Imagine being on stage in a crowded room and performing a song that isn’t even finished yet. Sounds scary, right? For Philadelphia-based band Palm, this is something of a regularity, and they’ll be able to prove it tonight at The Frequency.
Formed in 2011 during their undergrad years in upstate New York, Palm is, in the simplest sense, a “rock” band. The quartet has spent months writing and collaborating and then bringing that work on tour. And where their first album, 2015’s Trading Basics, came from a place of just trying to get some music into the world, 2017’s Shadow Expert has come with some more experience under their belts. But for the minds behind the music, assigning a genre is less important, and maybe even challenging.
“We’re so focused on doing what we’re doing that I think we lack the perspective to categorize it,” says Kasra Kurt, one of the band’s vocalists and guitarists.
If the genre is hard enough for the band itself to pinpoint, for their listeners it’s something else altogether. Each song is like a journey, with rapid tonal twists, tempo changes, experimental blending and rhythmic intensity, leading some to classify Palm as “math rock.” All the different instruments have their own separate parts, often all going in wholly different directions.
Musically, the guitars of Kurt and fellow guitarist and vocalist Eve Alpert seem to speak to each other in a winding, call-and-response-style. Bassist Gerasimos Livitsanos and drummer Hugo Stanley provide backing for it with their own twists and turns.
Yet as much as it sounds calculated, it’s far from intentional. Discovering how to play music in this way took tons of experimentation. It’s also fair to say that Palm has had more room for experimentation than most — none of the members are formally trained on their instruments. This has given them complete freedom to forge whatever sound they desire, regardless of whether or not it’s been done before.
“We used to basically randomly tune the guitars,” says Kurt, “and then write in those tunings to disguise the fact that we didn’t really know how to play guitar properly.”
Forming a band in this way has allowed them to learn together, but it has also left room for the members to learn individually. Kurt said that from touring a lot, he’s noticed that other bands have one de facto spokesperson that leads the way, but in Palm everyone discovers their own role within a song.
“I think of our music as four separate musical voices pushing a song in four different directions,” Kurt says. “We don’t really tell each other what to play, so there’s not much unity.”
This requires lots of concentration, especially during their live shows, but instead of being stressful for Palm, it “keeps them on their toes,” Kurt says. It’s fun for them because it forces them to both listen to each other and tune each other out simultaneously.
Palm’s music requires some concentration from listeners, too, but it’s a challenge that’s well worth taking on.
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