Ten minutes into their thunderous set at CityPOP Egleston, it’s clear that Dana Cataldo, TRIM’s polyrhythmic muscle, is getting a little tired. For ten minutes of blinding, exhilarating noise, she’s propelled the crowd through the surge of synthesized chaos that her accomplice, Victoria Shen, is seemingly attempting to drown us in, and it looks like the sheer ferocity of dragging us through the noise is taking its toll. Victoria stalks her way through the audience like a zombie caught in a blizzard, heavy feet dragging behind her and a blank but somehow utterly violent stare beaming out as she lumbers from her perch on the amp head before settling down, head resting on the stomach of a smiling friend by the dumpster. This duality is on full display at every TRIM performance: Dana, the manic robot, locked in to the groove and delivering high impact, rolling beats that play the perfect foil to the calculated menace of Victoria’s grinding, unyielding howls. But as the audience continues to submissively bang their heads to the beat and swim in the fuzz, the question remains: how much longer can they last up there?
Almost on psychic cue, Victoria unhooks what looks to be a CB radio transmitter, and signals to her human pillow: piggyback? Taking a daring leap onto her back, her friend hops down and the two once more stagger through the crowd as she unleashes a mutilated dolphin-like screech that, once further brutalized, chopped, and screwed by the noise generator, morphs into a cavernous dragon roar. At this signal, Dana’s sly second wind kicks in, and the beat crushes out harder than ever. The clever trick of a contact mic’d cymbal punches at the collective gut of the audience as she hurls us through the ringer of another ten minutes of merciless pounding: this isn’t a show, it’s a marathon. Staring each other down with uncertainty as the thumping slowly coasts to a standstill, Victoria flicks off the amp head and the light-hearted skips of Bachata come in over the PA to light chants of “one more song,” but it feels almost wrong to ask more of these two (or three?), sweat-covered thrashers. To the very last minute, TRIM’s performances are an unpredictable delight, a fact that shows as Victoria skips through the blasted crowd for hugs while Dana takes it easy, swigging down a bottle of water at light speed. They’ve more than earned it.
Taking a trip around the block, the three of us talked TRIM and PokemonGo (Davis Square: watch your back for Victoria Shen) over Chilacates tacos and Kombucha.
Phillipe: How did you the two of you meet?
Dana: I grew up in the south shore and moved up to Waltham in 2010, but Victoria went to art school with some friends that I went to high school with.
Victoria: Mutual friends. Halloween parties.
P: What were your costumes when you met?
V: I was either Elvis or Mia Wallace from Pulp Fiction. There were multiple Halloween parties actually.
D: These friends actually had Half-A-Ween parties, so they doubled down every year. I was usually Bill Murray from Coffee and Cigarettes. He has the pot that he’s always carrying so you could throw a stout or whatever else you’re drinking in there.
P: So when did you start jamming together?
V: Last January I think.
D: At the year and a half point in our friendship.
P: What was the impulse that pushed you into making music?
V: I wanted to impress a boy.
P: By being in a noise band?
V: Just being in a band, I think. But I’d been building synthesizers for six years for this company called Flower Electronics that’s based out of MIT under this incredible musician called Jessica Rylan. She did a workshop at my school on how to build a little PCB filter. I started doing assembly for her for dirt cheap. But it was a friendship, a labor of love type thing. I moved up to doing printed circuit board layout design, which is a really involved puzzle. She was really influential. I never listened to noise noise, or went to power electronics shows. Those used to be huge in Boston!
P: I know! I keep hearing that I just missed the era!
V: You totally did! The International Noise Conference a few weeks was a little slice of that. But pure noise and drone…it’s like going to a modern art museum.
D: It feels like it’s gotta be the right texture or it’s just going to be grating.
P: Is that why there’s such a strong rhythmic component to your sound?
V: I think so. Straight blasting noise is very alienating to me, and I want to be engaging the audience. [To Dana] I think your drumming is super engaging on a musical level.
D: Awww thanks, buddy! [Laughs]
V: For sure, pal! [Laughs]
P: Tell me about the synthesizer you’re using. Or is it more of a noise generator…box?
V: They’re completely analog. Two of the smaller ones are this portable battery powered units.
P: The ones you’re wearing on your belt?
