Getting tapped to open for Girl Talk is a huge break for an
unknown artist—and a daunting prospect. Gregg Gillis’s fans like
to party hard and rush the stage while their hero cranks out
era-spanning, radio-hit-intensive mashups that have launched thousands
of sweaty shirts skyward. Said GT fans also aren’t known for their long
attention spans. So one feels pity for Junk Culture (aka
Deepak Mantena), a new signing by the controversial Illegal
Art label.
But a few listens to Junk Culture’s debut disc, the West Coast EP (out October 27), lead me to think
that Mantena will fare well before Girl Talk’s jumpy hordes. Like most
Illegal Art releases, the EP consists of many samples,
hard-to-identify snippets—save those from Animal Collective’s
“Brother Sport” and Steve Miller’s “Take the Money and Run”—that
the Portland-based producer stitches together with brash, raw finesse.
The nine tracks here are spasmodically rhythmic and awash in
digitally altered tones, vaguely alluding to Jason Forrest‘s
hectic, prog-disco bombast, Caribou‘s sublime psychedelic funk,
and Prefuse 73‘s clipped glitch-hop. Packing nine tracks into 18
minutes, Junk Culture caters to rapid-ear-movement listeners with a
ragged sampledelia that achieves a disorienting sort of coherence. This
Girl Talk tour ought to catapult Mantena to much higher—and
deserved—public awareness.
* * *
The local Sweatbox DJ crew wants to redefine your notion of
modern techno. To that end, M’Chateau (Michito Iwata),
Ctrl_Alt_Dlt (Chris Adlrich), and Jonny Romero (Jonathan
Herrera) have organized a night called just that at Chop Suey, along
with Goner, a mainstay of ballistic-techno advocates
Knightriders.
Every Thursday at the Capitol Hill Jai Thai, the Sweatbox boys bust
out the cerebral, body-moving techno goods. It’s an intimate,
curry-scented party, but these guys have higher ambitions, and
Modern Techno ought to help them be realized. Aldrich
elaborates:
“[While] kicking around ideas for the show and trying to design a
flyer, we saw [a] picture of Jesus holding the dinosaur and it
kind of just went from there. Jonny, Michito, and I played records…
until 6 or 7 in the morning, and it became this really cohesive thing.
We have all played together many times, but as of late, our little jam
sessions have been sounding better than ever and have been really
inspiring in terms of the type of music we’re playing and the direction
that we want our parties to go.
“This show will be a round-robin session with the three of us
playing back and forth, and Goner will be doing the opening set.
This night promises to be an exhibition of quality dance music, a
showcase for the current state of what we consider to be ‘modern
techno.'”
Junk Culture performs Fri Sept 18, Showbox Sodo, 8 pm, sold out,
all ages, with Girl Talk, Brother Reade; and Mon Sept 21, Showbox at
the Market, 8 pm, $15 adv/$20 DOS, 21+, with Girl Talk. Modern Techno,
Fri Sept 18, Chop Suey, 9 pm, $5 before 11 pm/$7 after, 21+.
