Horse Feathers + Ah Holly Fam’ly + Mighty Tiger - Sunset Tavern (Seattle, WA; Feb. 11, 2009)

The first thing you notice about Horse Feathers isn’t the tremulous fragility of Justin Ringle’s voice. Neither is it his sensitive farmhand mystique (cf. Damien Jurado, Will Oldham), nor the sense of gentle gloom quickly enveloping the stage. No, if you’re anything like me, you’re drawn immediately to the motley collection of instruments surrounding touring bandmate Sam Cooper: banjo, violin, a couple of drums, and what might be a mandolin lurking in the shadows. “How can that possibly be?” you ponder betwixt microbrew sips. “Drummers are not exactly renowned for their ability to read music, much less their consummate multi-instrumentalism.”

As the night wears on, and the mood darkens to a comfortable shade of blue, it dawns on you that each of these band members likewise conceals a hidden talent: Heather Broderick, who moonlights for the brilliant Portland Cello Project, contributes occasional but deft backing vocals; Nate Crockett trades in his violin for a hand saw mid-set; and frontman Ringle’s foot takes up the percussive slack by keeping time on a tambourine while nominal-drummer Cooper is otherwise occupied.

Though the band claimed to be “shaking some rust off” after a months-long rest (and before embarking on a European tour later this month), to my ear, they were wonderfully in sync, and at times damn-near pitch-perfect. From their opener “Finch on Saturday,” which quickly silenced a chatty crowd, to their amazingly encore-free departure, Horse Feathers proved completely entrancing.

It was therefore in something of a hypnotic stupor that, nearly an hour into the set, I dimly recognized “Father of Failure,” the one song with which I had even passing familiarity. Having recently acquired a volume of Poddington Bear remixes from Portland’s always dependable Hush Records, I’d taken a shine to a couple offerings from Laura Gibson and one from old favorite Bobby Birdman, but the truly standout track owed its origins to . . . a band named after a Marx Brothers film? It was this mere crumb of awareness that caused my eye to pause amid the usual clutter of the concert calendar, and never have I been so grateful for crumbs.

If you have a penchant for the melancholy, an itch for indie folk, and a smidgen of patience (this is not a concert for the fidgety), you could do much worse than to track down Horse Feathers upon their stateside return. All the better if you’re a Seattleite, for bands are creatures of habit, and this one has yet to escape the comfy Ballard environs of the Sunset Tavern.

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New feature! One-line reviews of opening bands! Ready, set, spew!

Mighty Tiger: Nasal garage bubblegum, or what Greenday might’ve sounded like on Elephant 6.

Ah Holly Fam’ly: What happens when everyone keeps practicing their middle school marching band instruments, takes a page from Devendra’s freak folk, and somehow assembles the creepiest female harmonies this side of “The Mariner’s Revenge Song.”

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