Fuckin’ hell, Decibel Festival came roaring out the gate this year. The Optical Kick-Off party at Re-bar set the course of my night on a properly psychedelic tone with Seattle producer/DJ Raica (aka Chloe Harris) conjuring alien, Conrad Schnitzler-esque emissions and Coil-like whorls of unidentified synthesized objects. Beats didn’t materialize until about a half hour into her set, and when they did, they were more ritualistic and slinky than club-friendly. Near the end, she brought in some oblong, punch-press beats that were suggestive of dance music, but too elusive and original for that utilitarian role. Raica’s set was off in its own bizarre world and wholly unfestive, and all the better for it. Even though she plays out frequently, she never repeats herself and maintains supremely high quality control in many different club situations. And, by the way, Harris is very pregnant—with child and many brilliant, unconventional ideas. (Shouts to the Coldbrew Collective, whose visuals have never been more vividly lysergic.)
Wearing a Sunn O))) T-shirt, Richard Devine, the once and future ruler of all that is rhythmically complex and tonally abstruse, came on early and left the stage late. That’s okay, because after an early passage of Bernard Parmegiani/Morton Subotnick-style starbursts of highly calibrated granular synthesis, Devine shifted into the mad-scientist electro and mind-fuckingly complicated IDM of his Schematic days. One track was unbelievably funky and delicately melodic (those exotic chimes!), like a 22nd-century upgrade of Kraftwerk’s Computer World. Devine’s set was certainly eventful yet exhausting; how many cockroach-castanets-on-a-crackhouse-floor rhythms and explosions in a Roland factory can you stand? Nevertheless, it’s a privilege to witness the biggest brain in electronic music applying his prodigious rigor to the pleasure principle.
At the Crocodile, the secondnature Showcase cruised into cool life with opener Josef Gaard (Seattle’s Nathan Levenson) making his live debut. Though he’s very young, Gaard may be this city’s finest minimal-techno producer (the competition’s stiff, too). There’s something quite Gas-like about Gaard’s aquatic techno; it’s immersive yet streamlined, frictionless yet imbued with subliminal tension. The effect is a stoic sort of euphoria. After the set, another young local producer told me that Gaard’s sound was so good, “It made me feel like shit.” Fellow secondnature producer/DJ Archivist (Alex Markey) complemented his crew mate with a techno set that perfectly balanced the cerebral with the celebratory. Check out Archivist’s remix of Josef Gaard’s “Obsidian Falls” for an idea of how complementary these two artists’ sensibilities are.
Next up, Cassegrain, the Berlin-based Turkish/Greek duo of Hüseyin Evirgen and Alex Tsiridis. HOLY SHIT, people. There’s a certain strain of techno that makes you feel like the most submissive masochist the world’s ever had the pleasure to abuse. That’s the kind of techno Cassegrain create: battering, clattering, war-drum assaults at 140-150 beats per minute. They proved that obliteration = exhilaration. By contrast, Tin Man couldn’t help sounding a bit anti-climactic, though his workmanlike, melodic acid house was surely no disgrace. I had to bounce around 1:15 am, so I missed Tin Man’s collaborative set with Cassegrain. There are four more grueling nights to go, after all, and already Decibel had overstuffed heads with underground-electronic greatness. (Sadly, I missed Nicolas Jaar‘s set at Showbox. How was it?)
