Show Review: Elliot Moss
We walk into the Echo and somehow in all my time here, I’ve never been to this venue. The environment is quite simplistic and mainly black, letting the audience focus on nothing but the stage. We wander to the back smoking area and a spot someone looking down and walk past the ramp to find her massaging another person's hair with intense focus. My friend bums a cigarette and I resist the temptation to ask for one too. The wall is covered with simplistic shapes and colors reminiscent of the third grade. We then meet Stone, a sound mixer and friend of the girl at the front who managed to greet us midway through stuffing her face with what looked like delicious tacos. I hadn’t had dinner. Stone wears a giant hoop earring on one ear.
We go back inside and it’s easy to creep up to the front. We mostly missed the opener, who looked like a girl who had just decided last minute to go up and perform at an open mic, her body barely moving and her hands gripping the mic as if she’d never laid hands on one before in her life.
The lights are limited, but effective as they frame Elliot and his guitarist and drummer. Elliot wears a worn black ck calvin klein t-shirt that frames his slightly out-of-shape tummy. The kind that hasn’t quite let itself go, but a bit of rounding and curvature. His facial expressions and upper body movement are the main focus as he arches his back singing. His glasses are clear and his hair is sculpted by the light to look like those on the famous busts of Grecian figures. His voice is as melodic as it is hypnotizing and intense. When he sings he scarcely breaks to make contact with the listeners. He’s engrossed in the moment and concentrated on the sounds and so the audience can do the same. At times it almost feels like the audience needs more distance from him because there’s a sort of invisible, untouchable nature to his performance. Later in the performance, his friend, a violinist, joins him for “Rabbit Roads” and the bow in her hand is captivating as she compliments Elliot on the piano and its most striking notes. She glows in the light and it feels theatrical and a little out of place. Like we’re watching more than a song, but a performance that extends beyond the context of the environment and also like maybe we’re infringing on two friends playing to their highest potential in one another's presence.
His music takes you out of the business of your thoughts and makes you slow down to the beautiful, sometimes eery, sometimes entrancing sounds. It’s the music that you listen to to escape whatever’s going on and lay down or start dancing in circles to get your energy up. There’s no pressure to be or do anything but feel what you’re feeling and let it come up naturally.