Sea Wolf keeps it cerebral at ‘Into the Night’

Kevin Bronson on
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This will come as no bulletin to anybody familiar with Alex Brown Church’s music, but Sea Wolf is not a party band. Not a single crowd surfer, stage diver or glowstick was spotted during the Los Angeles folk-pop outfit’s first local show in two years last Friday night. This despite the vaguely suggestive name of the event, “Into the Night: Playtime.”

But that’s because the night’s host, the Skirball Cultural Center, minds its middle name. In booking and organizing its annual summertime hipster foray at its Sepulveda Pass locale, the Skirball went for the cerebral (as it did last year in having heady post-rockers Autolux headline). There were fun and games, to be sure – Twister, board games, hula hoops, film screenings, “adult crafts” and the like – but nothing that was going to cause an LAPD battalion to descend on the place at midnight.

So if fans weren’t exploring Noah’s Ark, they were setting sail with Sea Wolf, who played two songs from his forthcoming third album “Old World Romance” and, despite some sound and lyrical hiccups, toured older material that was as pastoral as the Skirball’s courtyard setting. Church’s lush imagery was not lost on most of the crowd, although as the midnight hour passed, his band stuck to its sleepier material.

“We’re gonna do some more slow jams,” Church said. “It’s a romantic night, isn’t it?” Some of the natives (read: those who weren’t on a date) got restless.

Opening band Geographer were considerably friskier. The San Franciscans’ orchestral disco is equal parts electronic beats, tasty synth lines, strings and choir-boy vocals. Their set was not without pratfalls, but frontman Mike Deni – alternating between guitar, bass, keys and electronics – carried their long-ish set with his good nature and reverb-laden crooning. It inspired the kind of dance party where participants are holding glasses of wine.

Attendees who plotted their evening to include some of the games, the Skirball’s exhibitions and the music got the most out of “Into the Night.” Call it value-added playtime.