Although neither Martin Luther King nor Cesar Chavez made it out to Wednesday night’s show at La Sala Rossa, saying that they did makes for a damn catchy headline. It’s not completely false, either. The good people at La Sala Rossa did the next best thing to resurrecting legendary American civil rights leaders and booking them at the venue: they welcomed DOSH(opening act Anathallo) to a sparse crowd of head-bobbing enthusiasts.

Born to peace activist parents who immortalized their heroes in their son’s given name, Martin Luther King Chavez Dosh sports a first name to be reckoned with, and is more commonly known in the music community as the Minneapolis based multi-instrumentalist DOSH. Dosh performed with longtime collaborator Mike Lewis (saxophone, guitar) on May 21^st at La Sala Rossa. Wednesday night’s performance left one feeling like they visited a parallel universe, perhaps a distant boisterous cousin of Four Tet, where samplers, keyboards, insane rhythms, brilliant percussion, guitar, and saxophone are looped into one mind-twisting experience.

Lewis’s saxophone murmured alongside Dosh’s synth progressions and xylophone ripples as they hopped across a playground of rhythmic samples. The harmonies were tight and focused, while at the same time ambiguous as to the direction they would take next. This music could not be predicted.

Besides being indie/electro/experimental geniuses, Lewis and Dosh are also your average friendly touring musicians. They interacted with the audience, and gave a heartfelt thank you after each round of applause. At one point between songs, an astute observer from the audience asked whether Dosh and Lewis were planning on using the clarinet that was neatly placed on the stage. Dosh replied: “Yeah, it’s a long story. We just it brought it up on stage because we needed more stuff up here to make ourselves look good.” Musical genius and a sense of humor? Who would’ve guessed.

Overcome with emotion after hearing Circles and Squares (from their 2006 release The Lost Take), one audience member found the resolve to pick his jaw up off the floor and yell: “That was fucking beautiful!”

Despite a slight glitch with the looping pedal towards the end of the show, Dosh and Lewis retained their stoic composure and explained to the audience: “Something happened that only happens once every…oh, fifty shows or so - the brand new blue looping pedal erased everything.” Enthusiastic requests for an encore did not come as a surprise. After inquiring “You guys want a party jam?” DOSH closed the set with a lively Capture the Flag.

DOSH released his fourth album Wolves and Wishes on May 13^th and is currently touring across the States until the end of June. Although DOSH has become known as a solo experimental/electronic act, he is often involved in collaborations with Andrew Bird, as well as Andrew Broder (aka Fog), and is currently touring with saxophonist Mike Lewis from Happy Apple. Check out their upcoming tour dates and band info here.

For those of you who didn’t make it out to the show (entire population of Montreal minus five dozen people), you missed one sick set, boys and girls.

Photos care of Denis Rouleau (www.blindphotographer.net) after the jump….

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