Friday, March 13, 2009

NX35 concert review: The Diamond Center at Rubber Gloves Rehearsal Studio (March 12)

By Rachel Watts of North Texas Daily

The Diamond Center

Hailing from the flat, windy landscape of Lubbock emerges The Diamond Center, a band with a sound as stripped down and rugged as the West Texas plain itself.

The Diamond Center comes together to unveil a psychedelic, folksy sound carried by the sultry voice of Brandi Price, the band's guitarist, lead singer and tambourine player.

The band traveled to Denton to perform at NX35 on Thursday night, taking the stage with heavy reverberations at Rubber Gloves Rehearsal Studios for the first time since their last Denton show at the Fra House with the Heartstring Stranglers.

A close-knit family affair, Jana Price, Brandi's younger sister, plays drums and auxiliary percussion, while Kyle Harris' musical contribution is guitar, vocals, and any other experimental sounds needed to complete the set.

The Diamond Center jammed tracks off their album, My Only Companion, set to come out in early May. Recording the album was a several-month process that took place in a room of Harris' house, using a few inexpensive microphones and his standard Mac computer software as the sole recording mechanism.

"Mainly I just didn't want to pull my hair out, so we had a pretty stripped down set up with a mixing board and tiny speakers," Harris said. "It's definitely not hi-fi, so I guess you could call it lo-fi, but that's kind of what we like about it." Harris described the NX35 performance as the "inauguration" of their new album, since most of the songs are relatively new and few have been performed live. Alan Brown, a fourth bandmate, was recently added on rhythm guitar. He has only performed with the band twice before. This doesn't waver Harris' enthusiasm for the gig, however. "I'm really infatuated with the Denton music scene right now," Harris said. "I've always felt pretty comfortable there. The people are very open to our music and they pay attention to what's being played. The bands there are just very rich."

Some of the band's influences include The Velvet Underground, Neko Case and old compilations. The Diamond Center doesn't like crystal clear recording or sterile sound, but rather, it is the "snap, crackle and pop" of the instruments' original sound that inspires them.

"I don't really know if that there's a specific kind of message we're trying to get across with our music," Brandi Price said. " What comes out, the product people hear, is to be interpreted by whatever world is created in the audience's minds."

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