Concert Review: Avec Sans Are Epically Electro Pop At Knitting Factory
If I said it once , I will say it again; the most daunting and dazzling thing about NYC is how MUCH talent it has. If you think you are the only artist out there with the uniqueness and inner vibrancy to make music, a universal enigma, into your individual essence…. then meet Avec Sans. This duo played Knitting Factory, and my heart by the mere fact that their name can be translated from french to Without You.
Similar to Lydia Ainsworth, the night before, Avec Sans summoned a bewitching hour in Knitting Factory that, again, projected a need for an arena to match the production of their music. Now I love Knitting Factory, and go there often, but I always say when you make me picture you at a bigger venue, like Barclays, than you are doing excellent. Artists want to climb upwards, and Avec Sans make music that matches beautifully with splashes of artful, even dark images and vast light beams “lazering” away. Although I enjoy simple productions, like Johnny Flynn, Avec Sans are, legitimately, electro-pop, and playing music from their latest album Heartbreak-Hi, summoned the vortex of neon colors and love’s high and lows this genre is known for. When you, literally, embody a genre, your concert can feel epic, and Avec Sans felt EPIC. Tracks like their Bon Iver cover “Perth” and “ We Are” surrounded the audience, sonically, to the point that I wondered whether music could jump you. Avec Sans have an uncanny ability to grab the entire atmosphere of the room and latch it to them for an hour, which may sound common, but it is a good sign when more eyes are looking at you then looking at their phone. For me, their capacity to enthrall attention comes from the strong, regal presence of lead singer Alex Fox.
Something about Ms. Fox makes her appear like the Queen of a dark-fairytale or digital dystopia. She seems out of this world, but has an elegance that is universal. As she stands by Jack St. James’ vibrant bounce, who might have the coolest mix-board I have ever seen and wish was sold by Mattel, she shapes her body according to each song giving her tracks a literal form. The way she positions herself onstage might as well be like an electro-ballerina, of which her voice does the pirouettes needed to capture the audience. There is a maturity to her sound that takes away the bubblegum nature of pop, to etch out its undercurrents of turmoil. After all, pop music is dedicated more the break-ups of love than the make-ups, and Fox voice has a slight spiritual note to it that never takes away from the virtual instrumentals she is playing with. Like Ellot Moss, Avec Sans full understand synth-wave does not cut off an emotional one; it builds it. For More Information On Avec Sans Click Here.
