Author: Emma Weaver
The ambient enigma, Cigarettes After Sex, transported us all into their erotic, yet powerful despondency and magnetism.
Greg Gonzalez’s Texas/Brooklyn musical project started in 2008, and grew to be the image it is now when their most famous song “Nothing’s Gonna Hurt you Baby” was released in 2012 and exploded all over web-based/social media platforms. Since then, Cigarettes After Sex has released numerous singles and EPs, in addition to their 2017-released album Cigarettes After Sex. They have grown immensely as a band, and are currently on tour. Recently, they performed at the Neptune Theatre in Seattle, and the results, well are, astonishing.
Their sound is a silky seductiveness, with fierce overtones, thanks to the resonant band. Gonzalez controlled the stage, which was consumed by flickering, all-consuming white lights. Each band member transformed into a music-emitting beam of light, with Gonzalez submerged in a softer, weaker light. It was heavenly, it was dreamy, but it also was mystifying. The stage, through the help of lighting and a fog machine, transfigured into this celestial cloud. Call it optical illusion, but I think it was more of an enhancement of their image. Their music was a constant. Each tonal rendering and guitar riff radiated an unwavering energy, with the inconstant flickering of light, forming a gratifying atmosphere. As lights bounced off the stage and submerged the band, their piercing falsetto vox and intimate sounds coruscated.
Greg Gonzalez, the lead singer, began singing in a very soft and low tone; it was bone-chilling and hair-raising, but in a good way. While it was at first hard to make out what he was singing, he still contained this presence of which sucked us all in. Most of the crowd was in this trance, as their faces glistened under the sparkle of bright white light and their bodies vibrated in rhythm with the bass. Their seductive, silky sounds radiated through the room, emitting the very 90s shoegaze and dream-pop resonance, they have mastered. Gonzalez’s androgynous voice carried on throughout the show, creating this unique aesthetic. The monochromatic lights, the gleaming melodies, the coquettishness all contributed to their idiosyncratic sparkle.
With songs such as “Affection”, where Gonzalez hums, “I think of you, I want you too, I’d fall for you”, the audience lived vicariously through the strong emotional undercurrents, so transparently attached to the song. Their song “John Wayne”, which had a harsher, stronger sound when performed live, epitomizes their melancholy trance, accompanied by tenderness and sultriness. Though the transpiration of their smooth melodies and slow vocals, Cigarettes After Sex was able to encompass sounds of Mazzy Star or Slowdive, to push themselves deeper into the sound so heavily desired and projected.
Their songs sound the same, there is no denying that, but when performing live, Cigarettes After Sex was able to give each song an unique charm. The songs are beautiful, through the very image they give off and lure they possess. Whether the audience was listening to “Apocalypse” or “Sunsetz”, or any one of their songs performed, Cigarettes After Sex performed a bittersweet rendition of feeling, love, seduction, and loss.
EMMA WEAVER | KXSU Music Reporter