The second day of Echo Park’s Culture Collide Festival saw the addition of a small stage located at Lot 1 Cafe, located a few blocks east of central hub of the festival, and the World Stage, set up in the parking area between Taix and The Church. Lot 1 didn’t see much foot traffic early on. With a standing room capacity of little more than fifty people, it brings to mind ad hoc concerts in friends’ basements and living rooms, and its first performers, London-based Popstrangers, brought a fitting blend of jangle and mid-90s indie pop to the twenty or so in attendance.
Tapping into the vein of Pavement and Sebadoh’s garagey-er efforts, Popstrangers are a refreshing three-piece with zero reliance on the dizzying array of electronic elements seen elsewhere in this year’s festival, instead making a beautiful blend of dissonant wandering melodies with guitar, bass, drums and muffled vocals that often culminate in glorious choruses reminiscent of Matador’s heyday.
The World Stage had performances by four bands yesterday–each of them American–though the first two performances didn’t see much turnout. It wasn’t until 8 o’clock that a crowd accumulated, when Seattle’s Beat Connection animated the sleepy audience with electro steel drum rhythms, disco pounding bass, and whirring synths, all unified by vocalist Tom Eddy’s folky vocal delivery that would be just at home crooning blue-eyed soul, but here it gives Beat Connection’s infectiously danceable beats a catchy pop center that makes the mouth move along just as much as the hips, especially on the triumph of their 2012 single “Further Out”.
With a sufficiently pepped crowd, Cloud Nothings gauged an assault of tight, melodically rich and noisy post-punk that obliterated Beat Connection’s slick gloss. The dance crowd morphed into a near mosh in places, and it was hard not to air-drum when watching the ridiculously tireless rhythmic talent of drummer Jayson Gerycz, whose only reprieve from frantic punk cymbal and snare bashing was the relatively slow “No Future/No Past”, a slow boil placed midway through the set, sandwiched between two thirty minute onslaughts of punk and noise, with several catchy anthemic gems like “Not a Part of Me” and “Stay Useless” shining through the breathless snarl. The noise part was especially heavy at the close, when the trio seemed to fall apart before coming together for a verse, or chorus, depending on how you want to look at it, and then returning to spastic noise for a good ten or twelve minutes.
At the nearby Church, Cardigans lead singer Nina Persson performed a set with her band, which she lovingly called “Nina’s Persons,” performing solo material as well as songs from her many projects, including a discoed version of Daniel Johnston’s “Walking the Cow.” Though her set was upbeat with a live drum kit and sublime synth washes, the boomy acoustics of the church buried the disco snap, her voice often drowning in the room. It was also peculiar seeing such danceable energy in front of a seated audience. Persson gesticulated to the congregants as if encouraging redemption, though her between-song banter was laced with tongue-in-cheek digs at the venue (“Can you feel the power in here?” “Yeah!” “Hmm…”). Turnout was fairly full at first, but people shuffling in and out of the rows of seating were a distracting element.
Later performances moved into the smaller rooms in Taix as well as the ongoing roster at Lot 1, with acts from Australia, Peru, and Israel scattered about. As with Thursday, it’s a treat to see so much independent music from around the world, and in such a wide range of styles. Saturday will be the biggest day yet, with around fifty performances at six venues starting at 1 p.m., some of the artists having already played sets the previous two days.
