Wildly differing experimental acts to blow minds at Duffy’s

Science and religion are two concepts that have seldom worked well together in any facet of Western society. They're ideas at odds with each other, trying to figure out the greater secrets of existence through radically different methods. But tomorrow night at Duffy's (1412 O St.), the two worldviews will collide on one stage as Powerful Science plays alongside the religious fury of Brothers Family Temple, along with ... Windpants?

Tomorrow night at Duffy's will be an absolute pile-up of wildly varying, perception-bending, forward-thinking experimental music featuring the best tenets of science, religion and 90s fashion as pop experimenters Powerful Science join the zealots of Brothers Family Temple to present the solo fury of Windpants, the experimental project of local musician and recent convert to the ordered side of the law, Tim Carr.

"It's me," said Carr, describing Windpants. "It's just me."

Carr has been a guitar staple in some of Lincoln's stranger musical offerings over the past few years, playing in such eclectic acts as Mucho Güt, Gooses and Scroggins and Clarf (he's Scroggins). However, he's been writing songs for Windpants for the better part of the past eight years.

"I've been doing this a long time, and I've just always called it Windpants for some reason," Carr said. "I've played a few house shows with it. I played at Cultiva once, but I've never really done a show as Windpants."

Carr started Windpants after he came into possession of a guitar delay pedal that had a four-measure looping function in it. Sometimes he makes loops with synthesizers, sometimes with drums, but he assures that tomorrow night's show will be exclusively guitar-driven. He crafts each song live as he goes.

"It's this really weird, really boring music," Carr said. "I have so many versions of these songs I've been working on for the past seven or eight years. It's all improvised; I don't want it to always be the same thing."

Weird AND boring did he say? What could be more fun? How about a "semi-religious, family-oriented cult experience centered on the worship of Self and the affirmation of Yes?"

That is how Brothers Family Temple frontman Wagner Israel Cilio III describes his trio's presence. Each of their shows, or "services," is a "wild celebration of Everything in which fanaticism, zealotry and sensationalism is encouraged."

Where Carr has been silently experimenting for nearly a decade, Brothers Family Temple has only been around since last weekend.

"Our first show was this last Friday," said Joe Younglove, one of the monks of the Temple. "We first got together around the end of last year."

While Cilio III, or just Israel to his bandmates, described the band in sectarian terms, Younglove breaks the Temple down in a more accessible way.

"It's kind of in the vein of Animal Collective, kind of avant-garde folk music," Younglove said. "It starts out pretty calm and swells to really intense. We kind of rile people up a bit, get them dancing."

With all this experimenting going on at Duffy's tomorrow, it's really no surprise that a band called Powerful Science would round out the bill with experiments of their own. The most established of the three acts, Powerful Science has been making keyboard-driven, experimental pop music since last June, tightening their group sound significantly since their early shows.

"In many ways we learned to communicate better musically," said Powerful Science's chief researcher Josh Miller. "We work better as a unit now."

Miller calls Powerful Science "more (experimental) than any other project I've been in," which is a boast, as some of his other projects include the defunct dancefloor genius of Columbia vs. Challenger and the krautrock fury of Gold Lions. Miller sees value in doing music the weird way, though.

"The appeal would be to think outside the box, see something interesting, expand your mind," Miller said. "There's a lot of potential for things to get strange. There's weirdo-potential."

But how will all this experimentation sound together at one show? Guitar loops, avant-folk and pop probing seems like a rather odd mix. Miller himself said he thinks shows go better when there's a little bit of experimentation and a little bit of mass appeal. Younglove wants people to come so the Brothers can increase the size of their flock. Carr, the headliner for the show thinks it will simply go "great."

"These guys were the first names I thought of when I had to think of openers," he said.

And if that isn't reason enough to peak your interest in tomorrow's experimental extravaganza, Carr has an alternate draw.

"Duffy's has cool drinks," he said. "Who knows, maybe something stupid will happen or I'll do something ridiculous and you can laugh at me. It'll be great."

caseywelsch@dailynebraskan.com

if you go

Windpants w/Brothers Family Temple and Powerful Science

when: Wednesday, 9:00 p.m.

where: Duffy's Tavern, 1412 O St.

how much: $7, 18+