I’ve been entranced and entrenched by the frenetic, speed-addled, neck-breaking whims of Texas’ haha Laughing since discovering them at this year’s FME. So when I learned they’d be closing a night at Casa del Popolo for Thursday night at POP Montreal, I knew I had to be there and bear witness.
Ahead of the show, the odds aren’t exactly in the Austin-based rap duo’s favour. They’re playing in Montreal for the first time ever, on a weeknight, following up three melancholic (though striking) indie bands and making a puzzling closer to the evening. Fortunately for us all, the small Casa showroom filled up quickly, giving performers Jay Dilick and Aby Oviedo (AKA BB BASCO) the energy they needed to deliver some truly crazy shit.
Every haha Laughing track is a balls-to-the-wall barn-burner, no exceptions. From the 2000s-action-flick-inspired “HOLY TOLEDO” to the rupturing, craning “PULLED APART BY HORSES,” Oviedo and Dilick are relentless onstage. The mix never stops, each song always dragged into the next with a clanging, ringing guitar chord, a throaty 808, or a wretched little synth.
Throughout the show, the duo keeps pulling oddities out of their bag of tricks. Oviedo jumps online with a saxophone, then Dilick is suddenly folded over his Strat. Now here’s BB BASCO, punishing a cymbal with crushing quarter notes and a grimace on their face. Suddenly, Oviedo vanishes entirely, now taking the role of a hooded figure slithering across the crusty Casa floor as the titular creepy-crawly in “SOMETIMES, I WISH I WERE A SLUG.”
Before all the free jazz and dissonance has anyone thinking these two are making it up as they go, Oviedo and Dilick each take a turn on the drums for the last couple of songs, hammering out breathless passages to an eruption of cheers from the brimming room. Their sound is best described as organized chaos, always at risk of rattling apart completely from the sheer decibel count of it all, and yet, somehow always arriving alive.
Against all odds, haha Laughing turned out to be the perfect closer for this oddball indie evening at POP Montreal.
Photos by Stephan Boissonneault
