Data Breaker
An Experience-Maximizing Guide to Decibel's Highlights
Jon Leone
MOUNTAINS Ameritronica’s peak.
Tools
This year's Decibel Festival may be the best ever. Now in its sixth edition, Decibel—through the outstanding curatorship of director Sean Horton—continues to further its reputation as a world-class event on the level of Montreal's MUTEK.
If you've been paying attention, you'll notice an annual pattern with regard to this local digital-arts extravaganza. Every year, a financial crisis forces Decibel's fate to dangle dangerously over the precipice. Somehow, somewhere, the dB crew secures funds and proceeds to book a lineup consisting of dozens of phenomenal talents. It's an old story, but I for one never tire of hearing it—mainly because most of the characters change and the sounds they create deviate enough from year to year to avoid stagnation.
Stranger Personals
This annum presents another overwhelming bounty of electronic music, over 100 artists harvested locally, nationally, and globally. You'll see obscure names on the schedule, of course, but those acts often end up being the most revelatory. Be adventurous; odds are your risks will pay off. And rest up, for you're going to need as much energy as you can muster to hit all of Decibel's peaks. Guaranteed, no showcase will suck. However, as you're not perpetual-motion machines blessed with unlimited attention spans, you'll have to be selective. Below I outline the acts that should be your top priorities, but do try to catch as many sets as you can in this, Seattle's gift to cutting-edge multimedia creativity. (Go to www.dbfestival.com for all the details.)
THURS SEPT 24
Deepchord Presents: Echospace (Neumos, 10:30 pm) Echospace—Chicago's Steve Hitchell (Soultek) and Detroit's Rod Modell (Deepchord)—loyally carry Basic Channel's brilliant dub-techno torch into the 21st century with glacial grandeur. Nobody currently plows this rich vein of subliminal dance music with deeper understanding than Echospace. Their techno drips with Arctic Oceanic coolness.
Benga (Neumos, 12:30 am) One of British dubstep's most consistently inventive producers, Benga is responsible—with Coki—for the ubiquitous genre classic "Night," revealing his mastery of chilling atmospheres and gut-churning rhythms. Diary of an Afro Warrior is dubstep's Bitches Brew.
FRI SEPT 25
Frank Bretschneider (Seattle Art Museum, 9 pm) Bretschneider's productions are ultraminimal, precisely gridlike, and vacuum packed, yet somehow groovy and sexy as fuck. Nobody's made abstract, pointillist sound design seem so funky with so few elements. It's a miracle, really. Dude's the James Brown of clicks & cuts.
Rob Hood (Neumos, 9:30 pm) Ex–Underground Resistance member Hood (aka Monobox) ranks among minimal techno's most disciplined and creative technicians ever. His rock-ribbed, bare-bones tracks are nearly unmatched for their visceral power and rigorous contours. Don't miss one of techno's immortals in action.
Nerd Revolt (Electric Tea Garden, 1:30 am) In their brief time together, classically trained Seattle duo m.0 and the iLL.F.O. have ascended to near the top of this city's populous live-techno mountain. m.0 is a former laptop battle champ and renowned gear geek with an arsenal of plug-ins, hardware and software synths, Ableton Live, and other tools that both members use on the fly onstage. Nerd Revolt have translated their long hours of, uh, nerdishness into potent, libidinous techno of anthemic proportions. They're poised to be Seattle techno's next breakout artist.
Bruno Pronsato (Church of Bass, 3:30 am) Relocating to Berlin in 2006, former Seattleite Pronsato's become a global sensation, forging some of the world's most texturally interesting, structurally unpredictable, and strangely sensual experimental techno to date. His 2005 MUTEK performance remains one of the greatest techno sets I've seen, but years on the international circuit surely have honed Pronsato's live skills to even higher levels. Give this man a returning hero's welcome.
SAT SEPT 26
Dave Aju (Sole Repair, 11 pm) Making excellent quirky tech-house ain't easy, but Aju cracked the code with Open Wide, a skewed, freewheeling dance album concocted strictly from sounds created with his mouth. Oral auralism you can shake your ass to—that's ingenuity. But Aju's much more than a one-gimmick pony. His work without piehole shenanigans also cuts a funny rug with off-kilter inventiveness and soul.
Martyn (Church of Bass, 4:30 am) One of the most exciting, unconventional dubstep producers in the game, the Dutch-born Martyn produces tracks equipped with alluring melodies and powered by agile, irregular beats. Drawing inspiration from Chicago house, Detroit techno, and UK drum 'n' bass, Martyn boasts a rich well of studio tricks from which to construct his dazzling productions. Check out his Great Lengths album for abundant proof.
SUN SEPT 27
Christina Vantzou (Seattle Asian Art Museum, 4:15 pm) Member of the Dead Texan with Stars of the Lid's Adam Wiltzie, Brussels-based visual artist/musician Vantzou dapples stately, pastel, ambient tone poems over figurative, animated images that glide, dissolve, and disintegrate in graceful slow motion. The aesthetic toggles between unconventional advertising and avant-garde nature documentary. A lovely, sighing pleasure.
Mountains (Triple Door, 7:45 pm) This Brooklyn duo achieve a shimmering, shiver-inducing stasis through guitars and computers, like an American-bred Fennesz. Subtle gradations of tone and texture generate a sonic moiré effect; plangent acoustic guitar plucks meet digital processing, catgut meets silicon chip, and everyone listening drifts into the ether, googly-eyed ever after.
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You do disservice to the work that others have done over the years for Dubstep in your city. Be thankful for those who have gone to the effort to deliver you multiple opportunities to see the best in the world, and I'm not just talking about N-Type. Benga, SubSwara, Hobbs, Mala, Boxcutter, Pinch, DJG, Moldy, Martyn are all in Seattle this weekend. London itself would be lucky to get all those folks in a weekend. Note the fact that there's a separate article that speaks to the bass orientation of this year's DB Fest and then get off the pedestal and into the nearest bassbin.
