San Fermin’s main songwriter Ellis Ludwig-Leone has said that he often aims to balance a sense of ecstasy with a slight hint of the unhinged and near-crazed. Madness and sublimity have often been neighbors, and the music of San Fermin tends to offset the wild and unruly side of things by making music that has order and control.
Ludwig-Leone went to Yale, and he’s worked with Nico Muhly, another composer who successfully bridges and blurs the distinctions between the worlds of indie rock and classical music. San Fermin is a large ensemble, an octet. The music on the Brooklyn band’s 2017 record “Belong” moves with the groove and polish of radio pop, but strange touches — murmuring brass, echoing reverberations, abrupt stops and chaotic string swirls — complicate things.
This is large-group chamber pop about isolation and solitude, about the challenge of cultivating individual peace of mind while maintaining relationships with others. Sometimes they bring to mind the music of ambitious wide-ranging pop artists like Lykke Li and Peter Gabriel. Listen to “Bones” off of the new record. There’s a mellow soul-hip-hop groove underneath the song, but strings and horns along with groans and squiggles add to an ominous and almost abstract atmosphere.
It’s a little like Burt Bacharach meets D’Angelo. But right after that the band kicks into a jarring and abrasive metalish workout. Expect dramatic contrasts mixed in with the suave sophistication.
San Fermin plays the Fairfield Theater Company’s Warehouse, 70 Sanford St., Fairfield, on Saturday, March 31, at 8 p.m. Tickets are $22 to $25. 203-259-1036 or fairfieldtheatre.org.
