Indie rock/electronic duo Foreign Air played an intimate show as part of their three-date Supper Club Tour at downtown LA restaurant Caboco on Tuesday, following previous shows at local haunts in New York and the band’s hometown of Washington, D.C. The magic of live music is when the endorphins kick in from the sensory appeal —the sound is emotional and soothing, the bass feels exhilarating, the sight of the talent, the smells of the venue and the taste of adult beverages. But Foreign Air took it up a notch with a curated, beautifully-produced event by The Wild Honey Pie with a four-course meal of delightful Brazilian dishes with cocktails, paired with stripped-down songs off their new EP and a cover that brought shivers to all who attended.
It was Foreign Air’s first Los Angeles show in over two years, with the multi-instrumentalists Jesse Clasen and Jacob Michael joined by percussionist and background singer Luke Adams. While banter is commonplace at live shows and even welcomed, the music was further highlighted by background stories on various tracks and detailed the band’s lives and musical journey. It was also a rare opportunity to hear arrangements that were created especially for this three-gig series.
“We haven’t played in two years because of the pandemic”, said lead singer Clasen. “We put out music and then couldn’t tour. We just put out an EP and did these dinner shows and had a lot of fun in D.C. and New York, deconstructing songs for these shows”.
They introduced the first song with Clasen giving some background. “”Everything Is Good Now” is probably one of the first songs we wrote in Los Angeles. We are normally kind of moody and a dark kind of band but we wanted to capture happiness in the music. Happiness in music can come across as cheesy [sometimes]”. The song was anything but, with a hand percussion shaker and the bass setting the tone. Clasen sang the melody, with its “ah-oohs” and a strong falsetto on the bridge while the lyric “everything is good now ’cause I’m with you” sounded like a warm greeting to the small crowd.
“I grew up in North Carolina, in religion”, shared Clasen. “It’s a very powerful thing and in the wrong hands can really change the mind in a bad way”. This spoke to the darker elements of “Illusion”, a song off 2020 album Good Morning Stranger. While the recorded version packs a production and percussive punch, the stripped-down rendition retained some of the organic, folky elements while keeping some of the synthesizer and sounding a bit like a score.
A number of new songs from Foreign Air’s EP released last month made the set list, including the title track “Why Don’t You Feel the Way I Do?”, which were all written and recorded during the pandemic. “During Covid, I was living out here and had a studio behind my house, and eventually we got into Zoom”, said Clasen. “This song came out of our first Zoom session”. The surf rock-leaning, 60s-flavored track took on a whole new timeless element with rather strong guitars from Michael as well as Adams, who was also harmonizing wonderfully with Clasen.
Clasen announced the next song is heavily inspired by films Donnie Darko and American Beauty, describing strange relationships, alluding to the motivational speaker villain character played by Patrick Swayze. The new song “Anything’s Possible” has twenty one pilots vibes, straddling indie rock and experimental electronic, with dark, cinematic piano and choral elements, an ethereal falsetto vocal and somewhat of a doomed lyric kicking off the tune “They said our future was so bright, but now it’s dark as the moon”. Like many of the new tracks, though there is a glimmer of hope in the song, it was a clear reflection of the times, the uncertainty and the collective sigh about the state of the world.
Clasen talked about a time when he picked up Michael at an airport when the two were living in Washington, D.C. and North Carolina, respectively, and they didn’t even have a band name. They played “Free Animal”, the song off 2016 debut For The Light that catapulted Foreign Air to stardom. Clasen played some mysterious notes on the keys, snapping while singing the ballad-like arrangement that veered from the aggressive recorded version. It was a refreshing turn, with a spiritual energy, some standout deep notes, closing with stunning rolling chords.
Another new one, “Your Touch” proved that mid-tempo production can disguise a song’s meaning. “This is a breakup song”, said Clasen. “But it doesn’t sound like one. It’s about revenge with words”. The groove was set with funky guitars and slick percussion with Clasen emphasizing “sometimes I feel like a ghost” with a strong note on the word “ghost”. It’s a song that makes you move no matter what, with chk-a-chk-a guitars and really impressive dynamics.
The other new song that took on a completely different form was “One More Night”. Clasen asked if the crowd liked Twin Peaks and mentioned a composer by the name of Angelo Badalamenti who created the theme song to the series with David Lynch next to him. Clasen described a Christmas gift his grandmother gave to he and other grandchildren, which was a picture of herself as a baby, naked, laying on a pillow. “You see old people and you see them as old, but they were babies, they were 15 once”. It set the stage for “One More Night” in a poignant way; instead of getting lost in the danceable track, this performance was lyric-focused with a slower tempo allowing the audience to enjoy the song with the depth of the songwriting. “We don’t fall like we used to, fly like we used to, try like we used to, I’m here with you for one more night. Smile like we used to, get high like we used to, ride like we used to“. The song hit differently, with gentle synthesizer, highlighting the emotion and nostalgia in the song’s story.
The guys talked about how they wanted to hire older folks for the music video but that they couldn’t during Covid, so they decided to play the older people themselves, sitting in makeup for four hours. After thanking Caboco staff for the food and mentioning that they got to try it themselves, Clasen talked about the next one being about “encouraging other people”. Foreign Air played the 2020 indie-rock track “I Believe” with the shaker and some timeless Southern rock vibes on the guitar.
For their last song, Foreign Air mentioned a recent radio performance they did over Zoom. “We had to do a cover and we don’t play covers very often”, said Clasen. “We were looking up a Ray Charles song and I thought the guitar part sounded like The Doors and I thought it sounded like “Tequila” and Jake went upstairs and started fooling around on the piano with The Doors song, so we are going to try it here”. If most of their other songs didn’t already sound cinematic, their cover of “Break On Through (To The Other Side)” most definitely did and should be considered for a movie. The downtempo version was haunting, with the light shrill of piano at the end, perfect for an intense drama or action film.
Foreign Air certainly broke “on through to the other side” and will continue to do so as they are working on new music, hopefully coming soon.
Words by Michael Menachem
Images by Meredith Adelaide for The Wild Honey Pie
