Live Concert Photography: Moving Panoramas and The Grownup Noise
Union Hall
April 16, 2016
Comprised of Leslie Sisson (vocals, guitar), best known as a member of The Wooden Birds, Matt Pond PA, Western Keys, Black Lipstick, Black Forest Fire, Tanworth-in-Arden, and Aero Wave, collaborations with The American Analog Set, Windsor for the Derby, Rhythm of Black Lines, RIDE‘s Mark Gardener, Dan Mangan, John Wesley Coleman, Snowden, and Broken Social Scene, as well as a solo artist; Rozie Castoe (bass); and Karen Skloss (drums), a member of Black Forest Fire, the incredibly accomplished Austin, TX-based dream pop trio Moving Panoramas can trace their origins to when Sisson had returned to home to Texas to be closer to the members of her previous full-time band The Wooden Birds and her family. Sisson took on a job teaching music at School of Rock where she met Castoe, who was in an ’80s show that Sisson directed. And while this was going on Sisson was subbing on bass in Black Forest Fire with Skloss, who was a longtime friend and former graduate film school student. When each individual member’s various projects broke up, the trio of Sisson, Castoe and Skloss decided to form a band together, based on their mutual love of shoegaze.
The trio has been praised by the likes of NPR, Tom Tom Magazine, Austin Chronicle and others, and as a result they’ve seen a rapidly growing local and national profile for their full-length album One, which possesses a sound that’s indebted to 4AD Records, 90s alt rock and classic shoegaze; in fact, the album’s first single and album title track “One” sounds as though it could have been recording and released in the 80s as the band pairs shimmering guitar chords, a tight groove, propulsive drumming and anthemic hooks with gorgeous harmonies with Sisson’s gorgeous crooning. To my ears the song reminds me quite a bit of The Sundays, The Go-Gos and even contemporary acts like Seapony. The album’s second single “Radar” is a shimmering and slow-burning ballad that employs the use of a gorgeous harmony, and sonically speaking the song sounds as though it draws from 120 Minutes MTV-era alt rock but with a subtly modern sheen. In some way, both songs evoke road trips — the sense of endless possibility and adventure; the regrets and mistakes you’re leaving behind; and the road and horizon rushing past your window . . .
Based on the strength of album singles “One” and “Radar,” I caught the Austin, TX-based shoegazers play a hauntingly gorgeous set of material off the band’s self-assured full-length debut One at Union Hall in Park Slope, Brooklyn with openers The Grownup Noise. The Boston, MA-based The Grownup Noise currently featuresPaul Hansen (vocals, guitar and keys), Adam Sankowski (bass, keys and vocals), Rachel Arnold (cello, vocals), Aine Fujioka (drums, vocals) and Todd Marsten (accordion, keys) — and the act can trace their origins to when founding members Hansen and Sankowski formed it as a duo. And although the band has gone through several lineup changes, the members of the Boston, MA-based band have developed a local and national profile for a sound that employs elements of indie rock, Americana, folk paired with lyrics that describe skewed and fucked up love with an earnest sense of yearning and despair.
Check out photos from the show below.
(Photo Caption: The Grownup Noise performing at The Bell House earlier this month.) 
For these photos and more, check out the Flickr set here: https://www.flickr.com/gp/yankee32879/617V9T