Head tripping

No one claimed to know how roughly a dozen disembodied plastic heads came to arrange themselves around the vicinity of a nondescript house venue known to some as The Bananastand.

However, when local electronic artist Mannequinhead and a few newly recruited roadies emerged from the basement for a preshow smoke break, there they were. The heads’ mysterious appearance was a pleasantly surreal sight for the slowly growing congregation of concertgoers who were ready to chase away their post-Halloween hangovers to a few good tunes.

Soon the house was vibrating to the familiar synthesizer swells of Wendy Carlos’ score to the film A Clockwork Orange, with corresponding visuals projected behind a podium overflowing with random electronics.

Mannequinhead’s brief yet impressive set featured an intimidating mélange of sounds from around, and beyond, the world, all of which were united by personal lyrics that occasionally transcended day-to-day life. These were interrupted regularly with short descriptions and explanations of the subject matter or inspiration for a particular number. 

Like a growing number of contemporary musicians, Mannequinhead, known as Erik Carter offstage, has difficulty fielding the question of what kind of music he makes. His roots lie in garage bands with friends where he played drums and occasionally experimented with weird sounds on electronics. While studying sound engineering in Arizona he formed a performance art duo known simply as Mannequinn and his songs and performances reflect these origins.

Mannequinn traveled and performed most frequently in Los Angeles and in Erik’s home state of South Carolina. Some of his set at The Bananastand was made up of holdovers from this period, and they integrated themselves well beside newer material.

Erik has been a longtime member of a growing class of musicians who have embraced electronic samplers as a means of blurring genre distinctions to the point of meaninglessness. While he wears his influences (Neutral Milk Hotel, Stanley Kubrick, Radiohead) on his sleeve in terms of his visual presentation, their presence comes out in his music more in its urgency and thematic feel rather than in any immediate sonic comparisons.

Mannequinhead’s attention to and careful incorporation of world music, British electronica, hip-hop, found sound and a multitude of other sources would likely get him lumped into the buzz-worthy genre of New Weird America, but one shouldn’t dwell on that thought too long.

Here is a musician who sings (and occasionally raps) about life with the scrutinizing eye of a young David Byrne. He can coax miraculous landscapes out of his guitar and meld them seamlessly with a flurry of digital/digitized drums, plus a few live beats for punctuation.

All that currently exists of Mannequinhead’s material in the digital world are two original pieces on his MySpace that are cut painfully short of their original running time but still indicate Carter’s skill in production.

Alongside these examples of electronic trickery are two covers of “Blue Christmas,” one a faithful cover, the other a chaotic reinterpretation. In many ways these covers are a perfect microcosm of Carter’s ingenuity, which is surprising in its conventionality, desire for experimentation and uncanny ability to shift back and forth between the two to create a world of stunning contrasts.