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Cross Product 6
featuring Lusine, The Aleph and DXM
Elysium, November 7, 2003
Of
all of the electronic sub-genres, IDM is probably the least
interesting to watch as performed but most interesting to
hear. A great deal of time and effort can go into the creation
of the individual pieces but most artists end up standing
on an elevated platform tweaking little knobs, pressing keys
on their laptops and generally looking very over-intellectual.
There isn't much audience interaction, attempts at audience
participation or even vocals to give the listener something
to feel part of the performance. All three bands fit this
description completely.
The
Aleph were perhaps the most guilty of not spending any energy
on performance; most of their on-stage time was spent lighting
cigarettes, nonchalantly sipping beer and fiddling with a
setting here or there to presumably add some new dimension
to the sound. Gone is their previous female vocalist. Her
voice added a dimension to the electronics that was unparalleled
in my mind. Now the band is just two guys with laptops. They
did kick out some interesting electronica, but I'd rather
sit on my couch with an open book and leave the music in the
background than watch laptop fiddling.
DXM
had the same level of performance. At times his music was
a little closer to dance-oriented techno. A few tracks combined
some almost tribal-sounding rhythms with some interesting
electronics that actually had me doing a little goofy monkey
dance by the pinball machines.
The
first part of Lucine's set was so low-key, so down-tempo that
I thought I'd fall asleep right there at the club. It was
a good, relaxing, atmospheric set but not something I really
wanted to hear in a club setting. I ended up leaving for more
interesting times at home. Had I wanted to just sit around
and stare at friends, it would have been a great night. But
the volume was too high to really have any in-depth conversations
and the lighting was too bad to read (if one had brought along
a book).
The
promoters tried to make up for the lack of performer energy
with some realtime manipulations of images of the performers.
On a screen behind them, images captured by a video camera
were tweaked into fractals, but that little trick got old
rather quickly.
- Brian Clarkson |
