Tonight’s Pick: Do Make Say Think at the Black Cat

With all of Do Make Say Think’s open-ended instrumental noodling, loose song structures, and liberal employment of improvisation, it’s surprising the multimember collective doesn’t suffer more comparisons to jam bands. In fact, the awkwardly named collective artfully avoids a lot of undue pigeonholing: Though their jazz and psych influences are tailored for those who are ready to postrock, they’re also spacey without drifting off into atmospheric, ethereal territory where it can be pleasantly ignored. The sporadic bursts of melody keep Do Make Say Think from committing the all too common instrumental pratfall of flexing impressive technical muscle without actually being interesting. Sometimes, making complex music that isn’t, at best, difficult to grasp and, at worst, a joyless endeavor is an elusive balance. Leave it to a bunch of Canadians to make striking it seem so effortless. Do Make Say Think performs at 8 p.m. at the Black Cat, 1811 14th St. NW. $12. (202) 667-7960. —Maggie Serota

This entry was posted on Monday, September 17th, 2007 at 3:00 pm and is filed under Arts, Music, Today's Pick. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.