SXSW 2010: Balmorhea

One thing I did not anticipate coming in to my first SXSW
was the value of a chair. After a day running back and forth between the two stages at Paste’s day party (where, it should be noted, I was blown away by Givers, Free Energy and Suckers), all a sister really wants is a nice piece of furniture on which to recline. When a friend invited me to Central Presbyterian Church to see Balmorhea, all I heard was, “Hey, you wanna go see a show someplace with pews to sit in?” Yes, I did.

Turns out, the church was an ideal venue not only for the respite it offered my aching tootsies. The atmosphere and acoustics perfectly suited Balmorhea’s lush sound. The six-member Austin band includes a cellist, a violinist and an upright bass player as well as a
drummer, guitar and piano. Occasionally, lead man Rob Lowe moans an “ooooooh,” but that’s the closest thing this band has to lyrics. Their songs are what happens when a classical background meets an experimental spirit, making a type of music that many of us find inaccessible suddenly evocative and engaging.

Constellations,
Balmorhea’s latest release, captures the full, sweeping beauty of their compositions well, but much is added to the experience by witnessing them live. Cellist Nicole Kern practically dances as she wags her bow across the strings, and every member of the band closes their eyes to listen in an almost meditative silence when Lowe takes to the piano for a solo. There’s something reverent in the way Balmorhea compose and perform music. It instills the listener with a restful sort of calm. Just what a SXSW novice like me needed after all the beer, sweat and balls-to-the-wall fun of the first day of festivities.