“It’s so cold, I can’t believe you came out.” – Sondra Sun-Odeon
We did! We came out all the way up to Slash Run on the fringes of Petworth. No cold weather can keep DC away from good music. We warmed up nicely.
Sondra Sun-Odeon performed an intimate set (before the local band Time is Fire) on January 16th to a full room at Slash Run. She’s on a short five city tour, which started here in DC.
Sondra is based in both LA and NY, and infuses a healthy mix of genres into her music, from ethereal folk to shoegaze to even noise rock. Before the nicely warmed up crowd, she gave us eight solo songs, with just her guitar and voice.
She started the evening with “Vision”, a dreamy, melancholy cry about considering leaving someone, interwoven within the jagged strumming of her guitar.
Next came “Oaks”, uplifting in sound, yet somehow also quiet in resolve, one of the more soothing songs on the evening.
Then she introduced us to two songs written about former lovers, one of them a new track about flying high and feeling alive.
Near the end, we got the upbeat music of “Witches”, from her first album Ætherea, warming us more with a rush of melancholy from the ambient lyrics. A soaring song, it would be interesting to hear how it sounds played with the full complement of a band. It proved to be one of my favorites on the night.
To close out, Sondra went epic with “Hit”, driving in a sludgy riff, underneath her high chanting voice. This proved to be a killer noise rock track and the perfect segue to Time is Fire’s frenetic post-punk.
One song she didn’t play was the title track of her new album, Desyre (via Graceface). Too bad, because it is an incredibly urgent and unrelenting rock song. Which I like. Maybe it is difficult to do it justice during a solo set. The seven songs on Desyre are all worth a listen at home after you buy the recond. She played at least three live at Slash Run.
Also, if you haven’t yet made it up to the fringes of Petworth to check out Slash Run, do yourself a favor. Check out their upcoming events, and find a show you might like to attend. I hear their burgers are also good, but I didn’t try one yet. The beer selection is solid as well, I treated myself to a Dinner (Double IPA) from Maine Beer Company.
Setlist
Vision
Oaks
(unknown)
(unknown)
(unknown)
(unknown)
Witches
Hit
A DC Journey 