#amadeo pace

Happy Music Friday Everyone!

This Week's Songs Are ...

A Reminder - Radiohead 1997

One More Empty Chair - Blood Red Shoes 2010

The Dress - Blonde Redhead 2007

Blonde Redhead – Brooklyn Steel – November 10, 2023

For all the painters renowned for their mastery of the use of contrasts, not enough bands get the credit they deserve for the same. Blonde Redhead, as their name almost implies, are wizards of contrasting sounds. Their Brooklyn Steel concert on Friday night kicked off with an immediate juxtaposition, taking to the stage playing through some ethereal guitar loops before jumping headfirst into the jagged angular guitars that begin “Falling Man.” It hit like a hard and sudden rain descending out of a misty fog. “Yet I am just a man still learning how to fall,” sings Amedeo Pace with his strained tenor voice punching through. This is followed by (and in contrast to) “Dr. Strangeluv,” with its lush and expansive landscape of sounds, this time filled out by Kazu Makino’s delicately singing as if she were floating above the song. 

There are only three members in Blonde Redhead, but their sound is so much bigger and their songs have so many layers spilling out of them that repeated listens often reveal something new. When played live, these opportunities to get pulled in are everywhere. For me, this hit the hardest during “SW,” with my ears for the first time noticing the brooding, rattling hum of the guitar that undergirds the song. Come the chorus, the refrains of “It’s not” and “I am” bend guitar strings toward Amedeo’s words like gravity.  

Brazilian (and New York City-based) percussionist Mauro Refosco joined the band for the final night of the tour. He was featured on Blonde Redhead’s recently released 10th LP, Sit Down for Dinner, including the hypnotically mesmerizing “Snowman,” which slowly builds in polyrhythms like, dare I say, a rolling snowball. 

“We’re getting forgetful in old age,” said Amedeo, excusing Makino taking a pause to track down a piece of paper before a song. “It’s not old age, I’ve always been like this,” answered the rhythm guitarist. Another thing Makino’s always been is strikingly beautiful, moving along to their songs like they’re waves washing over her. At times Amedo joined her in dancing, his lanky frame extenuated by his white jumpsuit, with the two of them flanking Simone Pace on drums. This is a band that’s long been in lockstep, for twin brothers Simone and Amedeo Pace, likely since birth. 

Their set closed with the shoegazing masterpiece “23,” which blows through with so much force only to end in some scattered guitar whispers and rhythms, the remnants of a tornado of a song that just blew through. —Dan Rickershauser | @D4nRicks