By Josh Hughes
This Wednesday, November 15, Seattle’s Iffy Comma and Bellingham’s own Pop Secret will close out the fall quarter Wednesday Night Concert Series at the Underground Coffeehouse. After an eclectic couple of months spanning riot grrl punk to experimental jazz, the final show will bring back the ever prevalent “indie” rock so integral to pretty much every college scene. Starting at 7:00 p.m. and free to the public, expect a two hour set of sharp, elegant alternative and electronic music.
Pop Secret, composed of Western students, started writing music together last year living in the dorms together. Indebted to late 2000’s psych artists like MGMT and Foxygen, Pop Secret write and perform hypnotic and danceable electronica. Made up of guitar, bass, drum machines and synths, the band fluctuates between succinct pop songs and longer, ethereal pieces.
Having just performed at Western’s own Spanel Planetarium as part of their concert series, Pop Secret appropriately sounds like a spacey, alien iteration of pop music. Their only released song, “Optimism Don’t Come Easy”, revolves around the eerily delivered line “looking on the brightside, on the brightside,” as unearthly synths warp around Teel’s vocals. Elements on their own could make up bubbly pop songs, but put together they morph and mutate into something extraordinarily unique.
Their live set, which includes songs transitioning seamlessly into each other, displays a promising young Bellingham band that doesn’t currently fit in any mold of the town’s various music scenes. Long ambient swells flow into sharp exercises in quirky wordplay and dissonant grooves, and there’s a perpetual reverb driving throughout their music.
Headliners for the night, Iffy Comma are Seattle trio that writes lo-fi pop rock undercut by psych influences. Made up of Jacob Roos, Benjamin Rea and Cody Cecil, the band has one EP to their name and has been playing DIY venues around Seattle for the last couple years.
While on the surface level most of their songs do not come across as political, there’s an underlying tone of trying to make sense of a complicated, oversaturated world. The last song and title track of the project serves as the mission statement for the band, complete with an additional trumpet part that does favors for their typical rock arrangements and sends them into Antlers territory. Jangly guitar licks pave the way for lines like “with all that you can preach and the horrors that you’ll see, there could be everlasting peace”. The band finds a balance between uplifting lyricism and intense contemplation, never relying too heavily on either.
This show marks the first time both bands are playing the Underground Coffeehouse, as well as the last concert at the venue for the next month. As always, music starts at 7 p.m. and will go until 9 p.m. once both artists have played their hearts out in front of latte slurping students. Big thanks to the Underground Coffeehouse and the AS for putting on the concert series this quarter— come back in January for another slew of the talented musicians of Bellingham.