By Sharon Li

I walked into a semi-crowded basement around 11:30 p.m., realized I’d missed the first band, Square Wave (oops), slapped ten high-fives in a row with a friend, spilled beer on myself and settled into a comfortable-looking seat. All week, I’d been hearing from random friends, particularly a Jack Wright Nelson, about how this show was going to be super duper fun. Jack ended up alone in a bathroom in Philly, but the show did turn out to be pretty good.

People were bustling about merrily and hanging out, while the musicians lugged around their equipment in preparation for the main act, Class Actress. The band that was originally going to play, Cold Cave, broke up this week, continuing a streak of bad luck (remember when the sky took a dump on us, made us really cold, and snowed in the Blue Album Group?). Nonetheless, Class Actress was a decent main act and people looked like they were having fun, dancing and prancing about.

Based on Square Wave’s performance the last time they came, I would guess it was a similar deal — energy building up in a gradually forming crowd, some of them dancing to wavering electro synths that boinged and spazzled over a steady thudding beat, others watching the He-man cartoons projected in the background, others milling around with their various friends. I asked a few friends who said it was good and fun.

Square Wave is an 8-bit/electronic music duo consisting of Evan Magoni and Charles Affel from Wyndmoor, Penn. According to their MySpace page, "we’re from the futuurreeee." As their set drew to an end, I dragged my lazy self upcampus, and by the time I got there, the washing machines were stuffed with coats, people seemed to be chatting, having a good time and pumping more frothy refills out of the keg for jolly good times.

I stared and fumbled around with my cup out of which I’d taken a sip but no more when a beat prodded its way into the basement, followed by light buttery female vocals. Class Actress was on. Class Actress began with solo singer Elizabeth Harper, then linking up with producers Scott Rosenthal and Mark Richardson shifting from a previously guitar-based sound toward one that’s more electronic synth-pop, imbued with 80’s synths and beats, dancy basslines, and pop star melodies (a la Madonna) underscored by a moodier, darker edge (like other influence Depeche Mode): “stalker pop,” as Harper calls it.

Students danced as the band dove through a series of songs of heavy driving beats and synths, zaps and glimmers, keyboard strumming counterbalanced with Harper’s feathery vocals breathing out lyrics about heartbreak and such. They seemed to be having fun, but I was far away from the front of the stage, sitting next to the windows in the back with a couple of friends who were enjoying the music. Around the stage, blues and greens and other colors warped into each other, pulsing with the beat. It wasn’t too crowded but a good enough number for a reasonable dance par-dy.

The music kind of reminded me of being out in the city, having lost all your friends and a shoe and wallet too, yet nonetheless still going at it in the slinky little basement party with glamorous people, trashy people, good music and other worries still floating around in your mind. The music was good. I liked it. As the set drew to an end, the lights transitioned back to yellow and Dylan Neves-Cox began spinning some tunes for the rest of however much longer Lunt lasted. There weren’t that many people, but enough for a good gathering. Not bad at all.

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