GREG REESE
Arts Editor
There used to be talk of approaching the universal through the specific and depth through simplicity and so on — Jesus Christ, wasn’t it? Maybe I’m just imagining this.
Well, even if I’m under some strange delusional spell, I saw something happen last weekend with a Vancouver band called Makeout Videotape (Mac DeMarco and Natalie Gitt) which leads me to believe that minimalism is the new way forward.
A floor tom, snare drum, electric guitar and microphone were the only instruments used to pump out some otherworldly soul and garage rock hits. Minimalism was definitely the format but the sounds were full and nicely fuzzed-out.
Playing in a flooded art studio in Saskatoon’s downtown — we had to walk across a bunch of wooden planks to get to the room for the show — Makeout Videotape channeled the simple song structures of the great minimalist ’60s garage rockers. There was a lot of the Troggs, early Kinks and Sonics in their sound.
The mysterious side of the whole thing is that, for all the ’60s influence, they sound futuristic to me. I feel like these two young kids from Vancouver are showing us something new — like, “throw out your harps and xylophones and get a new set of strings for your old electric.”
Makeout Videotape recently finished a tour supporting Japandroids — another minimalist duo — but to me, they outclass Japandroids in a significant way. Makeout Videotape uses a minimalist drum sound to foreground the colourful guitar and vocal melodies and the interplay between these melodies. Japandroids just blast away at everything at once. Okay, Japandroids might not be terrible, but they don’t blissfully alter my consciousness either.
The song “I guess the Lord is in New York City” is a great example of Makeout Videotape’s paradoxical nature: the whole thing is so laid back and yet it creates an intense, vital energy.
Live, the guys do these silly little dance moves periodically. The stage show is compelling for the same reason the songs are: despite doing very little, the whole thing is full to the brim with presence.
As this is their first record, there is a lot of anticipation over the sophomore. I don’t think the two members of Makeout Videotape have more than 40 years between them, so there is sure to be a shitload of great tunes still to come.