This is part of a series of blog posts detailing why and how I’ve personally come to explore integration of live instrumentation in electronic music. It also details the challenges I’ve faced, musical and otherwise, in my undertaking.
Part 2: Initial Approaches, New Influences
My background in cello performance led me to communities of classical and jazz musicians, such as Friedlander, but while I’ve actively been following modern electronic music in it’s many permutations for years, I was never really a part of any ‘scene’ of active beat-makers or DJs that was making this on a professional level. Understandable, given my background. Still, I figured I’d give my vision an honest go. Several years ago, I put my first NY-based band together and did drum programming and tried to tie it all together with some music I had written. I soon realized very few venues or concert series in New York would want to feature an non-established, upstart band that didn’t come from an already established music scene. Very few concert-goers would be interested in this sort of music unless it made sense in a larger context of some kind. As Friedlander once told me, some people just “need an angle” to get them interested in something. Furthermore, the music itself was obtuse and highly esoteric, something I thought would appeal to the brainier jazz crowd, but in truth I didn’t really have a clear idea of who my audience was. The context I had provided for this music was simply the music and band itself. I would soon realize, it was not enough. We played wherever people would have us, for friends and colleagues, loft parties, and even lucked out and got to play Le Poisson Rouge at one point last year. Despite encouraging response, some satisfying shows and a general sense of forward momentum, I realized that if this music was going to really rise above the din, it needed a clearer context, an ecosystem that it could live, breathe, grow, mutate and genuinely find itself in.
It was around early 2009 that I had a re-awakening of sorts. I started going to electronic music events in the city, highlighting new permutations of music derived from the dubstep movement, with artists flying in from Europe, the West Coast and beyond. I started listening to internet radio stations that played this music, like Samurai.fm, Mary Anne Hobbs on the BBC, Sub.fm and Rinse. I didn’t love it all, but I knew I was hearing something else and it really inspired me. My friend started telling me about this event he went to in Los Angeles, the Low End Theory, and I ate up their hip-hop–meets-madness-inclined podcasts. Just yesterday, my colleague Ben turned me on to a Swedish electronic music genre mutation called ‘sqweee’. It sounded amazing. By immersing myself in the clubs and in Last.fm, I became more aware of how people all over the world could create a space where new forms and approaches of electronic music were possible. And sustainable. This all had very little to do with my background as a NYC-freelancer, but in my mind I started to see how I could respond to this music. The final mind-blow came when I saw a video online of Dorian Concept ‘jamming’ with Flying Lotus. There was a live bassist in the background laying down a nice fat ostinato. Dorian Concept was playing his synths with the touch of a jazz pianist (he had to have had classical training) and Flying Lotus was serving as the percussionist on his MPC Controller. The video was 10 minutes long, and the jam was fascinating. I thought, “these people are such talented producers… they’re only just getting started with their live improvisation… this music is what I want to exist. Why only end at 10 minutes???” It seemed like just a special one-off thing, not like Lotus and Dorian Concept were going to make a steady gig out of it.
At the various electronic events I was attending in NYC and live acts I was seeing around town, the actual ‘live’ element primarily consisted of one guy DJing behind a booth or someone head-nodding behind a laptop. When I saw Loefah play at Dub War last year, he positively assaulted the audience with his supreme bass lines, but he had a look on his face like he was preparing a meatloaf dinner for two. This is not a dis: he wasn’t intentionally trying to put on a show for the audience. Those basslines were all he needed to keep the throngs happy. Don’t get me wrong- I have nothing against solo laptop performers and DJs. I saw Flying Lotus rock his Macbook Pro / MPC combo exceedingly well last year, and last month Gaslamp Killer came to town and did some super-human interpretive dancing while he DJ’d. It was amazing visually, and yet it was like he was compensating for the lack of actual musicians on stage with him. He even played some air guitar at one point along to the music, as if he was trying to physically embody an element that simply couldn’t exist in his on-stage reality. He compensated incredibly well, but still. These were all solo shows, no live instrumentalists, no live interplay, no room for adventure that didn’t exist beyond Lotus’s Macbook Pro screen, which we as the audience could (and would) not see. From a sonic perspective, these acts are incredibly special and deserve the attention they’re getting, but a live MC seems to be as far as these acts go when it comes to live musicians. Why is that? The beats and textures are undeniably forward-thinking and inventive. Is it too much to ask to have a live instrumentalist respond to them, interact with them, on the level of the Masada String Trio, but in this newer context, with a new wave of open-minded musicians? Can there be a space where this interaction is admittedly awkward at first, but evolves into something like the command of a new language?
