Who were these amazing indie rock / modern dance performers?

December 16, 2020 8:45 AM

Autumn 2012 I saw a remarkable show in NYC that was a blend of live indie rock and choreographed dance, with the 5-6 member group performing both components simultaneously. I think they were touring as a band rather than it being an ongoing production at that theater. I have a nagging suspicion it was part of that year's CMJ Music Marathon, but it was definitely as much a dance performance as it was an indie-rock concert. Help me figure out who they were and, if possible, the title of a specific song. Details:

The show was in a black box theater in Manhattan, seating at most a couple hundred audience members, somewhere around the Chelsea/Flatiron area. I remember thinking the music sounded a bit like the band Dirty Projectors at the time. It wasn’t Dirty Projectors and it wasn’t David Byrne workshopping American Utopia. A lot of the performance seemed to center on various ways of using the floor (as I'll explain), which was composed of panels that looked like very smooth hardboard. The dancing was at times energetic and expressive and at other times consisted of slow and deliberate isolated movements. Some specific parts of the show that I recall:

- a song (one of the most striking of the show and the one that I’d like to ID if possible) during which the singer is lying on her back and she is slowly dragged about 30 feet across the floor by somebody pulling her mic cable. At another point during this song she stands on a fellow performer's back as he crawls along on his hands and knees. There’s also a section where a guitarist and a bassist lie on their backs on the floor side-by-side and they slide themselves backwards slowly and deliberately for some distance as they play a catchy, jangly sort of repeating arpeggio. A friend who was also at the show said she stumbled across a YouTube clip of this song — likely shot during the performance we attended — within the past couple years. She thinks the name of the band may have had the word 'ocean' in it.

- a 'song' performed by a guy dancing solo with an electric guitar hanging loosely behind his back. The guitar bangs against his body and sometimes scrapes along the floor, creating a sort of music as he moves.

- video projected onto the floor at times

- a piece during which performers pick up some of the floor panels (which are pretty flexible) and wave them vigorously to create sound

posted by theory to Media & Arts (4 answers total)

Pitchfork has a list of the performers and venues for CMJ 2012. Anything ring a bell?
posted by urbanlenny at 9:28 AM on December 16, 2020

Best answer: people get ready - specific ocean?
posted by clockwork at 9:48 AM on December 16, 2020 [5 favorites]

Best answer: Seconding clockwork, fairly sure this is People Get Ready — I remember them doing a very similar show in NC around that time.
posted by Maecenas at 10:14 AM on December 16, 2020

Response by poster: Yes that's it! The performance was titled Specific Ocean, the band is People Get Ready, and the song is called 'Middle Name', which also appears on their eponymous album. And apparently they were part of CMJ that year, according to this review, but there's no reference to them in urbanlenny's Pitchfork link.

I'm really surprised the review I just found didn't come up in any of my previous searches, given the text contains so many details that I described. Anyway, thanks everyone!
posted by theory at 3:34 PM on December 16, 2020