Oregon Music News

As Chris Spearin introduced the events of the evening, he explained how the band would begin with Ohad Benchetrit’s project called The Years.  Then Spearin would present his personal creation called The Happiness Project and then Do Make Say Think would perform.  Each project would involve the same collaborative forces, but they would manifest in different forms.  He ended his announcement by saying “you will go home fooled the whole time.”  By this he did not mean there was a devious intention behind the evening, merely that our expectations of three separate bands would be dismantled and instead a more cohesive endeavor was about to be embarked upon.

Ohad Benchetrit opened with solo guitar – looped, amplified, and distorted. For his first song, a trumpet joined him with long blown notes.  Then, alone, he looped layers upon himself until they were so thick if you closed your eyes you would never have believed there was only one man performing.

It is rare to have a public discussion about happiness, but Chris Spearin cultivated a space for it.  His personal venture, The Happiness Project, is a series of interviews with his neighbors on the subject of happiness.  Spearin manipulated the interviews in several different manners.  For one neighbor, a long interview clip was played twice.  The first time, we only heard his neighbor’s words.  The second time, Karen Ng followed the neighbor’s pitch and lines of contour on the saxophone.  Out of context, it could have been a seductive jazz solo.

For other interviews, Spearin isolated and looped certain phrases while the entire performing force (two guitars, two drum sets, bass, violin, saxophone, trumpet, keyboard) played in a sound most similar to their Broken Social Scene persona.

Do Make Say Think was the final exclamation point on the evening.  Every member of the band played his/her heart out at the same time recalling free Jazz collective improvisation.  But, their bass-driven sound is distinctly related to rock music.  No matter how you want to describe them, the energy they created was undeniably electrifying and a great way to end the night.