The Bear Exchange (with the Antlers and Holly Miranda)

Buffalo Rising 1

Asbury Hall at the Ninth Ward, 8PM, tonight.

By Tommy Stanford

Talk about a choice warm-up gig.

The Bear Exchange are your resident etherealists. This trio of keyboardists, whose instruments range from the vintage Rhodes vibe to the experimental and trippy, they configure on-stage like a prism, keyboards stacked upon one another, microphones facing center. Musically, members Bernice Marie, Colin Griffin, and Laura Bowen paint an audioscene that could easily be dropped into one of Wes Anderson's bright, colorful movies.

The songs are atmospheric to say the least, devoid of a rhythm section of any kind, but made up simply with steady plays of black and white keys, and some soaring vocalscapes. So on the heals of their debut EP's release on November 7 at Sugar City, they will be performing tonight at Ani Difranco's Asbury Hall (341 Delaware Avenue at Tupper), opening up for two excellent acts along a similar ilk.

The Antlers. The evening's main act hail from Brooklyn, and are touring on an apartment-recorded, two years in the making CD on NYC-based Frenchkiss Records that is receiving a bevy of praise. They are often and accurately compared to the likes of the Arcade Fire, but this writer felt like singer Peter Silverman's voice was reminiscent of Lindsey Buckingham after listening to their music. I recommend going to their myspace and listening to "Two" (or watching the video). It'll sell you on the band immediately.

Holly Miranda, formerly of the Jealous Girlfriends, sings like PJ Harvey or Feist on a dark day, and her unsigned EP was produced by TV on the Radio's David Sitek. She even received a bit of run from none other than Kanye West on his famously manic blog, when he linked one of her songs for all to hear.