Before the Explosions in the Sky show was set to begin at Paradiso back in February, Tillery came up to me and asked, “These guys are from Texas, right?”“Yeah.” I said.
“I think I met one of them at the cigarette machine. He sounded like he was from Texas. There he is.” He pointed across the venue.
“Over there.”
“Damn, he doesn’t just sound like he’s from Texas.”
Tall and gangly with a long, gold miner’s beard—nearly thicker than his waistline—and donning a ratty cowboy hat and dilapidated garb seemingly stolen from a Deadwood set, the guy looked like he traveled to Amsterdam on a tumbleweed. I immediately recognized he wasn’t in EITS, and when he nonchalantly hopped onto the stage from the crowd, I knew we were in for something interesting.
We soon found out that he was Josh T. Pearson, the night’s opening artist and the former front man of Lift to Experience, an acclaimed indie rock outfit from Denton, Texas—also home to Midlake, Centro-matic, and--ahem--Norah Jones.
On the Bella Union website, Pearson remarks that after his father, a Pentecostal preacher, left him, his mother, and his brother out to dry, he began to his faith in God. Eventually, at the age of 19, “what [he] had known to be the presence of God physically left his body and [that] the music that [he] play[s] on his guitar is still the only thing that brings [him] to [God].”
This is absolutely the truth. From the moment Pearson unleashed his Gothic western sound, characterized by his hauntingly troubled wolf yodel, hornets’ nest guitar distortion, and thunderstorm on the horizon, boot-stomping rhythm, it was clear that the grizzly song smith was channeling energy from an outside source. Songs such as “Angels vs. Devils” and “Sins of a Fall” defined spine chilling—especially when Pearson howled one note for nearly 45 seconds during the former. Listening to his set, one could draw comparisons to the dark country of Cash, the driving song structure of Drums Not Dead, and the eerily mythical leanings of Jim Morrison, but Pearson’s music is really unlike any other. And though his performance was painfully gloomy at times, his strong-willed delivery shone light through the darkness. An uplifting performance in the face of despair.
And to tell you the truth, it’s too bad for Austin-based Explosions in the Sky, an avant-garde, instrumental rock quartet whose sound often encompasses the vastness of West Texas, that they chose Pearson as their opener. Even as majestic as their set was at times—most notably during Those Who Tell the Truth’s “With Tired Eyes, Tired Minds, Tired Souls, We Slept,” How Strange, Innonence’s “Greet Death,” and All of the Sudden I Miss Everyone’s “Welcome, Ghosts,” with the band playing like mystical puppeteers, one moment molding the crowd into an ambient tide of bobbing heads and thrusting it into a cathartic fury at another--I found it impossible to forget the captivating mystique of the apostolic first act. I guess that’s why Explosions in the Sky lists Pearson and Lift to Experience as an influence. Here’s hoping that Pearson's solo album drops soon.
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