Shannon Wright is a respected figure on the US underground alt.noise scene, of some six albums standing. The music of her trio comes across as Karlheinz Stockhausen played by the Pixies with an extremely pissed off and rather bewildered PJ Harvey singing. Seeing her in Istanbul’s splendid Roxy venue with T*borg advertising all around her is pretty incongruous though, somewhat akin to Björk advertising stockings (come to think of it…)
The band is math-rock tight, a mid-nineties dirge sonic ruling, echoes of Sonic Youth, Slint, and Mogwai everywhere. It’s edged by Wright’s smack-ish intensity, with jarring tempo-changes and minor power chords overlapping in hypnosis. When she switches to piano in the middle of the set, there is a definite charisma gap onstage, but she quickly returns to her decidedly gnarly guitar and back-kicks in time for the stunningly intense encore ‘Mire’, before bansheeing into the Istanbul night.
