David Bernabo is more mad scientist than composer, a man who huffs the fumes of his incendiary creations only to rocket through a stratosphere of musical possibility, pregnant with terrifying speed and half-crazed laughter.  Bernabo and his faithful Assembly, a rotating 25-piece nano orchestra,  have crafted their latest full length Happener Magicker like one concocts a volatile stew or molds a brilliant, glaring alloy, juxtaposing seemingly disparate musical elements into a heaving, living monster.

The album is a testament to Bernabo’s innate ability to couple succinct composition with outlandish experimentation, as he effortlessly unifies several genres under the umbrella feel of an avant-garde jazz improvisation. The sequencing of Happener Magicker allows each track to exist within its own strange universe while working brilliantly within the mad scientist goals of the entire album.

From the contemporary classical  Afro-beat of  “Sub Saharan” (which features one hell of a face melting guitar solo),  to the post-nothing freak out of “Mahler Box” and then the charging, off-kilter indie rock of “Out There,” the album refuses  to remain stagnant or even take a breath.

“Ivvto” opens the album with oscillating horn samples, skittish drumming and Bernabo quietly harmonizing with a  score of gorgeous voices before a post-rock breakdown mid-song.  It picks up again to showcase more intricate vocal work that recalls The Dirty Projector’s more complex choruses before the jam-bandy conclusion.  “The Eclipse”  pounds closest to popular indie rock than any song on the album, but includes subtle quirks like Bernabo’s blue-eyed soul and slightly off key string arrangements, adding a sly veneer of artfulness to a track that otherwise would have been fairly straight forward.

“My Gun” exits the album with a down tempo beat and Bernabo still stretching out those soulful, white boy pipes that are both endearing and indifferent.  Classical acoustic strumming weaves through the percussion and electric feedback with the steady jaunt of a Mediterranean afternoon, layering an ironically lax tone on top of some fairly dirgey lyrics, while Bernabo croons, “This my-ah-hy gun,/I hope to abuse it…on you.”

To say this album has everything but the kitchen sink is an understatement; it’s a constantly shifting collage of kaleidoscopic musical vision, with fearless leader Bernabo leading the charge. Each song, as evidenced from above, provides no easy list of influences or inflections, but showcases a playful, accessible demeanor that could have quickly gotten lost amidst high-brow pretensions without careful attention. And that’s Happener Magicker ‘s charm, giving you sizable doses of art and pure pop fun in the same instant.

The album release party is this Saturday at the Brillobox in Lawrenceville. Bernabo and the whole gang will be playing with Meeting of Important People at 10PM.

David Bernabo + Assembly – Out There

David Bernabo + Assembly – Ivvto

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Hopefully, the track selections will possess enough variety to provide a brief snapshot of the broad and expanding  Pittsburgh independent music community.  Most, if not all, of the groups featured here will be playing shows in Pittsburgh over the summer months, check back soon for Speed of the Pittsburgh Sound’s updated June/July concert calendar. Enough shameless plugging, on to the tunes.

Kim Phuc – Wormwood Star

Kim Phuc’s “Wormwood Star” has the feeling of an early Stooges outtake, a track that would have been deemed too loud, too vicious, and simply too scary for audiences circa 1969 to process let alone enjoy. With its dangerous, buzz saw guitars, face pounding drum sections and apocalyptically cryptic vocals, “Wormwood Star” possesses the kind of doomed menace serious metal bands unwittingly force into parody. This is the soundtrack to a riot, a buckshot blast through a store front, white hot and unstable.

Fresh off a string of South By Southwest shows that saw the band rubbing elbows and playing on the same bill as LA scene builders No Age and Mika Miko, Kim Phuc brings their snarling, no frills proto-punk to Mr. Roboto Project on May 25. Enter at your own risk.

Meeting of Important People – I Know Every Street

I don’t mean to speculate about Josh Verbanets’s, Meeting of Important People’s lead singer-songwriter/guitarist, motives behind writing a song like “I Know Every Street,” a track he contributed to his former band’s LP (Lohio’s History, The Destroyer) and is now featured as the centerpiece of Meeting of Important People’s debut, self-titled album.  I’d like to think he’s talking about Pittsburgh and the ways in which this town’s intricacies feel small enough to learn but damn near impossible to master.  The track is a quieter, down tempo jam (and staple of MOIP’s live show) that slowly builds to a rocking crescendo, with Verbanets declaring he “leads every beat in this town.” Could this song be a call to arms for the rest of Pittsburgh’s indie pop elite to conquer the city? For bands like Donora, Good Night, States, Lohio  and now Meeting of Important People, I think they already have.

David Bernabo + Assembly – Out There (Birdshit Remix)

David Bernabo, Pittsburgh’s mad scientist of folk-blues-hip-hop-rock fusion, and his group Assembly crafted the beautiful mess “Out There,” remixed by Birdshit of local prog metal group Drugdealer, for their Mahler Box EP released last fall. Disjointed, melodic and danceable  in the same breath, “Out There” showcases Bernabo’s knack for creating innovative vocal harmonies and challenging compositions, highlighted by the spastically active, yet deceptively simple production by Birdshit.  It’s a major concoction from Pittsburgh’s most astute connoisseurs of avant-pop, a track that’s lovely and adoringly garish in equal amounts.  Listening to the Mahler Box EP on repeat has brought my excitement to a fever pitch for the group’s first full length album, Happener Magicker, to be released early this summer.

Mariage Blanc – Contrary to Popular Belief

Mariage Blanc’s “Contrary to Popular Belief”, off the group’s first EP Broken Record released last fall, has the immediate mood of a sweeping epic, even while the track clocks in at a little less than four minutes. A novel’s worth of emotion radiates from the quiet strings, elegiac vocals and little production touches that make the song shimmer with nuance and depth.  As the jaunty, Scott Joplin-pianos get paired with sparking electric guitars for the heartbreaking coda, the denouement feels completely fitting and realized. Not many groups can intuit this much feeling over the course of an entire album let alone one song, but Mariage Blanc seem more than comfortable discarding melodrama and sappy sentiment to create songs that are genuinely moving. Mariage Blanc plays with Boca Chica and Prussia at Howler’s Coyote Cafe on May 27th.