The opening act for the BJM last night at 930 were The Flavor Crystals. They were awfully tasty: a Minneapolis shoe-gaze concoction composed of equal parts Dean Wareham and the third Television album, with maybe a little smidgen of Feelies when the pace quickened. Their new record is produced by Kramer — not the guy from Seinfeld, the producer of all those first-take, guitar lush Galaxy 500 records lo those many years ago. What is it that’s seeped into the Twin Cities water supply? Between The Flavor Crystals and First Communion After Party, you might think you were listening to bands from San Francisco, not the land of Placemats and Suburbs.
Many years ago, the early Fall made you cock your ear to the way the guitars were mixed below the bass and drums; in so doing they confounded one’s mental mixing board. The Flavor Crystals do something a little different, but no less intriguing: they play these soft loops of guitar wash, and it builds in time if not in volume, and you keep waiting for the crescendo, keep waiting for it to get louder or someone to bust out with a solo, and instead they just keep going, their internal governor a sonic self-discipline. What they lack in dynamics, they make up in atmosphere. It’s highly unusual to have an opening act that doesn’t try one’s patience with histrionics. These guys are cooler than Minneapolis in March.
Tulip Frenzy 