Sidenote: When we see these electronic musicians play, they’re going through systems like the one at Club Love in the Village, which is said to cost about a half-million dollars. My band had one of its best shows at Le Poisson Rouge, partially because the sound there was excellent, first class. I’ve learned, mostly the hard way, that the quality of the sound system can make or break a performance. It’s easy for someone like myself to think more about the musicality and the overall finer details of a performance, but all of that is meaningless is the sound system doesn’t bump. In dance and beat-oriented music, the lack of bump means lack of visceral force, which is part of the fun of experiencing this music in a club setting. I recently played a show where afterwards an incredibly drunk/high gentleman started playing a dubstep mixtape through the house system. He didn’t care about the finer musical details, he simply wanted to be assaulted by the system’s deep heavy bass. I almost started to wonder whether it was the bass itself that was causing his drunkenness. This further made me realize how some people (not all) do experience ‘bass’ music purely for feel, not for emotional or intellectual satisfaction. They just want the deep hit of the bass completely going through their bodes, to a beat. Nothing more, certainly nothing less.
Hey Cosmo D thanks for sharing thoughts.
I have the pleasure of living between New York and Berlin these days, which offers a lot of opportunities for comparison and contrast. Anyway currently I am in Berlin.
Last night I saw King Britt with his Saturn Never Sleeps project. It is a very free interplay between King Britt – electronics, Rucyl – vocaltronics, Kaidi Tatum – keyboards and Rui Pereira – video. Britts beats were really fantastic and held pieces together while leaving enouugh space for a lot of interplay. They actually did their own sound mix, and on the Berghain System it sounded fantastic.
I’ve also seen Sneaky / Fingathing which is Simon Houghton on upright bass with either live drums or a DJ. Interestingly when I heard Sneaky at Arena Berlin the sound was really powerful and clean and the crowd enjoyed it but in a very appreciatively nodding manner, whereas at Cafe Zapata / Tachelis A lot of the bass sound was lost in the sound system, but they had a giant fire breathing sculpture, the place was packed and everyone was loosing their heads.
I have seen three other shows at Berghain,
Aufgang (two pianos and a drummer), interesting concept but, the two pianos were taking away from the purity of one another, and the aesthetic was a bit too trancy for me.
Autechre, they’re always incredible but the sound system had the bass turned up so stupid loud that all of the nuances of the music were lost. It was a big letdown compared with how pristine and perfectly corrupted they sounded at the Williamsburg Music Hall a while back.
Flying Lotus – Well as it was my first time at Berghain I was really impressed by the crowd and the Sound System. However just like the Autechre set it felt like all the rest of the music was just window dressing for the bass. Thats not the impression I had gotten from listening to his music on remixes and albums and such, but I don’t know whether or not its his aesthetic. Thats said for bassheads it was a paradise.
So it seems that the Berghain sensibility is directed at people who want to feel the sound experience as powerfully as possible. I think for minimal techno this might work really well, though the sound at the Bunker parties in Williamsburg is as good as Ive heard minimal techno sound anywhere, and it is also a really balanced array. If you want something different than that punch you in the chest bass, and pehaps some high end reflecting off the roof at Berghain it seems you have to do the sound mixing yourself.
I think you are correct in that from an audience perspective it is probably more inviting to listen to a set of performances which have something in common… even if it is just the taste of the curator. While I may wholeheartedly enjoy listening to or engaging in open experimentation, it is not something I am going to tell all of my friends that have to come and see with me. Sometimes just having a conceptual aesthetic in mind can reign in abstraction just enough so that the people who are there and have the patience to enjoy it, will think to them selves oh I have to bring my friends b and c next time because I know this sonic aesthetic would really appeal to them.
