The smallish Japanese man is beside himself with excitement: He’s traveled across the world just to witness this show by Danish Satanic psych folk sensation Aron, and now that he’s actually up there on the stage performing new arrangements of the songs from his three vinyl-only albums, he can no longer hold back his enthusiasm, it all wells up inside him, so despite what manners he has been taught since childhood, he now clenches his fist and yells at the stage, “Brack power! Yes! Rrraaarrr,” while he smiles and nods to the bewildered, yet equally enthusiastic people next to him.

That’s how I think it must be, though I can’t be sure, since the Japanese pleads “Ingrish no good!” when I try my best to help him score some dope later on, rolling imaginary blunts and making puffing motions while smiling and nodding and exclaiming “Yes? Yes?” Now, would you travel across the world to see Aron play live? And would it be worth it, if you were that hardcore a fan? It probably would, because Aron seems to be coming out of the woodwork these days, steadily gathering a larger fanbase for his eerie, naive, occult little songs. That’s Kim from Of the Wand & the Moon standing over there to side, checking out the competition in the Satanic folk field, but these two unique songwriters need not fear each other, and I don’t think they do either, just appreciate the fact that there’s room on the scene for their kind, even in 2009, even in Copenhagen.

Aron tonight plays as a trio with electric and acoustic guitar, 12-string electric guitar, and organ plus a cymbal stand and a kickdrum: It’s stripped down compared to when he played a more straight garage rock set opening for Om last year, and the focus is on the vocal harmonies and the melodies. The set is made up of songs from “Among the Dead” and what I take to be material  from the long out of print “Black Beacon”, to be re-released later this spring by Repo Man, plus “Djævlebarn” and “Ud på landet” from “Djævelens horn”. It’s a quiet affair, it’s strange to be able to hear music like this played on a Saturday night just off Strøget, the main pedestrial mall; it’s amazing.

Last time Chasing Eudaimonia played Lades, they weren’t happy with the sound, they needed more bass, so this time around they had mixed the sound themselves and bass they got. So much bass that we hardly got anything else, which isn’t completely extraordinary in the case of Chasing, where the vocals are mixed low, drowned in guitar, but tonight we got so much bass that it worked against them. The bass lines in Chasing’s songs aren’t strong enough to stand as nearly alone as they did for large parts of tonight’s set, and the guitar and electronic noise are too interesting to be hidden away like they were. Of the three long songs they played, “Waves” from their debut 10” worked best for me and drew me into the semi-meditative state that Chasing operate in, when they’re best.

They closed with a brand new track that saw them leave their traditional Cocteau Twins-meets-Labradford sound for a more traditionally melodic song structure with Sia’s vocals distorted, which, unfortunately, only made for PJ Harvey-connotations. Me, I’d be happier with Chasing disappearing further away from anything emotional or even barely human, but from what I heard afterwards, I stand pretty much alone with that opinion.

Aron:
Chasing Eudaimonia: