David Kane has made a career out of putting together eccentric, out of the box type projects over the years. He has several original albums to his credit, along with film scoring. His projects include Them Jazzbeards, HEARsay, and collaborations with notables Terry Sullivan, and the unforgettable Mark Freeland and many others. David just oozes with creativity, and originality… every project is every bit as unique as the last.
His latest project, Night Slaves features David Kane (keyboards, electronics and noise) and John Toohill (lyrics, vocals and electronics). The pair have a cassette release party this Friday at Mohawk Place, 47 E. Mohawk St in downtown Buffalo. Also on the bill at the Mohawk will be Cages, VWLS, Malaria Control and Flatsitter.
David discusses a cassette release, and the sound of NS:
“I will call what we are putting together songs, though in most cases they do not follow what might be regarded as traditional song structure. Our material seems to be many layers deep and these layers do not really necessarily move or change with each other. I can appreciate when I play these things for John that he can notice a new element and say I’ll call that the chorus where that noise comes in. Our music seems to evolve rather than change. I can be a fairly prolific writer and it pleases me to work with someone equally so. It is a pleasure to get together, put on a new idea see him get happy, take his coat off, get out the pen and notebook and start writing away. In the course of a few hours we have a new one. I appreciate the spontaneity. I work that way as well. Sometimes things that were meant to be actually do happen. We create and have a lot of fun during the process.”
David continues, “The sound has been described as a collaboration between Depeche Mode and John Carpenter on acid. Provocative, layered, complex, and requires reflective listening as it pulls you into its spell. Cerebral electronic garage, dark squared, Bowie, Eno, Low with Iggy, a more layered suicide.” I may say weird, maybe you also, but says the band “Weird, it makes us really happy”.
In terms of what’s next for Night Slaves, David tells me “It’s back to the basement for NS. We are well into what will be our third release, so we’ve got a couple more releases coming this year. I believe it is the Chinese Year of the Night Slave. We are on to an 18 minute Soundscape, Tone Poem, not sure. You can’t stop us…”
You might like Night Slaves if you like David Lynch and Evan Williams.
Photo credit: Bob Collignon