I've followed Ammo Bankoff since 2011 when I caught a band called Black Flamingo at a DIY music festival called Silver Lake Jubilee. The band also featured Kimi Recor. I had seen Recor the previous year at Silver Lake Jubilee in a band called Lilofee. Those encounters at the music festival started off my loyalty to these two musicians. Kimi Recor, perhaps, had the greater propensity to explore new music creations. Her best known bands after Black Flamingo were Draemings and Kevin, but there were others. The band Kevin was a duo with Quincy Larsen who I knew via a band called Cat Scan and now Dove Armitage. Bankoff went from Black Flamingo to fronting Brass Box. She then started up her currently band Silent Mass (originally named AMMO). Unfortunately, for the Los Angeles music scene, Recor has returned to her home country of Germany. Meanwhile, Bankoff has moved to Brooklyn. I do love recounting the Los Angeles music history.
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| Silent Mass at Substance Fest (held at The Belasco) |
Luckily, I got to catch Silent Mass when Bankoff flew into Los Angeles in 2023. She played a set at The Echo during Crook's residency (those are now a distant memory). Anyways, I am rather sure that via a Silent Mass post, I learned that the band was finally coming back to Los Angeles to play Substance Fest at The Belasco. Now I knew about Substance Fest, but had never attended the festival. I decided to apply for a photo pass and the week of the show, I got approved. You can read my review of the festival at US Rocker Music (click here). The band was dressed in black and that worked well with the over-all theme of the festival. Their 30-ish minute set was played under red lights. Generally, photographers hate red lights, but this shade of red lights did not mess with my sensors.
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| Silent Mass at Substance Fest (held at The Belasco) |
As per the band's bio, the band's sound is "rooted in post-punk, ethereal wave, and 90s shoegaze." The songs are explored with poetic snippets of thought. In a song that I no doubt heard in 2023, "A Cold War City" (via Darkenin Heart) is about being frustrated with the "murky tangle of the past." It is a cold war within one's soul.
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| Silent Mass at Substance Fest (held at The Belasco) |
Reflections, I must confess
The lyrics are sung in a haunting chant that is worthy of a clandestine ritual. The music is purposely slow and yet always driving forward with momentum. There is an ultimate goal to be reached no matter the obstacles. It is as if Stanley Kubrick' precision and David Lynch's surrealism fused into a a new perspective on life.
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