Dan Greene, sometimes of the Mountain Movers, cast a dislocating spell on a rapt audience at the Institute Library Saturday night, with a tremolo guitar and his echo-drenched voice. He was singing a song about a usual habit, of meeting friends downtown and hanging out in parking lots. But one night, he sang, “was different because / I didn’t know where I was.” The eerie sense of unease tipped into the surreal. “We all turned into birds / and flew over the town / we turned back into wolves / when we touched the ground.” Had they been wolves all along?
The moment was one of many that combined the off-kilter and the sublime as Greene, cellist Lori Goldston, and New Haven folk legend Kath Bloom shared a bill at the Institute Library, in which sharp lyrics, supple musicianship, and a taste for the experimental combined.
Greene kicked off the show with a short, mesmerizing set of songs that he said were a mix of old and new — some as new as this week, songs he’d barely played and never before in public. He created a hazy vibe, soothing even as it disoriented, filling the space of the library’s reading room. The respectful audience waited each time until the last note had shimmered away before they started clapping, meaning that, as Greene seamlessly moved from one song to another, sometimes they blended together, as if part of a larger whole.
Greene built the mood slowly, layer by layer, song by song; satisfyingly, he then ended it abruptly by turning off his amplifier with a sharp pop.
Music veteran Lori Goldston then took the stage for a solo cello piece. Goldston’s is still perhaps best known as Nirvana’s cello player, having toured with the band and appeared on its MTV Unplugged album. But this is just a moment in a long, storied career for the composer and cellist, who has traveled the world moving from classic to rock to free improvisation, and whose resume is a who’s who of movers and shakers across the music world for decades.
Her idea-packed piece at the Institute Library on Saturday showed why. She drew drones and overtones out of the cello to great effect, layering over them a dark, keening melody. A turn into rich pizzicato laid the groundwork for a return to the bow that then found Goldston working in a more explicitly Eastern mode, searching and strident, yet at the same time with a sense of knowing exactly where she wanted to be.
Her face held an expression of deep concentration throughout, in concert with her instrument. The signal that it was over was Goldston suddenly breaking into a smile, and giving the audience a bright “thanks!” The applause she received suggested the feeling was mutual.
Kath Bloom finished the evening with set of songs accompanied by David Shapiro on guitar and, later in the set, Goldston on cello. Bloom’s performance was a trademark one, as her quick, pointed banter between numbers was a counterpoint to her deeply affecting, startlingly insightful songs, her poignant lyrics delivered in an earnest quaver over lush guitar work from her and Shapiro. When Goldston joined them, there was a sense of a vision completed. The three musicians played off one another with exquisite ease, creating warm, earthy musical textures. In the middle of it all was Bloom offering hard-won wisdom, as in the song “Your House Is Burning.”
“Don’t fool with matches / don’t fool with fate / Even when you have too much on your plate,” she sang. “And if you encounter love / don’t hesitate / ’cause when your house in burning / it is too late.”