today, but she is appropriately replaced by Lakeland’s own Dogs in Reverse.  So that’s what, I Like Dog Arse?  I suppose if you can’t learn to love a dog’s arse, you’re not ready to get one.  Reverse, a.k.a. Dan M, invites us to journey within the dark starfish with this truly Volume-inspired set of experimental drone, aboard a little shrunken spaceship surrounded by laserfire and swirling cameras.  Rocks and toys and whatever else canines eat are tumbling down around my ears. With no offense, I think fondly of my 500 word dog shit defensive (available for the first time here).   I’m not certain, but I think this was a performance of the 24-minute DRELLA, a “gargantuan track sounding the death of the machine,” released in January.

If you’re in the machine smashing business (which would admittedly be rather strange for the techy musicians of this evening), you’ll need fortifications, like castles.  Mark Castle of St. Pete is calling for a dance party.  Evidently the local crafters at Brewhub provided enough free beer to the event organisers to avoid the need for an outdoor drinking Dumpster Party (the name of Castle’s 2016 EP).  Among the mere three songs performed is Legs, a squelchy house-pop number that builds upwards like a nice pair of pins, helped along by Mark’s platform shoes.  What he lacks in contact lenses he makes up for in expensive business cards and just this little bit of beat music makes me want to fill this $5 million complex with 300 Europeans (or Europeans-at-heart) and ‘ave it fucking large.

“Why be so normal and boring?” asks Whirlynn, effectively applauding me for inserting so much sillines into my account of the evening.   The experimental artist (who has no association with fellow Californians Whirr, certain members of which might expect a good kicking from a crowd like this) certainly seems in that spirit, channelling her more eccentric tendencies rather than the mysterious.  So it is that we get chickens, frogs and cuckoo clocks complimenting electronic beats, a teddy bear telling us to fuck off, keytar vs. keyboard action and sausage balloons meeting their demise at Lynn’s dentata’s. The once again all-too-short set is complemented with Whirlynns Puerto Rican-rooted, Spanish-language singing, a shiny spacesuit and metallic gold hair.

Finally, we go from gold hair to Burnt Hair.  If you haven’t burned your hair making a loving dinner at least once in your life, you don’t know romance, you swine.  Leaning over their equipment-laden table, dual vocalists and gothy darkwave benders Kate and Matthew look ready to make any kind of meal.  Perhaps a late-night one judging by the quiet intensity and post-club vibes of their sound, such as Healing Cells from last year’s Wicked Game EP (an actual Chris Isaak cover, surprisingly.  A respectably beautiful cover at that, teased out even longer than the original).  Ending this three week exhibit with neither over the top volume or saccharine cliches, Matthew does at least resemble a young Robert Smith, so you can listen to incredibly touching relationship songs in your head on the way home.  If Valentines Day tends to leave you feeling burnt, it’s not a bad idea to have access to a collective.