I’m sure the sound system was amazing. My colleague’s cousin lives in Berlin and has talked about how awesome the sound systems are over there. From the looks of the Website, Berghain sounds like my kind of place, an open, alternative space where club music, acoustic music and beats can collide under an incredible sound-system. In NYC, the closest this comes to on a professional level is Le Poisson Rouge, the new Knit in Williamsburg or even Club Love. Still, are the economic needs of having a space like this in Berlin different than those in New York City? While I can’t answer authoritatively, I do get the impression that this sort of music is supported Berlin in a different way. An easier way? For now, I can only say ‘different.’ Or, maybe not so different as I think. Open to comments on this.
The fire breathing sculpture will definitely round out an evening!
To this, I say concept can only go so far. Ultimately it is about the musicality of the performers that determine the success of the night. I’m not familiar with Aufgang’s music, but based on your experience, I can only say that those pianists should have listend to each other more.
Are ‘bassheads’ and people who want to hear more musical nuance completely at odds? I read an article with a dubstep DJ Joe NIce and he was ragging on what he called a ‘brostep’- style sound where there was tons of “chainsaw bass” and not much else. I personally don’t mind the chainsaw bass as long as it exists with other interesting musical elements, but maybe there are just some people out there that simply want to feel bass – and nothing more. Maybe to them it’s like they’re at a ride in a carnival that never stops. That’s cool and fun and everything, but from what you’re saying, it sounds like Flying Lotus and Autechre, who bring a ton of musical depth to what they do, could go either way. The “bedroom” music they make also translates to the club, but it’s a different audience and, to the chagrin of ‘bedroom listeners’, a completely different listening experience. Maybe what you’re looking for (and me, too) is a sort of middle way. A bedroom sound with crispness and clarity, but played in a powerful room that you can still be viscerally involved in.
I saw Flying Lotus and Nosaj Thing at Le Poisson Rouge last month and was deeply impressed by their musicality on stage, along with the clarity and crispness of their music through LPR’s expensive sound system. Flying Lotus, in particular, sounded like his beats had a tangible “weight” to them, like you could take a bite out of them. This may have been related to his studio production techniques and use of saturation on his drum tracks, but who’s to say. Still, while Nosaj was furiously working his MPC like a broker on the trading floor, Flying Lotus was casually, cooly coaxing the beats out of his Macbook like a great jazz drummer. He made it look easy, and his sounds were soulful and rich.
Getting back on topic, Kode9 was sandwiched between Nosaj and Flying Lotus’s sets. He played a straight-up DJ set which seemed to sum up the current UK electronic music underground (and beyond). It was a 2-hour set, especially long for someone who had come to see Flying Lotus, but when he left and Lotus took over, a sizeable portion of the room left also. I was genuinely surprised by this, but I think the music Kode9 was playing and the way it was mixed, slightly more on the clubby end of things, offered more appeal to a good deal of people in the room. Lotus was speeding up, slowing down, playing oftentimes challenging music, but while his sound was more overtly soulful and elastic, Kode9 seemed to adhere to a dancefloor orthodoxy. This was satisfying to certain attendees in the way that Lotus’s set wasn’t, but for another group of people, myself included, Lotus’s set was preferrable: easily digestible, unpredictable, absorbing, dynamic, less purely functional. Ultimately the big winner in this was Le Poisson Rouge, who managed to get the two ‘groups’ of music listeners under one roof and sell out the show, all while making a killing on overpriced booze.
So it seems that the Berghain sensibility is directed at people who want to feel the sound experience as powerfully as possible. I think for minimal techno this might work really well, though the sound at the Bunker parties in Williamsburg is as good as Ive heard minimal techno sound anywhere, and it is also a really balanced array. If you want something different than that punch you in the chest bass, and pehaps some high end reflecting off the roof at Berghain it seems you have to do the sound mixing yourself.
I think a conceptually balanced night of music is a worthy goal, wherever it’s held. That concept takes a team of people who are all equally committed to seeing the unified vision executed excellently. It could be argued that Le Poisson Rouge is a giant concept of a venue: indie rock, contemporary classical and electronic music all in one intimate club setting with a few core curators. Low-End Theory is another concept that has proven to have traction in the place it originated from. Good nights have strong concepts and go beyond genres. While I’m still exploring and discovering my ‘dream concept’ in my ‘dream space’ in the city that I live and work in, NYC, it’s good to know what else is out there and what our potential audience members, collaborators and colleagues really want in an electronic music night, or just a night out.
great insights… hope to keep up the dialog,
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