The Black Angels continue in a droning direction

By Michael Hoinski
SPECIAL TO THE AMERICAN-STATESMAN
Wednesday, May 28, 2008

Tennis on a 99-degree day seems an unlikely way for a Black Angel to spend an afternoon, yet the sunburnt cheeks peeking out from under Alex Maas' lumberjack beard can't be denied.

"I played 15 games today!" the lead singer for the local psych-rock fivesome bragged to guitarist Christian Bland last weekend.

"15 games?!" Bland responded. "Really?!"

The Angels were just back from a European tour highlighted by a performance at the ATP vs. Pitchfork All Tomorrow's Parties Festival. It was a match made in hell considering the fest's name and the Angels' paranoiac sound borrow from the same source, the Velvet Underground. But it turned out to be a so-so affair for the Angels because electrical meltdowns cut their set short.

Friday night they'll play a CD release show at Emo's for their sophomore effort, "Directions to See a Ghost." The album is an improvisational-sounding and less overtly political version of the reverb-and-drone manifestations found on their stellar debut, "Passover," an album that evoked the vocal delivery of Jim Morrison and the strobe-light rock of Brian Jonestown Massacre.

Maas and Bland share their South Austin house with everyone in the band save for bassist Kyle Hunt, who lives in Hyde Park with his wife and offspring. Joining them was guitarist Nate Ryan, some random dude and a Great Dane. The dog belonged to former drone machinist Jennifer Raines, who lives with the band despite abandoning them for a gig as assistant to actress Heather Graham.

In Raines' stead, Ryan demonstrated drone. He used a harmonium, an organ-accordion crossover encased in a sort of briefcase. He manipulated it to give off a loud, steady, piercing sound, like a steamboat whistle. It's drone like this that provides the through line for the Angels to ricochet off and for Maas to perform incantations.

"Droning," Bland said, "means just kind of sitting on one thing. It's hypnotic."

Bland is the Angels' chief marketer, charged with designing their exquisite CD packages, posters and other branding materials. Ryan is the one whose story about living in a commune was exaggerated PR fodder. Maas grew up on a plant nursery in Seabrook, where his parents played an array of world music and "crazy tribal stuff." (Drummer Stephanie Bailey is known for seeing ghosts.)

Talking about drone got the guys brainstorming their influences: Somalian music, Vietnamese folk music, Hindi music. They also riffed on rituals, meditations and music supposedly associated with Tanzanian witchcraft and paganism.

"It's kind of like heartbeat music," Bland said of the Angels' style. "I think that's what we try to capture — simplicity, more minimalistic."

"It starts with a groove and ends with a groove," Maas added.

All of this is apparent on "You on the Run," a thundering, sci-fi thriller about a refugee; "Science Killer," a sludgy, fuzzy, maracas-addled path to enlightenment; and "Never/Ever," wherein sitar, chants and feedback rally Maas to sing, "You say the Beatles stopped the war."

Pray tell, though, can such transcendence be made without the aid of stimulants?

"Drugs are not necessary to, you know, get into a trancelike state," Bland said. "But I think they can be a tool for creativity; I really do."

Ryan's translation: "As long as you can dive in and dive out."