Breathe Owl Breathe
Subkirke - Sep 30, 2011
review by wittkid

As with most things in Indiana, indie shows can also take place in houses of worship. One venue in particular is Subkirke, housed within a small reformed church in South Bend that has hosted the likes of My Brightest Diamond with lead singer Shara Worden, a former Sufjan Stevens Illinoiser, and Ben Sollee and The Bergamot.

The shows are performed in an acoustically-blessed hall, complete with a full set of church pews, a 30 channel sound system, 5 independent monitor mixes, a concert grand Mason and Hamlin piano, and an historic William Johnson and Sons pipe organ (built in 1883) in the room. Good start.

I saw Breathe Owl Breathe perform at Subkirke on September 30 and it only reinforced my recently found love for Midwestern-born indie music. From East Jordan, Michigan Breathe Owl Breathe is a 3 member band that brings a whole lot of fluid, youthful, sometimes dark and spiritual sound to the stage and delivers it in a bolt of positivity shot straight to the hearts of its audience.

Andréa Moreno-Beals is a dynamic cellist and bona fide popera singer with her hypnotically Amphitritean voice swimming alongside singer and guitarist Micah Middaugh's dreamy showmanship.

Trevor Hobbs carried the beat for the band on percussion and really showed us his stuff when he stepped to the back of the concert hall to play the century+ old pipe organ. Hobbs filled the room with such an intoxicating and organic (pun intended) sound that held me captive with him in his overwhelmingly emotional solo. Just. Awesome. Plus, have you seen all the pedals and doo-dads on an organ? Hobbs is an incredibly skilled musician.

Most of BOB's set list came from their newest album, Magic Central. Middaugh talked us through the show with interludes describing his childhood desires to one day be a professional basketball player. Screens behind the band showed photos of NBA basketball players from the 1990s scoring epic slam dunks.

It immediately reminded me of my brother, whose childhood room was filled with posters and pictures of professional soccer players doing similarly rad things. I just imagined him as a kid staring at that wall for hours, in a state of pure happiness, marveling at his heroes and dreaming of being there one day, too. That same affection comes out clearly in Breathe Owl Breathe's music—cheerful and upbeat, skilled and thoughtful, teaching that the sky is the limit when you want it to be, images of parrots, dragons, water, gold and lit lanterns, it was filled with fantasy and I just never wanted it to end.

Darker concepts made their way into the lyrics they shared with us as well, providing a nice emotional balance to some of the more childlike messages — however fantastic they were. At some point BOB encouraged the audience to sing and clap along with the lyric "How do you stop loving someone?" with Moreno-Beals sawing along on the cello and Middaugh crossing back and forth across the span of the stage, clapping, dancing and slam dunking the song with the audience.

The Breathe Owl Breathe show has hooked me in a major way onto Magic Central. Go get this album! And most definitely don't miss an opportunity to see them. You'll get to see some incredibly skilled musicians and leave the show feeling good.

posted Oct 08, 2011
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