Girl at the Rock Shows

I’ve been co-hosting a local radio show with a good friend for a couple of months now (shout out Mostly Minnesota Music on WMCN at the beautiful McAlester campus in Saint Paul). It’s been great and I love the fact that it’s all about music from Minnesota. Every week, we have a different musician in the studio with us. They can play live or just talk about their music as we spin some of their recordings. I’ve met some truly amazing people through this, including Marsgarb. We had Marsgarb on the show two weeks ago, and their sound instantly struck me. It was definitely a bit calmer than I tend to go for when it comes to my everyday listening, but I was captivated by the organic sounds that were hitting my ears as we sat in the studio and listened to their music with the band. As they talked about creating the sounds they had created, I fell deeper in love with this group, so I cleared my schedule for Thursday night to go see the magic happen live at one of my favorite venues- Cloudland.

Getting the night started off was The Nunnery. Does that name sound familiar? It should! I literally just saw this act the previous night and wrote about how mesmerizing the performance was. On Wednesday night, The Nunnery had shown up as a solo act (unless you want to count the drum named James), but on Thursday, the audience was treated to a duo set featuring frontwoman Sarah Elstran and then someone on cello (who I do not want to butcher the spelling of their name). Adding the cello absolutely added a sense of depth that made the music of The Nunnery capture my soul even more than it had the previous night.

I watched in awe as Sarah started each song with nothing more than a whispered beat but then used her magical looping powers to, within just seconds, turn that whisper into a humongous wall of sound that washed over the crowd in an almost visual way. You could see the sounds hit people as the songs came together. Whether it was the way someone in the audience let their jaw loosen ever so slightly or the way you saw someone’s eyes close as they got lost in the picture that The Nunnery was painting, it was just such a beautiful set and one that was so very easy to get lost in. Sarah and the cellist had the audience in the palm of their hands, but their set was short, and just when I felt myself drifting off to the cloudy landscape that she had transported me to on Wednesday night, she was playing her final note and clearing off the stage.

My introduction to the next act, Crystal Myslajek, was when I saw him collaborate with John Marks as the group Reflectors. That was back in February, but I remember being completely mystified by what Crystal was doing. She had the traditional keyboard in front of her and a standard microphone hanging by her face, but nothing about the sounds she created that night were standard. I was excited to experience that magic all over again and maybe try to understand it a bit better. After a short delay in getting set up, she started creating those sounds that made no sense to me, such as how a keyboard and microphone should work, but they instantly gave me this feeling of peace. Joined on stage by the drummer of the final band to play after her, the sounds of Crystal Myslajek were smooth and organic like those of The Nunnery but had a more ambient vibe to them. I’ll be honest, after the day I had had, I was more in the mood for something heavy and intense but Crystal somehow made every stress that had been plaguing me throughout the day melt away with her beautiful and creative compositions.

As mentioned, I was stoked to see Marsgarb perform live. I had met three of the members (Chris Hepola, Jenna Wyse, and Josh Granowski) when we did the radio show, but I feel like you never really meet a musician until you see them perform. Just like the previous two acts of the night, everything about Marsgarb’s set felt organic. Don’t get me wrong, they were playing their music that they had recorded (and released on Thursday as the set on Thursday was their album release show), but there was something just so freeing about their sounds that, had I not known anything about this band, I would have guessed that it was mostly improvised.

What strikes me the most about Marsgarb’s sound is the layers. You can hear the major layers without trying too hard, from Jenna’s strong and siren-like vocals to the whispy drums, but it’s the layers that aren’t so clear that really draw you in. Intricate key parts and subtle vocal effects highlight Marsgarb’s sound, giving it an over-complicated yet easy-listening vibe. It’s those elements that will literally draw you to the stage if only to figure out where they are coming from or how the band is doing it. In addition to the many layers that make up Marsgarb’s sound is the texture they leave you with. Maybe I’m alone in this, but I feel like sometimes music can feel like a fabric. A lush instrumental may have a velvet feel to it, whereas a heavy industrial song may make you feel the cold of steel under your fingertips. It’s odd, but I love that, and as Marsgarb performed on Thursday night, I felt like I felt a bit of everything. There were moments of velvety goodness quickly followed by a rougher burlap feeling, all while I felt a sense of cotton under my feet. Again, maybe I’m a weirdo for feeling these things, and that’s totally fine, but I’m just trying to explain how impressive and impactful the music of Marsgarb is.

Helping out with the local radio show every week has been amazing. I love taking a break from my busy life and being in a studio as I listen to local music and talk to local musicians. I honestly don’t know that Marsgarb would have been on my radar without the show but I know I’m dang thankful that the connection happened because Thursday night’s show at Cloudland was truly a spectacular one.

Line Up:

The Nunnery

Crystal Myslajek

Marsgarb

Venue: Cloudland

Smell-O-Meter: Nothing Notable

Average Age of the Crowd: 39

Crowd Surfers- None

Stage Divers- 0

Mosh-ability- 0 out of 10

Amount of Beer Spilled On Me While Walking Around- $0

Broken Bones- None

Spotted Flying Through The Air- Nothing

Fights- None Witnessed

Pukers- 0

Passed Out People- 0

Idiots Taken Out By Security – 0

How Many Times I’ve Seen These Bands Before (or at least how many times I can remember)-

The Nunnery– 1

Crystal Myslajek– 1

Marsgarb– 0

Celebrity Sightings – Ann of Mostly MN Music

Overall Score – 8.3 out of 10

Show on Deck — Lords of the Universe / Deep Fakes / Johnny Sincerely Orchestra

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