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Baths and Anamanaguchi rock House of Vans

Mathew Burckardt
Connector Editor

Baths and Anamanaguchi made a solid odd-couple pairing for the House of Vans show in Cambridge, demonstrating their respective electronic stylings: Baths’ chill beats and rythms versus Anamanaguchi’s energetic chiptunes.

Baths, the stage name of artist Will Wiesenfeld, led off the main acts of the night with a brand of electronic music that alternated between chill and fierce. Backed by Morgan Greenwood (who worked most of the mixing), the two put on a show that ranged from chill to intense. Songs like “Lovely Bloodflow” consisted of calm beats penetrated by some shrill vocals, creating moments of tension among moments of ease; a fairly apt metaphor for experiencing blood loss, no? In other songs, Baths further demonstrated his range and composure as he occasionally yelled the lyrics for effect, but never lost control of his voice.

For what Baths’ has with control, it lacks in overall quality. It’s no secret that the modern era of music has brought forth many artists that don’t have outright beautiful voices. Rather, artists like Baths face the challenge of making their vocals work without the refined quality that vocalists like Freddie Mercury had.

Much of the time, the vocals of Baths reinforce their eerie aesthetic in songs like “Ocean Death” or “Phaedra,” a song that pits the beauty and ease of piano against lyrics of existential agony. In songs like this, an imperfect voice performed with all the right emotion can serve better than a solid, but uninterested voice.

With Baths’ act finished, it was time for the venue to shift its mood from a silent entrancement to excitement as Anamanaguchi set up for their set of energetic chiptune-rock.

As if the nostalgia rush and upbeat euphoria of their tracks wasn’t enough, a number of tubular lights supplemented the house lights and flashed neon colors across the stage.

Fans were plenty hyped up from their opening track “Meow,” but the experience reached its peak when Anamanguchi played their hit song “Airbrushed.” Basically, the number of people crowd surfing the basement venue tripled during that song. One fan did a short dance on stage before taking his stage dive.

In an endearing bit of solidarity with their fans, the frontman of Anamanguchi, Peter Berkman, told security that the band was fine with the stage diving. It didn’t stop them from pulling people aside, but it sure did ease the bit of killjoy-tension. Subsequent stage divers learned to move quickly, or get their fun cut short by a burly security guard.

The band played some more songs from their latest album, “Endless Fantasy,” and Berkman joked about it being the New Year’s Eve (it wasn’t even Chinese New Year’s Eve). As the show went further into Thursday night, the crowd thinned out from the back, but the remaining crowd stayed energetic till the last song when the band sent one of the tube lights into the crowd.