Making quietude an attitude

[Quiet, please -- correspondent Margaret Wappler reports on a different kind of club show:]

If you talked above a whisper at Dustin O’Halloran’s show last Tuesday, you were proverbially smacked down by a vigilant army of shushers, a strain of music fan usually found at the opera and not the Derby, Los Feliz’s swing lounge. But O’Halloran’s evocatively stark piano music featured on his two solo albums inspires a hushed audience savoring his every keyboard flitter. The male half of the indie-atmospheric act Devics was pleased: “Wow, who would’ve thought that L.A. would be the quietest crowd?” the native Angeleno said.

As O’Halloran’s black-clad figure crouched over a piano festooned with tiny gold lights, his handiwork was caught by a pen camera hanging above the keyboard and projected onto a screen. The visuals are a key component to O’Halloran’s recent work. He contributed two tracks to Sofia Coppola’s lush “Marie Antoinette” and recently finished his first feature-length score for the upcoming film, “The Beautiful Ordinary.” He’s also at work on another project, an instrumental layering of piano, strings and some electronics.

||| Dustin O'Halloran performs "Piano Solos" Tuesday night at the Derby.

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Tonight's touts: Lou Barlow headlines at Safari Sam's. ... Eagle and Talon, the Happy Hollows and Twilight Sleep help the Pity Party finish off its January residency at the Silverlake Lounge. ... All Smiles, the nom de tune of ex-Grandaddy guitarist Jim Fairchild, opens the final night of the Broken West's residency at Spaceland. ... The Starlite Desperation rocks the Viper Room. ... Xu Xu Fang brings its haunted psychedelia to the Echo for the final night of the Submarines' residency ... Scott Windsor of Umbrellas performs at the Knitting Factory. ... And recent emigrants to our fair city To Live and Die in L.A. play a free show at the Troubadour.