Byetone, Aoki Takamasa, Sweat Shoppe
This past week/end, my good friend Jay Bodley, also known as A Setting Sun and Guardian, came to visit me in Philly and to shoot a music video for one of his tracks. I’m excited to begin working on the material, a total of 134 movie files, which I was able to narrow down to 77…hours of footage await nonetheless. Saturday, we went to Rizumu‘s Socks + Slippers Session II, which brought in two artists from staple Berlin-based minimal label, Raster Noton– the label’s co-founder, Olaf Bender (as Byetone), and Aoki Takamasa. As a big RN fan, who has posted about his love of it here on Blog.H34, Jay had me excited to see what was in store.
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Opening things up was Sweat Shoppe, a multimedia performance collaboration between two New-York based artists: Bruno Levy and Blake Shaw. Their set features one thing we don’t see nearly enough of, which is 3D visuals. Surprising given the recent 3D TV/movie craze, which I personally think is bunk– here is a more practical use of the technology. They played a lengthy set of dark minimal and tech house to accompany the dynamic visuals, which looked cool even without the glasses. The video above is a demonstration of some of the 3D technology they employ in grander performances, pretty amazing.
Byetone – Plastic Star (Session) – Death of a Typographer
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took the stage later in the night, with a visual accompaniment of his own– a minimal, line and shape-based setup that twitched and tweaked with the somewhat glitchy but heavily-grounded beats he’s known for. The best part of the performance was the counting visuals that played along with Plastic Star (Session) from his 2008 “snapshot” album Death of a Typographer, something I’d heard about before and was pleasantly surprised when I realized I was now witnessing them. Here’s a video to give you an idea, the sound is completely blown out, so you might just stick to the real track while you watch, the beats do sync up if you mute the video.
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Aoki Takamasa – Rn5-09 – RN Rhythm Variations
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provided the night’s final performance, with a set that delved even deeper into the warm, mechanical, bass-blasting sound of the night. I thought the live set was much more cohesive than listening to the recorded versions of his material, I don’t know how to describe it. Having seen him spend much of the night before his set in the audience rocking out and genuinely having a good time with everyone, I think a lot of people in the crowd were caught off guard to see him take the stage and continue to do what he had been doing on the floor, that kind of energy is what translated music that sounds almost undanceable into something everyone watching was moving to in the exact same way…dancing, without a doubt. This track off his RN Rhythm Variations LP is a perfect example.
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