Brian Slattery Photos
Mizu.
Sweeping music from cello and electronics that sounded as huge as the tide. A man on stilts, playing guitar, his hair nearly touching the ceiling. Another man singlehandedly turning the club into a dark lounge. Thanks to Mizu, Tall Juan, and Kyle Avallone, all these moments and more happened at Cafe Nine, bringing big vibes to a rapt audience on Wednesday night.
Kyle Avallone, from Brooklyn, started off the evening with a slinky guitar line and a whispered melody asking a lot of questions.“When did your brothers leave you?” he crooned. “Where did your guitar go?” The chorus didn’t supply answers, but it did summon memories. “I see you glimmer/ a shining star / I ran away / I didn’t go far / You used to play / I bet you could still / Why don’t you come back down the hill?” Avallone’s sound, a little twangy, a lot dark loungey, created a mood that cast a spell over the small but growing audience and kept them almost completely silent for the entire set.
“I really appreciate the quiet,” Avallone said after a couple songs. He ended that portion of his set with a dreamy number on guitar that finally deployed some of the electronics that had stood in front of him unused, like Chekhov’s keyboards.
No more. “I’m hesitant because it’s been so nice, but I’m going to move on to some of the noisier stuff,” Avallone said. He then deployed backing tracks to great effect, sometimes leaving a whole band’s worth of sound to the machines. It was a savvy play, adding a layer of detached disaffection to the music that brought out a little good-natured sleaze in the music. The laconic humor that implied came out in the banter, too, as when Avallone talked about visiting “Frankie Pepe’s.”
“Do I sound like a tourist yet?” he added. “I hope so.”
The Queens-based Tall Juan — a.k.a. Juan Zaballa — next took the stage. In what is definitely a first for this reporter (and may be a first for Cafe Nine?), the already tall Juan had made himself even taller by using a pair of stilts. It made everything about his set more fun and funny. Simple gestures became complex, as when he had to figure out how to pick up and put down his guitar at the beginning and end of the set. With his head nearly hitting the ceiling, he also had to extend the microphone stand to a length that, again, this reporter did not realize a microphone stand would go.
Juan played a rangy set of energetic originals in English and Spanish, the warmth in his music proving infectious for the steadily growing crowd. “My name is Tall Juan,” he said to introduce himself to newcomers. “That’s my name — Tall is my first name, Juan is my last name.” The joke only endeared him further. By the time his set was over, the crowd had grown to a healthy size that cheered every song.
Mizu — full name Mizu Issei — then finished the night with a set of her own compositions for cello and electronics that stunned the audience into silence again. Her first piece was built from a series of long tones and textures that gathered power until they felt oceanic, flooding the club on State and Crown with sound that seemed overpowering and soothing at the same time. She added a strumming energy to it that propelled it forward without diminishing its sense of grandeur. Her second piece similarly began in a wistful place, then developed into an overwhelming intensity. But that wasn’t her only compositional voice. Her third piece took on an air of menace; the fourth became stately, even as Mizu shot it through with textural sounds reminiscent of seagulls, metallic squeals, and low moans.
She spoke very little to the audience, except to thank them for coming. No one in the crowd said a word back. It was an hour made for music alone, and when it was over, the audience filed into the still, cold night.