Our own acidjack was early on the bandwagon for Ultimate Painting, as he captured the band back in 2014 and raved about their debut album. The British neo-psych quartet is now three records into their career and just completed a headlining tour with twelve US dates in support of their newest release, Dusk (Trouble In Mind Records). The tour’s final date was last week at Bowery Ballroom and if the crowd was not packed, it was notable for the music luminaries in attendance — Matador Records co-founder Gerard Cosloy, Rolling Stone’s senior editor David Fricke, Stereogum founder Scott Lapatine, and brooklynvegan’s Bill Pearis.

Ultimate Painting’s set was a seventy-minute exercise in precision and synchronicity. The band’s two protagonists, Jack Cooper and James Hoare share vocal and lead-guitar duties and both are superb performers. The other aspect of the band’s success is the songwriting. The songs can be tight and guitar driven psych-pop, but when the band wants to open up and explore, they remain focused and in synch. While Ultimate Painting does borrow stylistically from the mid-60s London scene, the music also shows influences from the US — the Velvets and Television in particular. Among contemporary comparisons, I hear similarities to White Fence and Courtney Barnett (“Central Park Blues” in particular). The band worked through a nice selection of numbers from all three of their albums before ending the set with a sixteen-minute extended version of “Ten Street” that capped off the show in fine fashion.

I recorded this set with the Schoeps cards in the balcony mixed with Kenny’s outstanding feed. The sound quality is superb. Enjoy!

Download and Stream this Recording at our Bandcamp Page:

Live at Bowery Ballroom Dec 7 2016 by Ultimate Painting

Ultimate Painting

2016-12-07

Bowery Ballroom

New York NY

Digital Master Recording

Soundboard + Audience Matrix

Soundboard [Engineer: Kenny Lienhardt] + Schoeps CCM4u Cardioids > Edirol R-44 (Oade Mod) > 2 x 24bit 48kHz wav files > Soundforge (post-production) > CDWave 1.95 (tracking) > TLH > flac (320 MP3 and tagging via Foobar)

Recorded and Produced by nyctaper

Setlist:

[Total Time 1:07:14]

01 Ultimate Painting

02 Rolling in the Deep End

03 Riverside

04 Bills

05 Song for Brian Jones

06 (I’ve Got The) Sanctioned Blues

07 I’m Set Free

08 [banter – band intro]

09 Break the Chain

10 Lead the Way

11 Monday Morning Somewhere Central

12 Central Park Blues

13 Sweet Chris

14 Ten Street

If you enjoyed this recording, PLEASE SUPPORT Ultimate Painting, visit their website, and purchase Dusk from Trouble In Mind Records HERE.