Category: Electro

Pitchfork Music Festival 2017: Day Three recap

Day three of the Pitchfork Music Festival started out a bit chilly as the Windy City was living up to its nickname, but we soon got our sweaty groove on thanks to a great set by Chicago house music legend and pioneer Derrick Carter.

Derrick Carter dropping beats like an Olympic power lifter dropping a barbell.

For those of you who weren’t dancing during his set, please see a doctor because something is wrong with you.  He put on a house music clinic.  It was a great way to start the day.

We also heard a bit of Colin Stetson‘s set.  He plays this wild, droning, hypnotizing saxophone music that is difficult to describe but quite mesmerizing.  We had plenty of time before Ride‘s set, so we met up with my college pal and his husband again before heading off to do a little shopping and eating.

Ride put on a good set of shoegaze that was a great switch from all the hip hop, electro, and funk we heard during the festival.  Unfortunately, they had a shortened set due to some early technical difficulties, but they played new and old material and blasted all of us with the final song of their set.  It was a loud, distorted, fuzzed-out assault.  “I needed that,” said one man next to me by the time they were done.

Ride melting faces in a killer finale.

Ride did a signing at the record fair afterwards, and I scored a signed copy of their newest album, Weather Diaries (review coming soon).  They were happy to meet everybody, and I’m happy to report they had a long line of fans there.

Mandy caught Jamilla Woods‘ set, which she enjoyed very much, after she’d been moved from the Blue Stage to the Green Stage due to the Avalanches cancelling their performance.  According to their Twitter feed, a family member one of the band members had some sort of dire medical emergency.  My college pal came to the festival mainly to see them, so he was more than annoyed they weren’t playing.  He and his husband learned via a Google search that the Avalanches are about as finicky as Morrissey when it comes to performing.

Thankfully, Nicolas Jaar put on an excellent set of his experimental electro / trance music that was both psychedelic and dance-inspiring at the same time.  At about the halfway point of his set, a guy in front of me turned to his friends and said, “This is the best set I’ve seen all weekend.” and then left.

Chilean DJ Nicolas Jaar creating intricate beats on the fly.

We split after that, beating the crowds and stopping to meet artist Jay Ryan so we could get one of his posters.  He does really neat and cute art for a lot of bands and other projects.  We already had a Bob Mould tour poster of his hanging in our living room, and now Mandy has a “It’s Time to Read” poster that will go in her office featuring bears, cats, and a wooly mammoth reading books.

I walked out with a new pair of sunglasses and CD’s by Screaming Females, Vacation, Waxahatchee, Tycho, Priests, Slowdive, She-Devils, Ride, and Wavves, and even a cassette by a band called Diagonal.  I’ll have reviews of all this stuff in the coming months.

All in all, the Pitchfork Music Festival was a good time.  We’d go back if the lineup was good and we could stay close to the festival.  As it’s been for the last few festivals I’ve attended, VIP tickets don’t look worth the money.  It’s not as laid back as a Levitation festival, but still fun.  It also could’ve used a little more rock, in my opinion, but it was worth the trip.

Keep your mind open.

That’s my pal, Chris, on the far right and his husband, Darin, on the far left. Chris and I hadn’t seen each other since 1993.

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Blanck Mass – World Eater

The name of the new Blanck Mass (Benjamin John Power) album, World Eater, could refer to several things: the Fenris Wolf from Norse mythology that eats the sun at the end of the world (the cover art – a photograph of a snarling dog’s teeth – certainly suggests this), the rising population numbers of the human race and the effects of that on the planet, the Internet, Galactus from Marvel Comics, cancer, world politics, religion, or a hundred other things. World Eater attempts to unveil this looming threat (whatever it is) to us, and he does so with fury.

Take, for instance, World Eater’s opener, “John Doe’s Carnival of Error.” It’s a little over two minutes of what sounds like an antique music box in need of repair. This belongs in a horror film score, if it’s not already in one. It’s not a carnival of terror, however. It’s a carnival of error. Our errors, both in real life and especially online, often define us. No one is given the benefit of the doubt anymore, and plenty of us like to sit back and watch the circus as celebrities are taken down, politicians stumble, and even “normal people” suffer pratfalls both physical and emotional.

“Rhesus Negative” brings in frenetic electric beats, fuzzed bass, and short, choppy samples perfect for the short, choppy way we’ve come to want our entertainment, news, and human interactions. “Please” could be Blanck Mass’ asking us to pay attention to our world be swallowed up by seemingly everything. It’s one of the brightest tracks on the record, so I can’t help but figure he thinks we can heal the world and ourselves if we have some compassion for it and each other.