V: Yeah! That’s new! It’s only the second time I’ve played with them attached like that. I used a lavalier microphone in a lot of our previous performances but I made an adapter so I could send the out from the synthesizer into the transmitter for the lavalier. The receiver is wireless and that’s just plugged directly into the head amp. In order for me to portable and be able to play the synth, the belt works out really well.
P: It’s a little superhero-esque, almost like a utility belt.
V: Oh I don’t know, I feel like it’s almost too theatrical. I just have too much shit on me.
D: I can see that being cumbersome, especially since you like to climb everything during the show.
P: Why’s theatrical a bad thing? I’d say that your shows are pretty theatrical already.
V: The shows actually feel very placid to me. I like to get into this state where I don’t know what’s going to happen.
P: It feels like your show comes in waves; there are these clear peaks and valleys of energy that come in and out. How do you plan out the show?
D: Honestly, pragmatically. If I played how we open our sets the entire time, I’d be done right away. That’s another reason we don’t do the big, blasting wall of sound and has a lot to do with the way we generate noise. She has contact mics on my kit, so in a way we’re synchronized to each other. It would be exhausting to try to keep that noise level up the entire time. The first few shows we barely made it 10 minutes. For the last month or two we’ve been stretching it closer to 20.
P: So it’s mostly an endurance thing?
D: It is. That’s why you get the waves of energy. I listen to a lot of drum tracks to get ready for a show. I used to be in hand drumming ensembles, so on the long rides from New York up to Boston, I’ll throw on some West African hand drumming, to see how they build those waves and that momentum and figure out how I could stretch my endurance to maybe last 20 minutes up there [Laughs]
V: [To Dana] Are you a good swimmer?
D: I beat Paul in a couple races.
V: Fuuuck! You’re good! I feel like if I were to be a good drummer I’d have to be a good swimmer because it takes so much fucking stamina to do.
P: Any plans to record something soon?
V: We’ve recorded a bit recently.
D: There are a new demo up on our soundcloud, first one since last year!
V: Oh my god has it been that long?
D: It really has!
V: Well, it’s hard for me to set want to things in stone, you know? The unpredictability of the live show is big for us.
P: Is there ever going to be a TRIM album or EP?
V: I think so. We’re talking about doing a split with Mail Thief, who I love. I think there’s a lot of simpatico between our band and theirs, so I’m really psyched about the opportunity. There’d be some recording time involved, but I don’t want to dirty my hands with that stuff, cause I don’t have any experience with recording. Dana knows more about that.
D: I did a lot of location sound mixing on film sets. I have all the gear for it so I record all of our demos and practices that way. But even still, these last demos were the first time I ever did a really involved mixdown with music. If someone’s able to capture our weirdness, with hopefully some aspects of the live show still coming through, that’d be great.
P: Who’s your friend who I’ve seen jump in to your act mid set? She did these bizarre dolphin sounds…
V: Oh, Sophie? Dude, we did a house show in JP one time and all of the bands before us were very…
D: Folky.
V: Folky. Ethereal. Calm.
P: A little sleepy?
V: Right, and she was literally sleeping on the couch. So when we started our set, I came out with a little lavalier mic, and I dipped the mic in her mouth while she was sleeping. She just spun up and got really into it! She followed us back to the performance area doing this crazy Tuvan Throat singing for the rest of our set. And then she started coming to a lot of our shows…
D: She was at the INC show too!
V: Yeah yeah, I think it’s been two other times. She’s almost like an unintentional plant in the crowd.
P: No planning at all?
D: Nope, she’s just there and eager to join in.
P: Is there going to be a TRIM tour any time soon?
V: There’s one already planned for August, right?
D: Yeah, a short one in late August; just four days.
V: From what I hear, a New England tour is a very nice time. Lots of short runs, you know? But come winter we’re gonna go South. Fast. [Laughs]
D: Mhm, we’re going North and then South. Hard.
V: North in the fall when it’s still habitable and then get out while we can.
D: You know, Montreal in the winter is a very interesting shade of grey [Pause]. No, you’re not feeling it? [Laughs]
V: Boston’s grey enough for me.
All photos courtesy of Victoria Shen and Dana Cataldo
Video Courtesy of Joanna Trachtenberg