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AMBITION IS A BEAUTIFUL THING. It’s this surge for recognition that’s held the most experimental and free form of electronic music in play and on decks in it’s now decade long existence. Swamp Thing, IDM’s formal entrance into the business world of the Winter Music Conference‘s steady beat moneymakers, was nothing if not ambitious. Featuring over twenty acts across three rooms, it came across conceptually like a tornado, but in practice petered out around 3:45 a.m. leaving Richard Devine, and Phoenecia without a slot to play.
Something akin to the U.N. of IDM, Swamp Thing managed to bring together Detroit’s festering scene with Dabyre, Jimmy Edgar, and Matt Dear while linking up with the mid-west breakcore scene via Baseck, Girl Talk, and Milwaukee heavyweight Doormouse. Miami showed respect with Otto Von Schirach, Dino, and Phoenecia accompanied by the city’s finest electronica DJ’s Karakter and Aura. Odd men out were headliner Drew Daniels of Matmos as The Soft Pink Truth, Airborn Audio (the latest Anti-Pop side project), and Berlin’s Din-ST.
These acts are best characterized in term of region. For instance, pretty much anyone from Milwaukee or the mid-west was generally near naked within about 2 minutes into their act. Particularly feisty was Girl Talk who I still can’t figure out if security dragged out as part of the act or because he actually pissed them off enough. I have no idea what Girl Talk was screaming about, but his antics accompanied by Hearts of Darkness wasn’t quite Costes or even Lighting Bolt, but I’m pretty confident people don’t get that rowdy at Korn shows. Which reminds of Hearts of Darkness’ set in which he rambled for about ten minutes while the sound guys tried to get his CD player up and running. After a good bellicose drunk confession in which he asked everyone to go get their girlfriend’s friends to fill the room, he ripped off his Stone Soup Collective shirt to show his nice Korn concert tee. At which point, Frankie (aka HOD) made it apparent why Schematic picked him up. Frankie might be the hard rock equivalent of Dntel. Brilliantly screaming out lyrics as if a punk rocker while playing the most glitched up hardrock I’ve ever heard. Hearts of Darkness is a very special place, one where the alienated hardrocker turns to the laptop instead of the band to get out the now age old motor city howl.
Milwaukee godfather turned Miami’s latest resident (oh yeah and he’s also owner of Addict Records), Doormouse, turned in an equally brilliant set. Full of various gangster rap and Black Sabbath tunes, Doormouse is smart enough to not take himself that seriously while retaining a conviction that’s awe inspiring. Good tune selection and mixing marked Dan’s set with his “Skeleton Chairs” remix of Venetian Snares coming across as the highlight until he pulled out a distorted take on Sabbath. Dan and Baseck also earn points for being the only mid-westerners to not get near naked during their shows.
A few hours away from the cankerous noise of Milwaukee, is Detroit. Its IDM scene is still growing, and the remarkably introverted performances of its residents were a welcome respite between the upbeat partying of the other acts. Sandwiched I think between Otto Von Schirach and Airborn Audio, Dabyre cleared the room with a remarkably downtempo and melancholic set. Beats drooped not in nostalgia, but a futuristic gloom chugged along at hip-hop speed. Slow stuttering funk and pauses between songs further took away from the former party atmosphere. Still, if you wanted to steal away for a moment from whatever DJ Aura was dropping or the non-stop sensory batterment of the primarily breakcore entry room, Dabyre was there. With all that said, it didn’t hold my attention.
Tadd aka Dabyre’s fellow Detroit resident, Jimmy Edgar, gave a much-anticipated set, everyone waiting to hear what Warp already knows about this former Merck artist. Surprisingly, Jimmy’s set, like Tadd’s, didn’t quite rock the crowd. Rooted in techy sounds derived from Kompakt Records, Jimmy makes a distinct form of hip-hop sans boom and drums: he focuses more on soul. Unfortunately, this just wasn’t the party for tech stuff, and his later eighties derived slanted tunes hit the crowd better and had a fuller feel. Still, and I did miss Matt Dear who can definitely rock a crowd; Detroit’s IDM scene doesn’t seem to have learned how to have fun yet. Both Dabyre and Jimmy approached the laptop like stoics, as if their compositions form some historically important sub-sect of music worthy of contemplation and not dancing. Maybe they will be, but come on, you’re in your twenties, have fun. In Detroit terms their more Monobox than Derrick May.
