At last year’s Midpoint Music Festival, the Daredevil Christopher Wright played in a cramped showroom normally reserved for selling Segway Scooters. There were sound problems – not to mention a surly sound guy – that caused the band to improvise. Looking back, I can’t recall what those sound problems were, but I can say that after years of Midpoint shows, it was one of the best I’ve ever seen.

Contemporary Space 13 (better known as CS13) does a good job of bringing in unique acts from around the country in an intimate gallery space. It’s certainly a step up from the Segway Room, but here’s hoping that the next time DCW plays Greater Cincinnati (which they said they hope to), they’ve garnered the following they deserve and score a gig at the Southgate House.

Last Thursday’s show started with Wake the Bear, aka Scott Cunningham, eschewing the standard singer/songwriter acoustic model with recorded backing tracks. At times they had a delightfully fuzzy quality to them, due in part to the sound system at the venue. With drumbeats and backing vocals, the songs were colorful, full-bleed, and still satisfyingly rough around the edges, no more present than in the starry ballad he closed his set with –perfect for a slow-mo pan out at the end of a movie – in which pledged “I’m ready for love.”

There’s this rule about crowd participation, you’d got to earn it (at least, you have to earn mine). Early into the Sleeping Sea’s set, they were asking everyone to sing, clap and play along; but the band’s worldbeat leanings made it easy. They garnered Vampire Weekend comparisons, or maybe even Pomegranates lite, but there was a disparity between their instrumentation and their vocals. Their drums were highlight of their set, lending a danceable, warm feeling to the songs; Sleeping Sea is at its best when it’s up-tempo. The vocals, however, were a thin falsetto, too tremulous to stand up to the rest of the driving Afrobeat sound. And then there were the bird calls on an old vinyl – its sleeve oddly on display for the whole set. It could have been an attempt to string songs together, jury’s still out on that, but it seemed more like an excuse to bust out an old school plastic record player.

The Daredevil Christopher Wright played third, and yet the first band not to use anything prerecorded. No records, no backing tracks, the band was content to demonstrate all you can do with some drums, guitars and confident vocals. Starting off their set with their namesake song, they harmonized it in a way not heard on last year’s In Deference of a Broken Back. Brothers Jon and Jason Sunde both have vocal degrees from University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire and it shows. And yet, they’ve retained the vocal quirks you’d want from indie rock singers; Jon’s voice is high-pitched, more nasal than throaty.

Whether low-key or rollicking, they were always presenting sonic layers to explore. Songs like “Conversations About Cancer,” played with structure before any prevailing melody could really sit in, still with the chipper sound that belies the serious stories and moods of many of their songs. Without going drastically different, but this is a band that enjoys experimenting; you get the feeling that their songs are more fluid than solid in nature. And despite my earlier remark about playing in a bigger venue, CS13 was just the right space for a group this vocally talented. Between two songs they broke into a beautiful three-part a cappella interlude, if for no other reason than a chance to show off their pipes, and it came off crisp and effortless. But this was Over-the-Rhine, after all, so the tune was punctuated by a buzzing of a car sitting at a stoplight, its bass turned up too loud. Even the band laughed.

By the time the Harlequins took the stage in the early morning hours, the timid crowd at the start of the show had been replaced by one more interested and energetic. It says something that, for the first time all evening, it was actually hot in there (a real feat considering it was nearly as cold in CS13 as it was outside. Here’s hoping that $5 cover charge goes toward getting the heat switched on in the near future). And though the sound system started its distortion problems again, it suited their garage rock sound. The band complained a bit, but did the crowd? Not at all.

- MaryKate Moran