Nice Nice builds songs that tend to go one direction, up, and one speed, fast.  Perhaps the drummer frequently jabbed his drumstick up into the air to grab the sound guy’s attention or perhaps it was to let the audience know that we were all about to ascend great looping heights. At times, the tension these two Portlanders created resembled a speed match of Jenga. The word “acrophobia” came across my mind a lot and I imagined all the famous towers throughout time—Babel, Pisa, of Terror—rising and falling through trap doors with each go.  Somehow they tapped into the dusty recesses of my mind and this strange and uncharacteristic desire to go on a run arose, but I miraculously managed to remain still and, in true Los Angeles fashion, occasionally bob my head. Their sound crosses many stylistic borders ranging from post-rock, electronic, commercial, experimental, etc., and in this new age of over-classifying music it leaves the audience asking “What the hell is going on?” I saw it as an exercise and trial of structures. Buehler and Shirazi take the guitar, drum, and vox and work like masons—sonic trailblazin’ tower building masons. It’s clear in the way they move around their equipment that they probe for sounds then eventually toss a new element into the confined space of the loop that will either generate something to behold or just crumble in the aural storms.   I wasn’t surprised to later learn that Jason Buehler and Mark Shirazi have played music together for over a decade because one of them wore a hat.

—Bud Miller