“The Rat” is probably an allusion to scavengers plaguing the world with feeding off of / exploiting the poor. The beat and sound of the track, one of the best, is like something out of a future post-apocalyptic movie (but one with an uplifting ending). I wouldn’t be surprised if “Silent Treatment” refers to the way human beings tend to interact with each other nowadays. We’d rather stare at little screens and type silent words than actually look at each other and tell stories. The song is anything but quiet as it mixes in trance touches with rainfall-like synths.

I have no idea how to explain the title of “Minnesota / Eas Fors / Naked,” but maybe that’s the point. It’s chaotic and seems to come at you from several directions, and I definitely think that’s part of the message. The things that tend to gobble us up in this world come at us all the time from every direction imaginable. Perhaps Blanck Mass wants us to be naked of such distractions, and this song is a reflection of those distractions. I’m going with that.

World Eater ends with the song “Hive Mind.” We’re all nearly there, aren’t we? Everyone wants to be famous, liked, upvoted, tagged, retweeted, and shared. As a friend of mine once put it, “They all want to be individuals like everyone else.” We want to belong, but we don’t want to put in the effort of belonging to something. The song’s slick beats and popping synths keep you nodding and awake. It keeps you from falling into the hive mind.

Blanck Mass wants us to wake up and readjust. He wants us to remember that nature is truly highest on the food chain, but he also wants us to remember that we can avoid being consumed by the beasts we’ve created. This record is a warning, an alarm, and a solid piece of work – one of the best I’ve heard all year, in fact.

Keep your mind open.

Pitchfork Music Festival 2017: Day One recap

I must admit that the Pitchfork Music Festival crams a lot of stuff into a small park.  I’m used to larger spaces like Levitation Austin, but Pitchfork gets a lot of bang for its buck at Chicago’s Union Park.

Speaking of cramming, the lines to get in were long, but moved well when my wife and I got to the festival close to 2:00.  By the end of the day, we were hearing stories of the line to get in wrapping around the block and going the whole length of the park.  One friend posted on Facebook that it was almost as bad as getting into the massive Star Wars Celebration convention.

Once inside, I was surprised to see how close two of the stages are to each other.  The Red and Green Stages are almost a stone’s throw apart.  Mandy and I wondered how noisy it was going to be with the bands playing on each stage, but the Pitchfork programmers wisely schedule the bands so that none are playing on the Red and Green stages at the same time.

We missed Madame Gandhi‘s set, unfortunately, but arrived in time to see Priests.

Priests

They played a set that proved post-punk is alive and well and had a fun time.  I later picked up their first record at a record fair located on the park’s tennis courts.  We had plenty of time to wander after their set and that’s when we discovered not only the record fair, but also a print and poster fair, a book fair, a craft fair, and plenty of food vendors.  I walked out of the record fair with not only that CD by Priest, but also CD’s by Waxahatchee, Screaming Females, and Vacation.  I might go back for a Chicago Cubs World Series Champions poster and a cute one of animals reading books.

We wandered to the Red Stage to catch the Thurston Moore Group, who put down a loud punk / noise rock set with hammering guitar solos and thunderous bass.  Moore told a funny story about Henry Rollins’ too during the set, so that was a treat.

Thurston Moore Group

We went straight back to the Green Stage to catch Danny Brown, who came out to Black Sabbath’s “Iron Man.”  He quickly got the crowd jumping with his crazy rhymes and booming beats.  Water and water bottles were flying in every direction from a mosh pit that broke out in front of the stage.  There was a lot of call and response stuff between Brown and the crowd, who I’m happy to say looked sharp and healthy (check out his lyrics if you’re wondering why I was concerned).

We stayed in our spot for about an hour to wait for LCD Soundsystem, who got a big cheer just from raising the biggest mirror ball I’ve ever seen above their set.

The crowd kept building as their 8:10 start time grew closer.  It was so packed at one point that I had difficulty raising my arms to get this photo.

I’m glad I’m not claustrophobic. That’s the Red Stage behind us, and this is just half the crowd for LCD Soundsystem. Mandy’s checking her phone to my left.

LCD Soundsystem started their set ten minutes early, bringing seemingly enough people for an Earth, Wind, and Fire tribute band with them.  They burst out of the gate hard and fast, and the crowd seemed to release energy it had been storing all day.  Their big hit “Daft Punk Is Playing at My House” was the second song of the set, so they didn’t waste time.

How it looks when Daft Punk is playing at your house.

