These Are Powers make music like cashmere lightning.
“We are free. We are a language of sound. We are hymns piggybacking on noise collages, club beats and ragas. We are a celebration. We are present in dreams and energy. We are the dynamics of being and the infinity of possibility. Union and improvisation strengthen us.”
These are words taken directly from These Are Powers, residents of both Brooklyn and Chicago who have created their own manifesto through sound. Pat Noecker plays subsonic bass frequencies often mistaken for synthesizers and robotic whales. Bill Salas creates a cascade of deft sonic effects and electro acoustic rhythms. Anna Barie stabs guitar and skulks like a she-wolf with a microphone.
These Are Powers utilize a wide sound-driven musical vocabulary in their visceral constructions –songs are born from improvisation, then emerge as fully realized sonic pieces.
It’s chaos turned to beauty, fractals coming into focus. This is music that relies as much on instinct and intuition as it does composition or melodic structure.
These Are Powers’ experiments in the studio transform live into a powerful low-end sub-rumble and high-end flutter established by Noecker’s prepared bass. Combined with the cacophony of abstract beat sound emitting from Salas’ electro-acoustic stand-up drum kit a powerful wall is formed. Piercing through is Anna Barie’s guitar while she and Noecker call and respond on vocals. Barie is a force of nature, blasting through a litany of expressive, inventive guitar sounds, full-throated yelps and howls underscored by a confrontational, explosive energy that finds her entangled with audience members, leaping through the air or sprawled on the floor in front of the stage. Ferocious, intense and unhinged, when These Are Powers perform live, it is a sight and spiritual journey to behold.
Originally released in 2007, Terrific Seasons is These Are Powers’ first full-length album. Terrific Seasons takes off with a punk-like ferocity, recalling the halcyon days of Silver Apples and Throbbing Gristle. It is a poly-rhythmic, frantic, unconventional work that finds These Are Powers utilizing border-line conventional song structures to harness their abstract sounds. From the urgency of opener “You Come With Nothing” to the anthemic croon of “Little Sisters of Beijing,” the distant and sinister meditative sounds of “Drawing Water” and to the sprawling jams of “Pizza Master Ice Cream Palace,” the band covers a tremendous amount of ground throughout their debut.