Azure Ray

Culturally conditioned to be smile-a-lot get-alongs, Americans’ expression of melancholy is, at best, inept. To fill the psychic need to purge the bad things, we have art. During a sad film, we leak not only for the characters, but for our own totally unrelated, daily hurts. In the right hands, music serves the same role—from the elegant sadness of Nick Drake to Depress Mode’s dark anthems. Enter Athens, Georgia’s dreamy duo, Azure Ray. Through the phenomenal harmonies of acoustic guitar-wielding vocalists Orenda Fink and Maria Taylor, difficult emotions are rendered oddly warm and lovely. Originally members of Bright Eyes, the duo surfaced in 2001 to critical gushing, and Moby had them bolster the sensuality of Play. This show is also a treat for fans of the Faint, as Broken Spindles is the side project of bassist Joel Peterson.