A mosh pit broke out next to us at one point, and this aging punk rocker had to get into it and show these young hipsters how its done.  Other highlights included “Trials and Tribulations,” a lovely and loud version of “New York I Love You, but You’re Bringing Me Down,” and “You Wanted a Hit.”

LCD Soundsystem won’t be your babies anymore.

I warned Mandy as they started “Dance Yrself Clean.”  “This whole place is going to go ape shit,” I said.  She had no idea what I meant and thought the entire crowd was going to break into a mosh pit.  She was pleasantly surprised when instead we all pogoed when the song kicks into full gear.  It’s as great as you can imagine.

Dancing ourselves clean with LCD Soundsystem.

They closed with a wild rendition of “All My Friends.”  It was well worth the waits (the hour before their set, and a few years since they called it quits) to see them.  I had been bummed that I missed them when they were first on the scene, so their set at Pitchfork was my main reason for buying weekend passes.  They didn’t disappoint, and lead singer James Murphy performed with a bad back and keyboardist Nancy Wong with a bum knee – although neither showed much signs of impairment (Murphy stretched at one point, and Wong would sometimes take his arm to walk from one spot on stage to another).

This is how you end a set. Stay home if you can’t bring this kind of energy.

Getting out of the festival was a big harder than getting in since the main entrance and exit isn’t huge.  We plan to look for a VIP exit tonight.  On the way out, a young man behind said to his friends, “Mosh pits were fun when I was a sophomore three years ago.  Now, I’m not so sure.”  The old punk rocker in me wanted to give him a backwards elbow shot to the face and say, “I’m getting into pits at twice your age!”

On the list today is George Clinton and Parliament Funkadelic, Madlib, P.J. Harvey, S U R V I V E, and A Tribe Called Quest.  We also plan to meet up with some old friends we haven’t seen in a while (one in decades), so it should be a good time.

Keep your mind open.

Midnight Sister’s debut album, “Saturn Over Sunset,” due out this September.

Midnight Sister Announce Debut Album, Saturn Over Sunset,
Out September 8th On JagjaguwarWatch The Video For New Single, “Blue Cigar”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dk8Ag-Vn06U

Catch Them On Tour This Fall With D.D Dumbo

 

“Sounding at times like early Perfume Genius, L.A. band Midnight Sister shows off a knack for blending orchestral pop and psychedelia…” – The FADER

“alluring and wonderfully timeless” – Gorilla vs. Bear

Midnight Sister are pleased to announce their debut album, Saturn Over Sunset, out September 8th on Jagjaguwar. Along with the announcement, they’re sharing the official video for their new single, “Blue Cigar.” Curious smoke curls across your face as some terrifying, glamorous woman whisper-sings into your ear over jumpy keys and squawking, oddly charming horns. You can’t quite remember how you ended up here with these questionable characters. But you can’t get out of the booth, not now. It’s too late for you, I’m afraid.Midnight Sister — the project of intense creatives Juliana Giraffe and Ari Balouzian — is brought to you by the isolating landscape of the San Fernando Valley — its colors, its diners, its lunatics, its neon lights. Both lifelong residents of this storied valley, Giraffe and Balouzian have only become more inspired by the area’s mythology over the years, it’s two-faced magical wonderland and tragic circus. And Saturn Over Sunset works almost as an album version of Robert Altman’s Short Cuts, each song a character study of the valley’s odd personae.

Giraffe, 23, a daughter of an LA disc jockey, was raised almost exclusively on disco and Bowie. Her lyrics and lyrical melodies, informed very much by her filmmaking background, were composed gazing out from a tiny retail window on Sunset Boulevard. Her “Rear Window”-like longing allowed her imagination to run wild and cook up the wild narratives that would fill Balouzian’s compositions. Balouzian, 27, classically trained and already a go-to arranger for odd-pop names like Tobias Jesso Jr. and Alex Izenberg. Midnight Sister represents a first for both of them. It’s Giraffe’s first time writing and performing music. And it’s Balouzian’s first foray into playing true pop music.

Saturn Over Sunset is a shared musical vision of Hollywood’s oddest corners. It is the baroque, eldritch alley you must pass through to find the speakeasy night of your life. You’ll come out bleary-eyed and the sunrise will be pouring all pink and orange through the smog and palm trees.

