Search

From the Sep 28 – Oct 4, 2000 issue

Click Tracks for Taxi Cabs

Datach'I for the Brain and the Booty

Tools

Email This
Print
Share
- Twitter
- Facebook
- Newsvine
- Reddit
- StumbleUpon
- del.icio.us
0 comments

Datach'I
w/Kid 606, Pluramon
Crocodile, 2200 Second Ave, 441-5611, Sat Sept 30, 9 pm, $8.

THE LATEST OFFERING from New York's Datach'I (the musical alias of Joseph Fraoli), We Are Always Very Well Thank You, is probably best defined by what it's not. Datach'I will never headline the Paramount, because his music is too cerebral to entertain all of the people all of the time. You probably wouldn't hear anything off this record at any of the popular house, drum 'n' bass, or jungle nights in town either, because these tracks manage to deftly tech-step around any of the traditional solidified genres associated with contemporary electronic music.

We Are Always Very Well Thank You is an avant-garde offering in the best (and sometimes worst) sense of the term. There are familiar elements here: meticulously crafted beats that Squarepusher might think of in a particularly heated frenzy, given shape by simple synthesized melodies and the occasional piano interlude. When Datach'I is successful, a sort of sublimely urban sound experience is created--the sonic equivalent of a cab ride at night. The best electronic music of the past decade has emphasized experimentation and evolution, and Datach'I's complex record captures a few of modern music's countless possibilities.

Stranger Personals

Electronic music is best experienced live and loud, and Datach'I's live shows are rumored to be energetic affairs. He's been known to mount the stage in a Mexican wrestling mask and engage other DJs in sonic duels--not merely one of the newlegion of mysterious, poker-faced Powerbook manipulators whose stage presence consists of pressing play and a sardonic "see you next time" when it's all over. The audience can definitely look forward to some booty-shaking moments as well as more innovative and abstract interludes; goods for the mind and body.

Opener Kid 606 is generating quite a buzz of his own with a new offering out on Ipecac and cred to burn, given his work with Pluramon and Mouse on Mars. This will be a show you'll be very happy you went to.