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Bachelorette Rises Above Technical Difficulties in Brooklyn

BacheloretteEven if Annabel Alpers, the New Zealander behind Bachelorette, hadn't intended to end her performance Monday night at Union Hall in Brooklyn, N.Y., after 35 minutes, she wouldn't have had much choice.

"I just spilled Jagermeister all over my computer, and now the keys won't work," Alpers said, seconds after finishing her final song, a lush, rubbery synth-pop tune that might have once been played over the closing credits of a John Hughes film.

Even before she killed her keyboard, Alpers had spent much of her set wrestling with technology, using a temperamental dual-laptop setup to layer prerecorded sounds and loop snippets of music she sang and played live, both on keyboard and quavering hollow-body electric guitar.

She introduced her latest single, 'Do the Circuit,' available at the merch booth on 7" vinyl, with what turned out to be an ironic sales pitch. "You won't find it anywhere but here," she said, seconds before laptop number two failed to load the track, and she was forced to move on to something else. "I guess you'll just have to buy the 7"," she said with a laugh.

After floating through a lovely 'Her Rotating Head,' a School of Seven Bells-style dream-pop tune from her latest album, 'My Electric Family,' Alpers offered a sheepish, roundabout apology, acknowledging the extent to which technical difficulties had marred her set.

"That song was in keeping with the theme of the night," she said. "That theme being human error, and getting it right sometimes."

Sure, Alper's songs started and stopped abruptly, and the live and canned bits didn't always mesh, but she managed to get things right -- or at least as right as they needed to be -- more often than not.

This, after all, was a rainy Monday night spent nearly 10,000 miles from Alpers' hometown of Christchurch, New Zealand. The 20 or 30 people in attendance were familiar with the music and more than willing to forgive the occasional digital hiccup.

While 'My Electric Family' benefits from the addition of side musicians, Bachelorette's live show shines the spotlight on Alpers, a soft-spoken charmer with a whispery voice and gift for melody. She fights losing battles with her Macbooks, but insofar as she emerges with choice snippets of sugary, shimmering electro-psychedelic pop, the audience wins the war.

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Scott Maddox, CPA

Her live show at 9:30 Club in DC on 4/30/11 was a trainwreck. The only reason to see her live is if you want to see someone embarass themself on stage by trying to do too much at the same time with multiple laptops, synths, guitar, and vocals, yet not being able to multitask since technology apparently hates her.

May 06 2011 at 2:22 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
S321Saint

Someone tell the writer of the article..to GET a LIFE!!! Get out into the REAL world. Most of what you talked about only 20-30 people in the world understand it completely. And most of the references to music bands, persons, styles, was ...how shall I say this...rather droll and condescending.

March 23 2010 at 11:07 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply