Patois Counselors
When Charlotte’s Bo White first created music under the name Patois Counselors back in 2015, it was simply another project for a very busy musician and songwriter. White had spent much of the previous decade in various musical guises, making noisy but melodic indie rock under with the band Yardwork, smooth soul-funk under his own name, horn-spiked, hazy orchestral pop as Bo White Y Su Orquesta, and diving into avant-garde experimentation as part of the Calabi Yau trio, among other projects.
But for Patois Counselors, the taciturn White, who seems to like to let his music do the talking, was interested in a specific sound. He wanted to create post-punk music, a wide-ranging genre that sprung up in the wake of punk rock’s liberating surge in the late 1970’s. Punk eliminated a lot of the rules of rock ‘n’ roll, and post-punk bands like Pere Ubu, Siouxsie and the Banshees, Public Image Ltd, and Magazine took full advantage of that rebellion, mixing experimental noise, psychedelic noodling, icy synth-pop, brittle funk and just about anything else they could find to create a body of work that seemed to be unified only by its lack of cohesion. When a band like The Cure and a band like Throbbing Gristle can rest comfortably under the same umbrella, that is a big musical scope.
But on the self-titled debut 7” release by the Patois Counselors, written and recorded entirely by White, the bands he was specifically emulating were The Fall and Mission Of Burma. Using The Fall’s cacophonous collage technique, White piles on outmoded, whining synths, fuzzed-out bass, jittery rhythms and serrated guitars into song-shaped projectiles, hurling one paranoid stomp after another at the listener’s psyche. His sneering faux-British accent and monotone malevolence certainly recalls The Fall’s late, deranged frontman Mark E. Smith, and the guitars resemble the massive wall of sound that Mission Of Burma created before they were forced to retire because one member was going deaf from the racket.
Initially, White just produced this bedroom EP for his own enjoyment, and for some of his friends to hear.
“It was essentially just me working on a sound that I had an idea for,” he says. “I posted it online just to share it, and a handful of friends enjoyed it and offered to help me flesh out the project.”
Those friends had some serious musical pedigree of their own. The band eventually expanded to include Zach Reader from Blossoms on drums, Lee Herrera from HRVRD on bass, and Nick Goode from Brain F≠ on guitar, but the membership is essentially Bo White and a rotating cast. It’s the full-band version that will be playing on as part of Music on Main, with the monthly art crawl First Thursday on Main partnering with local radio station WXRY and to enhance and highlight its regular sonic offerings.
That musical collective helped White create the Patois Counselors’ just-out new album, the acerbically titled Proper Release. On the record’s eleven tracks, White still incorporates the distortion and dissonance of The Fall, but the rhythms lean toward the angry neo-funk of Gang Of Four and the random noise experiments of Pere Ubu. It’s at once a more challenging and more refined version of the debut 7-inch. It’s also a startling reminder that White created these songs with a specific genre in mind, as opposed to starting out with a melody or vocal line.
“I have pretty varied musical tastes, and I wanted to start a post-punk band,” White explains. “So I went with that angle. That’s what came to me, because I happen to enjoy that genre. It’s just a blend of what I had come to know up to that point.”
And despite his long tenure as a musical chameleon, Patois Counselors are enjoyable enough project that White sees himself making another album in the same style.
“I look forward to putting out another release, to be sure,” he says. “We’ll see how this one goes and take it from there, but I have a couple of labels that have been interested in putting something out.”
What: Patois Counselors
Where: Boyd Plaza, 1515 Main St. Columbia
When: Thursday, June 7, 6 p.m.
With: Jenny Besetzt (headlining),
Pie Face Girls
Price: Free
Head to firstthursdayonmain.com to check out what else is on tap for WXRY Music on Main.
