Savour the sounds of unpredictability
Mega Bog’s substance lurks under layers of shape-shifting and eclectic music choices
What’s the deal? For nearly a decade now, Mega Bog has been an outlet for the endlessly shape-shifting sonic whims of Brooklyn-via-Seattle multi-instrumentalist Erin Birgy, who has said in the past that she makes “truly unreliable music” and generally lives up to that claim on her most recent recorded offering, 2017’s Happy Together.
Not that “unreliable” is intended as a pejorative or anything; Mega Bog simply follows its own obscure internal logic, drifting from one elusive idea to another — often within the same piece of music — with the wonderfully daffy Birgy as the thread holding it all together and providing a semblance of cohesion.
It can be a wild ride. From one moment to the next, Happy Together — the third Mega Bog full-length — indulges in cosmic folk reminiscent of Man Who Sold the World- era David Bowie, glammy piano balladry, deconstructionist ambient burbling, topsy-turvy psychedelia, rhythmically nimble jazz and spoken-word avant-gardisms of the Laurie Ander- son variety.
It’s not the sort of record that gives up its tricks easily, then, but that only makes the moment when it all finally clicks in your head that much sweeter.
And lest the lightheartedness with which Birgy approaches the task of making music be confused with a lack of seriousness, consider that Happy Together unblinkingly confronts the matters of rape and its aftermath and the lack of support and understanding available to sexual-assault survivors even within their own small communities. There’s a lot going on here, all of it worth exploring in depth.
Sum up what you do in a few simple sentences. Quoth Birgy: “I film a big spider in the dark. On my way home from the bowling alley, I see a dead deer, and interrupt singing my friend’s song to bless it in peace.”
What’s a song I need to hear right now? “192014.” A dizzying, sax-soaked whirlwind of pure sound. Like Nico jamming with a particularly looselimbed Talking Heads.
Where can I see her play? At the Phoenix Concert Theatre on Monday, opening for Destroyer.