The performance last night of Haale and her two accompanists, Brent Arnold on cello and Matt Kilmer on percussion, was what I’d expect after listening to her latest CD, No Ceiling: Nothing but wonderful. The evening began on a rocky note with some equipment problems and electronic feedback which, unfortunately, plagued the performance off and on for the remainder of the night. Sometimes, a situation like this can ruin a performance for me, but tonight it was simply a minor annoyance.
In retrospect, it’s difficult to believe there were only three musicians onstage. When I closed my eyes, I could hear an orchestra. The percussionist didn’t have the standard drum kit setup, but a motley collection of instruments that he crafted into the performance with a master’s touch. The violist, I’m guessing, was classically trained, and well trained at that, using his instrument as an electric bass, a standup bass, and percussion, in addition to the norm, with an occasional blazing solo. Haale had a selection of guitars that were periodically switched out, as well as occasional percussion. Overall, it was a well-composed and well-executed mixture of ancient Middle Eastern rhythms and vocals, mixed with modern, sometimes psychedelic rock.
Haale’s first selection slowly and softly brought us into her particularly unique genre, an Iranian-American-rock-psychedelic-folk genre that was at times discrete, and often a frantic, but clearly well thought out and well played fusion of these seemingly disparate genres. What might have been noise in another’s hands was near ecstasy. The string instruments were at times heavy in feedback and distortion, which complemented the near-unique slot that Haale’s music fills.
Haale’s voice is very strong, vibrant and powerful, sometimes softly crooning, sometimes on the verge of bellowing, but all well-timed and performed in perfect consonance with the expert instrumentation. She is touring in support of her latest CD release, No Ceiling, which hit the street on March 18. Her tour will be taking her coast-to-coast as well as international, with stops in Canada and Dubai scheduled so far. Dubai’s rise from the anonymous – to most Americans, at least – desert sands to playground for the international jetsetters seems to have occurred almost overnight. This stop should add cachet to her international reputation.
Without shorting any part of the performance, my favorite part of the night was the encore, which consisted of two selections, thanks to a fan who approached the stage to request one of them. The first was “Floating Down,” which, as Haale explained was a tribute to Jimi Hendrix. She described his love of sounds blended or made into music, and his fascination with the sound of an airplane’s engines, and the sounds of the wind hurricaning through the cargo area when preparing for a jump. [Hendrix was a paratrooper in the Army, and served with the Screaming Eagles, the 101st Airborne, whose headquarters was at Fort Campbell, Kentucky, prior to becoming the Jimi that everybody is more familiar with.] Hendrix loved the challenge of taking these sounds and crafting them into something that he could emulate on his guitar
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