Watch Midnight Sister’s “Blue Cigar” Video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dk8Ag-Vn06U

Watch “Leave You” Video:
https://youtu.be/Jot8NY3wq1k

Midnight Sister Tour Dates:
9/8 – Los Angeles, CA @ Teragram Ballroom (w/ D.D Dumbo)
9/9 – San Diego, CA @ Casbah (w/ D.D Dumbo)
9/11 – Santa Cruz, CA @ Atrium at The Catalyst (w/ D.D Dumbo)
9/12 – San Francisco, CA @ Independent (w/ D.D Dumbo)
9/14 – Portland, OR @ Doug Fir (w/ D.D Dumbo)
9/15 – Seattle, WA @ Barboza (w/ D.D Dumbo)
9/16 – Vancouver, BC @ The Biltmore Cabaret (w/ D.D Dumbo)
9/19 – St Paul, MN @ Turf Club (w/ D.D Dumbo)
9/20 – Chicago, IL @ Schubas (w/ D.D Dumbo)
9/22 – Philadelphia, PA @ Johnny Brendas (w/ D.D Dumbo)
9/23 – New York, NY @ Bowery Ballroom (w/ D.D Dumbo)Saturn Over Sunset Tracklist:
1. Canary
2. Leave You
3. Blue Cigar
4. Showgirl
5. The Drought
6. The Crow
7. Daddy Long Legs
8. Neon
9. Shimmy
10. So Young
11. The View From Gilligan’s Island
12. Hitman
13. Clown
14. Their Eyes

Pitchfork Music Festival artist spotlight: Nicolas Jaar

Chilean DJ, producer, and music engineer Nicolas Jaar will be spinning a set at Chicago’s Pitchfork Music Festival on July 16th.  I wanted to see Mr. Jaar last year at Levitation Austin, but that festival was cancelled due to bad weather and I couldn’t score a ticket to his make-up gig in downtown Austin.  Nicolas Jaar is known for his great beats and DJ skills, sure, but he’s venturing more into experimental music and has been known to throw down five-hour improvisational sets.  I doubt his Pitchfork set will be that long, but finally catching him live will be a highlight of the festival for me.

Keep your mind open.

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Pitchfork Music Festival artist spotlight: The Avalanches

Aussie electro weirdos the Avalanches will be performing what I’m sure will be a fun set at the Pitchfork Music Festival on July 16th.  Known for their fun, quirky blend of house, big beat, and odd samples, they’re already electro powerhouses after releasing just two albums – Since I Left You and Wildflower.  Those albums were sixteen years apart, by the way, and both are considered high watermarks in their genre.  Since I Left You is widely thought of as one of the greatest Australian albums of all time and the best album of the year 2000.

It will be a fun, rare set from them.  A friend of mine finalized his decision to attend Pitchfork after learning the Avalanches were playing there.  Don’t miss them.

Keep your mind open.

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Pitchfork Music Festival artist spotlight: Derrick Carter

Chicago house music legend Derrick Carter will be playing a set to a hometown crowd at the Pitchfork Music Festival July 16th.  Mr. Carter has moved the genre of house back into popularity again and built a big following in Europe.  He  uses samples well and always has the sickest beats.  I’m sure he’ll put a bit of extra mustard and relish on his set in front of a lot of fellow Chicagoans.

Keep your mind open.

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Pitchfork Music Festival artist spotlight: Kilo Kish

Singer, songwriter, painter, visual artist, and textile designer Kilo Kish will be playing an early set on July 16 at Chicago’s Pitchfork Music Festival.  Ms. Kish has a neat vision of the world and witty lyrics that cut right to the heart of issues of gender, politics, art, race, and being a Millennial.  She’s intriguing.  That alone makes her set worth a look, as do her slick beats that blend trip hop with R&B.

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Pitchfork Music Festival artist spotlight: S U R V I V E

Electronic rock act S U R V I V E (who, for some unknown reason, tend to spell their name with a space between each letter) are best known for having some of the composers of the Stranger Things soundtrack as members.  They create atmospheric and sometimes creepy instrumentals that instantly remind you of John Carpenter movie scores.  I’m interested to see how a live performance sounds from them.  They play Saturday afternoon at the Pitchfork Music Festival.

Keep your mind open.

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Pitchfork Music Festival artist spotlight: LCD Soundsystem

LCD Soundsystem shocked the world a bit when they announced they were done creating music a few years ago.  They shocked the world again by announcing not only new shows, but also a new upcoming album this year.  Among the new shows is a Friday night performance at the Pitchfork Music Festival.

I’ve wanted to see LCD Soundsystem for several years now.  Their blend of electro, new wave, straight-up rock grooves, and biting, satirical lyrics are a great combination.  I’ve been told by friends that they put on a great show, and even clips of them performing on late night talk shows are sharp.  It should be a packed house (or rather, park) for them on July 14th.

Keep your mind open.

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