Hometown heroes Dino Felipe and Otto Von Schirach turned in expectantly eccentric and excellent sets. Dino might have taken crown for best set with his renewed Runway and Finesse project. A pseudo-electro-revival two piece, where pop songs are re-arranged according to some logic only Dino can see the rational behind. Dressed like Eric Chippendale in miniature, Dino and partner hollowed out new wave, making plastic replicas of already synthetic keyboard stabs and turning up the drama with irony dipped lyrics. It’s scary yet remarkably pleasant stuff.
Every time I hear Otto Von Schirach play I feel I understand his music a little more. A portion of his music will always be Ogre and another part will always put a foot down for bass heavy and remarkably complicated electro. His set at Swamp Thing was no different; staples from Escalo Frio and the Chopped Zombie Fungus trilogy were in full effect. I’m told his Doc.Nukem set at Infiltrate was insanity, and his set on Valentines also set high water marks for Otto, but I’d heard everything he played at Swamp Thing so I wandered around to the other rooms looking for something to attract my attention.
One thing Miami has, which other cities lack, is a following for its IDM DJ’s. Folks like Robert aka DJ Aura and Marsello aka Karakter, are highlights at the parties instead of filler between acts. Aura needs little introduction, one of Warp’s official DJ’s, he went with vinyl for a change for Swamp Thing, mixing in various glitchy numbers with the usual fair of Squarepusher/ Twin tunes. Karakter is a very different beast. Mixing trashy eighties tunes and other fun loving pop numbers you wouldn’t dare go near with Nightmares on Wax, hip-hop, and IDM. When you hear Aphex and an eighties tune only your sister could love converge, you know that Karakter has cracked a musical code between club culture and IDM’s tweaked and ambitious programming.
And now for the oddities. Airborn Audio flew into town with more gear gremlins than anyone else. Their first set didn’t happen with them trying to keep the crowd while the sound guys scrambled to get them up and running. Set one was aborted and set two was freestyle with numerous accapella’s. Airborn sounds promising, but their set ended in a hodgepodge of various technical difficulties.
Headliner, The Soft Pink, aka Drew Daniels of Matmos, just rocked the crowd. I like SPT, but I find the creative spark and unusual sense of composition that makes Matmos so fascinating is missing from Drew’s solo project. A good set full of killer tunes, but I just kept wishing he’d take it out a little farther. I mean in Miami they don’t mind a little noise or eccentricity. His visuals, culled from meetings in gay porn videos were a nice relief from the usual abstract minimalist designs that accompany electronica though.
All of the gear failures in the main room combined with home listening friendly sets from Detroit killed the dance floor about 8 times over. But those same problems have plagued Infiltrate for years the anti-conference party where IDM is usually confined during WMC’s 4-day rule. The biggest flaw in the evening though was missed performances from Phoenecia and Richard Devine.
Both Devine and Phoenecia manage to evade the need to actually scream and kick like Milwaukee, play around like Otto and Drew, or seriously manipulate their minimal grooves like Detroit. When they play, the performer isn’t the body in front of the laptop; it’s the sound on the dance-floor. Seeing Phoenicia or Richard Devine on a good night is experiencing techno in its finest form. Dance music can reverse rock’s attention toward the stage: it’s left to the audience to focus on themselves, to dance, to dig, to learn. Folks like Doormouse and Hearts of Darkness give electronic music rock’s face, but at Swamp Thing it seemed rock’s spirit had kicked dance music out of the club for a night.
Swamp Thing Lineup ::
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