Jason Hutto, the keyboardist and vocalist for the D.C. duo The Aquarium, is a full-body performer. Coaxing the perfect sound out of the keyboard, he kicks his legs wildly behind him and shakes his shaggy hair.
At the band's Sunday night show at the Black Cat backstage, Hutto and drummer Lauren Harris performed facing each other on stage, each one feeding off the other's sound skillfully, resulting in high-energy harmony. The throaty lyricism of Hutto's keyboarding layered with the urgency of Harris' drumming crafted the band's exciting and organic sound. To go to an Aquarium show is to be a part of the live, exhilarating process of their music making.
After releasing their first full-length album with Dischord in 2006, the duo has been performing locally and growing in popularity. The crowd for Sunday night's show was intimate but loyal - fans bobbed their heads familiarly to the music and shouted out requests.
Sunday's set steadily built up intensity and precision, veering from more ambient instrumentals to funkier, soul-inspired tracks. Their sound defied classification: keyboard-punk comes close but doesn't quite capture their slower, more thoughtful songs.
Both Hutto and Harris are passionate performers, and watching the pair play is a somewhat cathartic experience. Hutto's keyboarding is nearly acrobatic; Harris' drumming has a barely-contained intensity, and they drive one another's musicianship. In the song "Lighthouse," Harris set an urgent pace, but Hutto looped through her cadence with expansive and unexpected bursts of organ. Hutto's keyboarding played an anachronistic counterpart to the insistency of the drums, melding into an almost psychedelic, soul-driven sound with punk. Each song had moments of bliss where the instruments sunk into the other's sound, crafting uniquely resonant harmonies.
Hutto and Harris hit their stride later on in the set during "Golden Pyramid" - the band actually played this song twice, "but better!" the second time, as one fan quipped. Their sound seemed effortless but vibrant. Even the vocals became another instrument. Rather than topical poetry, Hutto's voice bled into the instrumentation to weave a new layer into their already rich sound.
Inventive and collaborative, The Aquarium is the type of band that makes seeing live music so exciting. Without the leg kicking and hair shaking and mutual intensity, listening to their CD after the show was like hearing an entirely different band.
You can reach this staff writer at agoldstein@theeagleonline.com.
