Warpaint performs at the UC Theatre in Berkeley on Aug. 22, 2022. Sean Liming/STAFF.
BERKELEY — “Swamp water” is a term of endearment for the syrupy concoction that results from filling a cup with equal parts of each available selection from a soda machine. Also regionally known as a “graveyard” or a “suicide,” the cloying mixture is a pretty good metaphor for the music of Warpaint. The L.A. quartet brought its unique musical combination of rock, soul, funk, disco and hip-hop to The UC Theatre Monday night. The band didn’t just skip around musically between songs; it leapt between genres often between the verses of a single song.
Monday’s rendition of “Champion,” the first single off of the band’s new album, Radiate Like This, which came out earlier this year, began with sparse synth samples and sultry vocal harmonies before growing in volume and intensity mid-song and finally blooming into a groovy, spacey jam. On “Hips,” another song from their latest, the percussion-heavy jams became suddenly mellow, and then forceful again as guitarist-vocalist Emily Kokal sang, “I won’t forget, I won’t forget/ I will remember, will remember, will remember this.”
Warpaint performs at the UC Theatre in Berkeley on Aug. 22, 2022.
Perhaps Warpaint’s closest musical comparison is The Cure, who can play just about anything and still sound like itself. On “Intro,” from the band’s self-titled 2014 album, guitarists Emily Kokal and Theresa Wayman wove together intricate melodic lines over bassist Jenny Lee Lindberg’s throbbing bass line. During “Bees,” from 2010’s The Fool, Lindberg coaxed a strange clanging buzz from her bass. The song arranged itself around the unique noise, much like The Cure with the grinding bass of “Fascination Street” or even the strange bird sounds that punctuate “Like Cockatoos.”
The sweaty crowd cheered Kokal’s folky guitar intro to “Keep It Healthy.” Between songs, Lindberg exclaimed “It’s hot in here!” Kokal and Wayman, in T-shirts and shirt skirts, were dressed for the heat, while Lindberg was clad in black and drummer Stella Mozgawa wore a brown jumpsuit.
Older songs like the disco-vibey “Love Is to Die” and the vaguely new wave “New Song” both had the crowd dancing. Wayman and Lindberg shed their guitars and drummer Mozgawa came out from behind the kit as the four women stood center stage singing “Melting,” from their latest album. The haunting four-part harmonies filled the cavernous theater as they sang the song’s refrain, “There’s a phoenix fire burning in my house/ And it’s melting, melting, melting me down.”
Warpaint finished off its set with “Disco Very,” perhaps the band’s most exotic musical combination; part catty hip-hop, part Middle Eastern scale weirdness. It’s high praise indeed that the song so thoroughly resists musical categorization.
Goldensuns perform at the UC Theatre in Berkeley on Aug. 22, 2022.
Warpaint returned after a short break to deliver an encore comprised of “Beetles” (one of its earliest songs), a sparse and haunting cover of Fugazi’s “I’m So Tired” and the gentle and playful “Send Nudez” before waving goodnight to the crowd.
Salt Lake City’s Goldensuns opened the show with a musical set that combined throbbing chug with acoustic lilt. On “Alec,” the literal band of brothers—Weston, Jantzen and Chase Meier—paid musical tribute to their brother who passed away in 2014. The band was joined on stage by Warpaint bassist Lindberg to play a couple songs from her latest solo album, Heart Tax, released earlier this year, including “Stop Speaking.”
Follow writer David Gill at Twitter.com/songotaku. Follow photographer Sean Liming at Twitter.com/SeanLiming and Instagram.com/S.Liming.
David Gill gave up a life of rock and roll to teach writing and literature at San Francisco State University. The former guitarist for Chicago grunge band Hog Lady wrote about music for SonicNet during the 1990s. His writing about science fiction has appeared on io9.com, boingboing, and Daily Science Fiction. He lives in Oakland with his wife and family.
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