Buke and Gase are a Brooklyn-based duo that makes a robust racket from a ramshackle collection of homemade and home-modified instruments. And it’s their unique instruments—Arone Dyer’s Buke (“byook,” a baritone ukulele) and Aron Sanchez’s Gase (“gace,” formerly “Gass,” a guitar bass) that gave the band their curious moniker.
B&G caught the attention of music and tech nerds alike in 2010 with appearances on NPR and Radiolab in the wake of their remarkable debut, Riposte. Function Falls is a four-song EP that is something of a stopgap in advance of Riposte’s full-length follow-up, General Dome, to be released in 2013. Whereas Buke and Gase’s natural sound involves electrical enhancement of acoustic instruments, Function Falls adds another layer of electronic interference, as the duo improvised with computer audio software as an arranging tool during recording. The resulting clamour is a twitchy glitch-rock like nothing else out there. Riffs are bit-crushed into luscious liquid shapes over which Dyer’s voice soars. The closing track is a cover of New Order’s “Blue Monday” which somehow improves on the 1982 original, an early stab at symphonic electro-pop. Buke and Gase take a joyride on the song’s iconic minor-key melody and leave the teen angst crying on the curb; even the most hardened cerebral cynic will want to strap on ankle bells and start stomping away.
Jonathan Bunce (a.k.a. Jonny Dovercourt) has been participating in the independent music community in Toronto – as a musician, writer, editor, presenter, organizer and advocate – since the early 1990s. He has been a member of more than a dozen bands and helped co-found Wavelength, a multi-genre music series. He is currently collaborating in the space-improv-punk guitar duo, Hybrid Moments. Jonny has also served as Artistic Director of The Music Gallery, a long-running Toronto concert space, and as Operations & Development Manager at the Images Festival. He has also co-edited two volumes of Coach House Books’ acclaimed uTOpia anthology.