NXNE – Zeroes
NXNE is a great week for music, and while this year’s lineup may have been somewhat weaker than it has been in past years, there were definitely some amazing acts to be found all over the city. It does take some filtering to find the good ones though, through the artists who are bland, boring, obnoxiously noisy, and shamelessly mindless synth-based-dancy-electro-infused-drone-rock. I even saw one post-rock band playing with half the members sitting down cross-legged on lounge chairs, while the audience patiently waited for the music to go somewhere (it didn’t). But there are many diamonds in the rough – case and point: Zeroes
Zeroes are a band that I first saw open for Land of Talk, back in January. The house was packed, and in fact, if you’re reading this and you’re from Toronto, you were probably there. If you weren’t, hopefully you were at the Silver Dollar at 10 PM Friday night. Half the reason I wanted to go was just to buy their EP – I searched online for a place I could buy it/steal it, and there was absoloutely nowhere because they pressed so few copies. But what really got me as always, was the performance. Anyone who’s heard Zeroes’ EP and likes it would do themselves well to see them perform live, because Zeroes are a live band, and to me are what NXNE is and should be all about.
Zeroes are a synth-based noise rock band – sounds like a recipe for bland indie rock, but a few songs in and it’s clear they are anything but. From the moment they begin their drummer demands attention. The ferocity and momentum in his beats set a strong foundation for the rest of the band. The synth comes in with a loop more akin to a classical motif than mindless noodling, and that is one of the things that separates Zeroes from the flock. Vocals are secondary, eerily floating somewhere between the synth and the Thurston Moore-esque noisy guitars.
With so many bands relying on 80s-style synth for dance-rock or avante-garde appeal, Zeroes find a way to reinvent it for the 21st century without making it the entire basis of their music. They are a rock band at heart, you can see it in their presence, in the appropriate way they use the synth to complement the rest of the band, not just drown it out.
You’ve got choices with a Zeroes set. You can rock out to Zeroes, you can dance to Zeroes, or you can just stand idle in hypnosis. They were modest on stage, asking every couple songs if they were cutting into anyone else’s time. When they finished, the crowd was in adoration. One of the festival volunteers begged them to continue just after they finished their set.
There were definitely a lot of duds in NXNE this year, but someone got it right when they booked Zeroes. Hopefully they’re back soon. After hearing the EP I picked up at the show, I’ve decided I’m counting the days until their full length.
