It’s been a number of years since this talented artist from Birmingham, Alabama released any new material. His previous body of work includes AMERICAN HEARTS (2007), WHEN THE DEVIL’S LOOSE (2009) and BELIEVERS (2011) and his folk sound was very engaging, bringing plenty of admirers to his music. However, for reasons unknown, he stepped away from recorded output since then and eight years later he re-emerges with ENDERNESS (2019), a departure from his original sound and a tilt at reinvention through a persona that best resembles an Automaton on stage, dark shades, robotic stance, minimalist moves at the microphone and a computer/laptop/backdrop slide accompaniment that wrapped the venue in swirls of ambient sounds, heavy drum beats, looped keyboard melodies & trance rhythms over which he sang .
Sadly, his voice was somewhat lost in the production and the words were largely indecipherable. In addition, the lack of any communication regarding song titles leaves me in the dark as indeed the venue was, at his request, for this short set. Tracks from his latest album are Diamond Skull, Killers 3, In The Wonder, The Tree With The Lights, Images Of Love, I'll Never Know, Fentanyl Freddy, Pan Tran, #Lost Hills and the title track, Enderness. Given that the entire set saw one track run into the next automatically, with the changing backdrop images and pre-programmed soundscapes, I must assume that AA Bondy played the entire album in this order - however he may well have changed things around to suit his own vision of how the work should be presented.
While I strongly believe that music should be challenging, I also think that it needs to be able to communicate and to connect with the audience that receives it. There is no doubting the lush melody lines and rich choral effects that were created on the night but without some real context it was hard to be fully engaged. The fact that AA Bondy left it until very late in the set to actually speak, did not help the atmosphere and the sense of simply being present at a cleverly constructed slide presentation of floating images above an ambient soundtrack.
Once actual conversation took place, then at least some of the personality of AA Bondy could be seen; he spoke of this being the first anniversary of his house burning down in California and how he had lost everything in the fire. “California burned my house down” was his comment and he also spoke of random things like a passed-out drunk in the street with what looked like a vomit-created word bubble at his head – not the nicest image to contemplate but AA Bondy sought meaning from this as the perfect comment on the state of the world right now.
He also said “Thanks for coming and putting up with whatever this is” and the room was sufficiently encouraged by the experience to invite him back for an encore – a version of Smile by Nat King Cole that was both oddly strange and strangely beautiful at the same time. He left the stage with I Want You by Marvin Gaye playing on his laptop via the sound system and everyone looked all of bemused, confused, enthused and inspired. AA Bondy has taken a 360 degree turn and I can only applaud his vision, even if we cannot all see the final destination yet.
Review and photo by Paul McGee