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Enon Just Wants To Rock Your World

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By CURTIS ROSS, The Tampa Tribune

Published: November 8, 2007

Updated: 11/07/2007 03:22 pm

There always were songs underneath the samples, noise and assorted sonic insanity on Enon's earlier records. On this year's "Grass Geysers ... Carbon Clouds," those songs finally break through to the surface.

Funny what happens when you write songs on guitar.

"It's more song oriented," bassist-singer Toko Yasuda says of the album. She's talking by telephone while strolling the streets of Seattle, before heading off to a show that night in Portland, Ore. She's handling the late-morning interview chores because bandmates John Schmersal (guitar and vocals) and Matt Schulz (drums) are still asleep.

"I'm used to using a computer and electronic devices to write," Yasuda says. "I still do, but I occasionally try to write with guitar and bass and stuff like that."

"Grass Geysers" isn't devoid of drum machines, keyboards or the noisy manipulations of past Enon efforts - the synths in "Dr. Freeze" could make you downright queasy - but they are less front-and-center. A good thing, too, because "guitar and bass and stuff like that" - namely drums - are all Enon is performing with on this tour.

"We wanted to make a record we could really play live," Yasuda says.

"This record is more stripped down than any other record we've made," she says. "There are keyboards, but we intentionally made a record we can play live as a three-piece. It's much more raw."

The band's lineup has evolved as much as its music.

Schmersal formed Enon in 1999 after the split-up of his previous band, Brainiac. The original lineup, featuring Schmersal and two-ex members of Skeleton Key, Rick Lee and Steve Calhoon, recorded the band's debut, 2000's "Believo!"

Calhoon left and Yasuda, formerly of Blonde Redhead, joined, along with Schulz. Yasuda's vocals - think of the B-52's Cindy Wilson with an Asian accent - brought a new layer of warmth and melodic sensibility to the band. This lineup released "High Society" in 2002. Lee departed before 2003's "Hocus Pocus," leaving the band a trio.

"Grass Geysers" is Enon's first album of new material in four years (it released an odds and ends collection, "Lost Marbles and Exploded Evidence," in 2005).

Yasuda doesn't see "Grass Geysers" as a new era for Enon - the band just wants to rock out.

"Our intention was to make a record we could play live and really rock," Yasuda says. "The different approach really excites us."

Given the band's history, the next time out could be something entirely different as well.

"I always like changing," Yasuda says. "I can't do one thing for too long. I have a short attention span.

"I like to change my approach," she says. "Otherwise, I'm not doing what I need to do."

ON TOUR

Enon

WITH: Love of Diagrams and Win Win Winter

WHEN: 10 p.m. Saturday

WHERE: Crowbar, 1812 N. 17th St., Tampa; (813) 241-8600

COST: $9

Curtis Ross can be reached at (813) 259-7568 or cross@tampatrib.com.

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