What I was making light of was the fact that it's impossible not to notice that Decibel has decided to focus on Dubstep this year and that Dubstep IS in fact the sound of the day here in the Seattle area. A fact never really eluded to in his article. (I know, I know, some of you religiously hate Dubstep... but sorry, you're vastly outnumbered). In fact it was a notion blatantly left out or carelessly left out of his article all together... neither speaks well to the mans ability to write a good article. It really isn't a big deal to me that Dubstep is highlighted other than for the fact it is the music with momentum in Seattle's electronic music scene and it's a HUGE part of this year's festival. Point blank. Not talking about that fact is like avoiding the 900pd gorilla so to speak. Like I said, I'm diggin' other genre's right now mainly. I made this point to illustrate the fact that Dave Segal seems like someone unworthy of such an important and purposeful job here in the Northwest's electronic music scene. He has no clue what's really going on. In another article he wrote that "Dubstep was an unlikely fit with Pioneer Square" when everyone knows SHIFT has been at Contour at least a couple years now along with Dubstep sets regularly going on at Trinity on Thursdays. I suspect some of you coming to Dave's rescue know him. I'm sure he's a nice guy. I'm sure he has some great written work... just none of it has been going into the Stranger... at least since I've been paying attention to it.... and that's been a while.
An example of an excellent article about a music genre is Larry Mizell's article. Larry's article goes everywhere from talking about recent local news effecting Hiphop in general to new local music to the big names comin' to play a big venue and who's opening up for them. He talks about who's relevant and what's relevant, as in the shows that people really wanna go to. When have I seen Dave Segal breathe a word about Flave? Or Grym? Or Romero? Or Dirty? Or Onset? Or Uniting Souls? Or Shift? Or Flammable? Or many other names, places and events truly relevant to what's going on around here? Seldom, if ever. It's about time our regular movers and shakers got noticed. The names I listed about should be in there at least once a month if not almost every week. He always picks out some obscure IDM blah to talk about. Also... I'm sorry, it's a BIG DEAL that Caspa and N-Type are playing at Decibel Festival and he doesn't even say a word about it in his recommendations! He recommends Benga's aaaannnnoooooyyyyinng commercial squid crap out of all the Dubstep he could've mentioned... blah! Everyone who knows is for sure going to the Caspa show at Motor and MAYBE they'll go to the Mad Professor/Benga show at Neumo's. Gas Lamp Killer is gonna be some serious business on Sunday and that's FREE! Gas Lamp Killer isn't even mentioned! I seriously think the Stranger should consider getting someone with a lot more of an up to date look at the Electronic music scene. Someone who actually comes out maybe. That guy is seen once in a blue moon at the big electronic shows. A person with a comparable audience is Drew Bailey. That guy knows what he's talking about. Not just from a musical knowledge standpoint but where our city is and what the people in the clubs and parties think. Drew grinds like a horse and you can tell he hangs out in the scene... and he doesn't even get paid! This guy writes a sub-par article, doesn't show up to shit and gets... tada! PAID. I think it's about time the Stranger got another writer for the Electronic Music section. I could name 20 people off the top of my head who would write an article 100x's better than the junk this guy pukes out every week. So hate me if you want. I'm just telling it how I see it. :P
11
Dave supports a huge range of music is this city
and were damn luck to have him.
Why don't your get your facts straight next time.
12
You are wrong. Take it. Oh, Shift is at Trinity? That does not make a scene out of it. How many dubstep live PAs have you heard from locals??? MM? If its less than a couple dozen (local) artists, whoops! Its still just a blip in the corner of our map. And that means no disrespect to the hardworking Shift crew or anyone else working with it, I'm very glad that I can hear different flavors of dubstep, things that verge on not even being dubstep, in this city.
Shoot I remember Dave writing up Struggle back before he went back to DJing house and disco!!!! OHman that was so long ago, like 2 years at least, way before dubstep was so in like it is now.... oh hoho. Oh, yeah, thanks for paying attention to dubstep when it was so much smaller Dave!!!!! Great work from you once again! Maybe this boy has never followed your lead and discovered some of the amazing music being produced in his own city, waiting until things are now and of-the-moment (such as dubstep, glitch, and electro-house).
Ra Khan, why not just do your cerebral cortex a favor and stop spitting out all the genrespotting unnecessaries? Enjoy yourself and be open to the arts, you'll thank yourself later.
I still feel his recommendations weren't stellar and Seattle would still be better served by a replacement but I am totally guilty of not reading the whole thing and Dave did write up a good piece. I humbly apologize. I felt pretty strong about this when I wrote it initially but realize now just going off on the guy was a poor way to express myself and be heard... plus I probably got a little too into disliking him. Not a good way to bee. I did look ignorant. Hope I'm not hated too much. Anyways. Off to the party! You guys can hate me in person if you want. I'll be at the Caspa show. Or... you can tell me about how wrong I am and laugh about it.
ps. I totally love music from Seattle and the Northwest. Many of my favorites are my friends. Whole other discussion. Bassline is really my favorite style of beats right now. Not very big over-all in the area though I'd say. I'm also very much a strong fan of the Hipstep style of Drum'n'Bass, also not exactly the sound with big momentum. I like what I like, I identify the best way I can so it's easy to understand for you or whoever is reading. I'm not really stuck to genre's either, but labeling things helps when trying to relay the idea. But yeah, like you, I'm just into good music. Those "genre's" are just easy ways to explain where my interests have tended towards lately.
IMOUT!
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