Weird Science

As if all that weren't enough, the DVD also contains six hours of MP3s documenting nine complete live shows, and four Easter eggs (i.e., hidden tracks, which can be found on the ViewMaster-like main menu by hitting "up" then "enter" on your DVD remote), including a video of Sagan's goof on "Chariots of Fire" by Vangelis. With such a bounty of entertainment, the slick Unseen Forces package offers much bang for the buck. It also took a long time to make and release. After fishing around at various labels, the band opted to put it out via Matmos' Vague Terrain imprint. Matmos member Daniel feels it was a logical choice.

"I'd seen Sagan and really loved what they were doing," he says. "There was something totemic about their shows, there was always this sort of animal thrust. The first show I saw was a cat show, with a single static image of a cat dreaming. Then I saw a bird-oriented show, and then an ants-oriented show; it just seemed like such a departure. It wasn't what I was expecting from them."

After a while, though, you get used to expecting the unexpected from Sagan. Take the notorious Sacramento performance where the band started drinking around 5 in the afternoon, and didn't play until around 11. "That was my blackout," Lesser confesses. "It was really hot, and they were bringing us pitchers of beer to cool us off. By the time of the show, I was rrrrrripped! Sagan played, and then I just kept playing. The only thing I remember is thinking, 'Who's fucking making that noise?' I was getting really pissed, and it took me, like, 10 minutes to realize that, 'Oh, it's something that I'm doing.'"

Then there was Kelley's impromptu mike work while opening for the Country Teasers at the Hemlock Tavern, inspired by persistent heckling from an impatient crowd. "[The audience was] ready for sloppy country-punk with rude lyrics," explains Leidecker. "They saw us set up with several laptops, and there was some animosity. So Bevin took the microphone and began screaming, 'Spring Break '99!' over and over again. Somebody yelled from the audience, 'We hate opening bands!' Bevin paused for a second, then said, 'Hi! We're the Country Teasers!' We started with a five-minute wall of grinding noise, and Bevin kept screaming over the top. It was tough; people were impressed. A bunch of people said they'd never seen an electronic music show like that before."

Immediate plans for Sagan include shows in L.A., San Diego, Europe, and perhaps Japan in April. Recently, the band played three dates on the East Coast and recorded a show for New Jersey radio station WFMU. At Brooklyn nightspot Galapagos, Sagan did a performance called "The Mote in God's Eye," which featured a Junell-shot video appropriate for an NYC gig: a field of moths swarming above the two massive beams of light at Ground Zero commemorating Sept. 11.

"It takes a long time to realize that they're moths," notes Lesser. "It just looks like some hyperspace star field or something, these millions of little globes of light."

In a follow-up e-mail after the East Coast shows, Leidecker says the Brooklyn gig went "OK," with the musicians managing to wrap up their set around the same time the moth video ended. But at New York's Tonic the following night, the audience witnessed the band's more cantankerous side. "The Sagan Tonic set had wilder weirder heights and people actually got to see the dysfunctional noise family," Leidecker writes. "Bevin had a microphone and shouted directions to J and I, but the mic wasn't on. At one point I shouted 'HEY BEVIN YOUR MIC ISN'T ON' and she shouted 'YOU FOOL IT'S PART OF THE CONCEPT.' Then I drank a lot and don't remember too much more after that."

Just before press time, it was announced via the Sagan Web site -- www.lsr1.com/sagan -- that resident filmmaker Ryan Junell "has decided to take a leave of absence from the band to focus on a feature film and some extreme bodybuilding in 2005." The announcement went on to read: "We've had a ton of fun with [Junell] and wish him the best. We're pretty sure our orbits will cross again soon."