Ears Wide Open: Auditorium

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In his pop guise, Spencer Berger is Auditorium – although, he points out in his profile, “You don’t have to call Spencer ‘Auditorium’ in real life. He’s not like The Edge. In fact, if you called him ‘Auditorium,’ he’d politely tell you to stop.” What Berger is, however, is a one-man terror in the studio. On his January 2011 debut album “Be Brave” and his forthcoming EP, “Nights Worth Living” (Feb. 28), he played all the parts, the most striking of which is his opera-trained voice, layered and woven into indelible harmonies tucked neatly velvety production. A Vassar College graduate and an alum of the Metropolitan Opera’s Children’s Chorus, Berger authored and starred the art-house film “Skills Like This” (2009) before embarking on Auditorium, whose acoustic narratives are equal parts Queen and Eric Matthews, and, as evidenced by “The Sex Offenders,” full of whimsy and wit. Live, he is joined by his wife Daya, his sister Elizabeth, BK Etheridge and brothers Jon and Justin Hogan.

||| Download: “The Sex Offenders”

||| Also: Visit Auditorium’s Bandcamp to preview download a couple of free tracks from “Be Brave.”

||| Live: Auditorium performs Jan. 18 at the Silverlake Lounge along with the Beautiful View and College Kids.

Photo by Annie Barnes