PWRFL Power

I went to the oddest concert last night. It was basically a series of musicians playing in this dude's living room. But lo and behold they introduced PWRFL Power aka Kazutaka Nomura. From Seattle by way of Tokyo. I don't think the recordings really do him justice.

First of all, this guy is a phenomenal guitarist. He did some deconstructed, atonal, arhythmic stuff that I have never really heard before to start off. It was like Monk started playing guitar. He said he's been touring without a guitar because he hates lugging it around so he just borrows guitars wherever he goes. Last night he played on a super jazzy Ibanez that suited him quite nicely but I am curious to hear him again in a different setting with different equipment. But that is neither here nor there.

Then he launched into his material - it is hard to tell what is improvised and what isn't. His songs are incredibly idiosyncratic and a little precious with extremely amusing lyrics ("I am Google. I know everything."). They're short and frequently are introduced with hilarious little anecdotes. I have immediately dubbed this guy the Tom Waits of indie/hipster rock. But the songs themselves are quite good, for all their cynicism and hilarity, they're quite earnest and rocking. When he lets himself go on the solos, it's fucking brilliant, which is unfortunately why the recorded stuff falls short - it's light on the guitar solos.

So to conclude, I will post his myspace link, but if you have the chance to go see this guy live, absolutely take it, he's oddly mesmerizing.

PWRFL Power