Those familiar with musician How To Dress Well know that his music tends to be very intimate — the perfect soundtrack for a melancholy bedtime diary session or a solitary walk through city streets late at night. One might wonder how well this atmosphere would transfer over to a live show: will that intimacy be lost among a crowd of people? Yet last Thursday night at T.T. the Bear’s Place in Cambridge, How To Dress Well captured that aura perfectly, adding a number of new dance-influenced songs to his repertoire. The artist demonstrated he is capable of more than just somber ballads.
How To Dress Well is the stage name of 30-year-old Tom Krell, a Chicago native who has been making ethereal R&B songs since 2009. Krell has released two full-length albums and one EP — he plans to debut another project sometime this year. His tracks highlight his impressive falsetto and the minimal yet reverb-drenched instrumentation that serves as a background for his angelic voice.
Krell opened his set by telling the audience that he was going to start off with a sad piece, in order “to set the vibes right.” Although the first song he played was indeed a slow, mournful number, the rest of the show wasn’t as gloomy as he might have anticipated. Filled with moments of euphoria and a surprising amount of upbeat percussion, Krell’s set was uplifting. There were the usual moments of sorrow (How To Dress Well is known for his focus on grief), but they were infrequent, serving as necessary instants of darkness that contrasted nicely with happier sections of the show. It seemed as if the despondency that defined his first two albums had ended; Krell appeared ready to take on the world with a new form of energy and a hunger for life that shone through in each new song he performed.
More than half of Krell’s set was made up of unreleased tunes that will most likely appear on his upcoming album. These songs represented a move away not only from his sorrowful tone, but also from the minimalism of his previous projects. Each one featured pounding drumbeats, wearing the influence of dance music proudly on its sleeve. While this new direction for Krell was well received by the youthful and energetic audience — thrilled with the opportunity to move their bodies — the busy-ness of the percussion often jumbled up the songs, making it hard for Krell’s vocal melodies to ring out above the cacophony. Krell was trying to do too much with each of his new songs, and the result was less than stellar as drums repeatedly clashed with restless bass lines to produce a strange mishmash of muddled sounds.
The musician was at his best when he kept the background music to a minimum and just let his voice carry the song, as he did on “Suicide Dream 1,” a track from his first album, “Love Remains” (2010). In that moment, the intimate atmosphere of his music was able to keep the entire room frozen with a mystical reverence that echoed out with each word he sang.
The opening act, Forest Swords, also possessed a certain enchanting aura infused with awe and wonder. Forest Swords, otherwise known as Matthew Barnes, is an English producer who creates infinitely eerie tracks that combine a number of influences ranging from dub to post-rock. They result in soundscapes that take the listener to another dimension of aural experience. Barnes performed with a bassist whose confident playing carried most of their songs out of the primordial mud, and the hazy yet unique visuals on the screen behind the two (created by Barnes himself for the show) added another layer of mystery to the music itself.
Both Forest Swords and How To Dress Well pulled the crowd into their respective enchanting worlds, leaving the audience spellbound when the night finally ended — Barnes with his ability to conjure up otherworldly feelings and Krell with his magical voice, which carried the listener up into an aural heaven.
