By Ken Baldino
How To Dress Well’s Tom Krell “likes sad music but also likes to live a happy life,” as he told the Utrecht crowd during one of his many chatty breaks between songs. This idea is fundamental when considering the live performance of one of pop music’s most haunting artists. The balance between banter and soul-baring sonic outpouring is a delicate one, but one that it seems the native Coloradan must have. Interactions with his band and audience are, literally and figuratively, time to catch his breath, to come up for air, lest the weight of performing such emotional material drag him into the lonely abyss.
Standing before flitting abstract projections and flanked by his three bandmates, Krell, wearing a loose-fitting white tee, khaki trousers, and tennis shoes, opened the set with “A Power,” one of the more expansive tracks on How To Dress Well’s 2014 release, What Is This Heart? He operates behind two microphones, one with no effects and one loaded with reverb. They create a bubble of sound for him to inhabit, and he deftly moves within it, angling his head, changing the direction of his voice, and altering his proximity to one or both mics. The effect is that notes seem to soar over and duck under each other. As “A Power” steadily escalated, in melodic fullness and in lyrical yearning, Krell turned loose his voice, flying into his falsetto, all the while tugging at the neck of his shirt as if to tear something out of himself.
When he opened his eyes, loosed his grip on the microphones, and regarded the audience for the first time, it was with a lighthearted, “What’s up?” As if to shake off where he had just been, Krell discussed contemporary Russian novelists (he is a PhD candidate in philosophy) before launching back into the set. Other respites included rapping with his drummer, Andrew, about their teenage years playing in a band together. Later, on an audience member’s request, he recounted the story of losing his virginity. Often meant as moments of levity, there was clearly something therapeutic happening between songs for Krell. More often than not, he was slipping us little truths, nods to the conflicts, struggles, pain, and realizations that led to the creation of his music. And then, almost abruptly, he would dive anew into the void.
Since self-recording and releasing the first How To Dress Well tracks in 2009, the maturation and refinement of Krell’s sound from lo-fi R&B to the full vibrancy of his current record has paralleled the twists and turns in his personal life. Most notably, he was devastated by the sudden death of his best friend, Ryan, in 2010; the event was a driving force behind the 2012 album Total Loss. Before performing “Suicide Dream 1,” a delicate, wistful song of heartbreak, Krell mentioned his late friend, saying, “Every night when I play this, I feel beautiful.” Accompanied only by violin and piano, the purity of his voice was laid bare, revealing to the rapt onlookers both his pain and his solace, a personal and artistic triumph.
Inhabiting the emotional landscapes in and around his music tasks Krell with being utterly vulnerable in front of an audience, something that many of his contemporaries go to great lengths to avoid. But he seems comfortable, and by exposing so much, he gives himself license to really live on stage. Sometimes, as in “2 Years On (Shame Dream),” he hovered in intimate contemplation. In “Face Again,” his throbbing intensity matched the driving baseline, bored through the air and rattled our insides. Because of the frontman’s honesty and commitment, what remained constant in both of these songs from “What Is This Heart?” was the sense of isolation with which the album is fraught.
The melancholy mood was tempered, however, by the conversational interludes and, more importantly, by moments of luminous ethereality. In closing with “Words I Don’t Remember,” Krell and company were at their strongest, blending elaborate vocal textures with smooth production and steadily building both to a euphoric explosion. How To Dress Well went for it, and in ending on a love song, left us dazzled and with—of all things—a glimmer of hope.
The melancholy mood was tempered, however, by the conversational interludes and, more importantly, by moments of luminous ethereality. In closing with “Words I Don’t Remember,” Krell and company were at their strongest, blending elaborate vocal textures with smooth production and steadily building both to a euphoric explosion. How To Dress Well went for it, and in ending on a love song, left us dazzled and with—of all things—a glimmer of hope.
