By Josh Hughes
This coming Wednesday, electronic artists Metsa and Arbour will be continuing the Concert Series at the Underground Coffeehouse. Taking a shift from the previous weeks preferences for folk and mellow rock, both artists this week excel in the realm of subdued, blissful electronica that makes for either quality background music or shockingly good dance music.
Hans Watkins, graduating student at Western, likes to walk in the arboretum so much he decided to name his electronic outfit after it. Recording hazy, ethereal electronic music backed by hypnotic guitar tracks, Watkins, going by the moniker Arbour, evokes a specific atmosphere within his music, something that recalls the damp evergreen forests and muted rain of the northwest.
His first album, Luv Songs, features nine tracks, all under three minutes, that indulge in a misty vibe that floats in and out between looped melodies. The whole piece flows together nearly as one song, largely because the mood he sets never lets up or gets broken. Songs start with warm static and dampened field recordings and slowly build into ambient ensembles of electric keyboard, reverb-drenched guitars and skittered percussion.
Wankins, who also is working on a side project indie rock band entitled Club Mage, works as a prolific college student for the breadth of his music. The collage of sounds he builds as Arbour simultaneously recalls Tycho, James Blake, and Young Magic. While each song presents a different palette of textures, the melodies still take center stage as the tracks progress. It’s hard to pick a song as the “centerpiece” of Luv Songs; “Sunday Piano Music” most succinctly exemplifies the carefree, meditative sound that Arbour so excellently crafts in under two minutes.
Alongside Wankins, Maxwell Prendergast will be performing as Metsa, another Bellingham electronic outfit that’s making a name for itself beyond the PNW. A junior at Western, Pendergast’s music took off throughout the Soundcloud electronic community vastly in the last year since joining an electronic music collective. His music as Metsa draws from the same well as Arbour, but his songs come off as more immediate and visceral; Prendergast notes Flume’s debut album as a major influence in his work.
While trying to balance schoolwork and music, he continually played tracks at the Coffeehouse for their Open Mic series, but this will be his first full on performance for the venue. Though he hasn’t released any full length release yet, he plans to drop either an EP or a full length project soon, so his set on Wednesday should include many of the singles he’s already released, as well as a few new tracks that haven’t been officially released yet.
Both artists will also make use of visuals to aid their performance, with Alicia Terry provided visuals for Arbour, and Prendergast will use his own visuals.
As with all Wednesday Night Concert shows, this one will occur at 7 p.m. in the Underground and should last for roughly an hour. Be sure not to miss these two up and coming electronic artists not only from the Bellingham scene, but from here at Western.