Decibel Festival Day 1: AraabMuzik & Zomby

Day one of Decibel Festival has been amazing. Aside from my experience as an artist/performer (which has been above & beyond so far, especially with regards to transportation , the first day presented a diverse array of showcases to wet one’s appetite for the coming four days. Tonight the consensus among my crew was “AraabMUZIK then Zomby!” Pretty fucking awesome night from any angle.

We showed up at Nuemo’s for the Beat Prodigies Showcase while Shigeto was on stage. Outside of my immediate fondness for the club itself, I was totally engaged with Shigeto’s own brand of post-hip-hop. His swirling, clouded mid-range was anchored by heaving bass & even though few actually danced to his set, there was a palpable sense in the room that his music was connecting. Good vibes.

Which in part can only be attributed to the fact that AraabMuzik was in the building. There’s not much now that needs to be said about this rogue Rhode Islander (Dipset! Trance Samples! Quantized!?!), his reputation truly does precede him. After a shotty start with what seemed like puny sub-bass, Araab caught fire & proceeded to light up Nuemo’s like it was… a bunch of teenagers on YouTube! Whatever, dude is a monster – I’m glad I got to see & hear just how hard he hammers the MPC & just how heavy his drums smack. He ventured through some of his well known jams fro Electronic Dream & honestly, it sounded fantastic once he got going. People were feeling it, but my crew was on the move…

To the opening party: Atom TM & Zomby. Hmm… take risks much Decibel?! Atom TM is a bonafide don in the reclusive world of IDM… but a draw? In North America? Again, this is one of the things that Decibel should be so applauded for.  Ostensibly you’re asking, “can a North American audience even handle Atom TM & Zomby?” And last night’s display at Re-Bar was a resounding “I guess?” Atom maneuvered through various modes from 110-120 bpm, with visuals displaying the various parameters that he was manipulating on his hardware – which was kinda cooooool. The sound was clean & minimal, not in the traditional German sense of minimal, but more a sense of “this music isn’t trying really hard to do much, it’s just happy sounding good as is.” Which to me sounded great, but really, it wasn’t that much of a party starter. Part of me was secretly hoping that he’d dip into the thumping dancefloor exercises of Music Is Better Than Pussy, but nay, it was a set of more methodical beats & melodies. Which is rad, that’s kinda what I want out of an electronic music festival.

And let’s be straight: booking Zomby’s North American debut for your festival opening party was kind of a risky maneuver. Outside of his staunch iconoclastic inclinations, the dude has a rep for just not showing up for gigs. And despite recent hints that he’s had a change of heart with regards to his art (partially due to the passing of his father), I was always like “ballsy move DB!” for booking him. So yeah, dude showed up with a Guy Fawkes mask on and proceeded to wow the crowd, sometimes with the tunes he dropped, sometimes with the seemingly aggressive nonchalance with which he approached his performance. Despite seeing inconsistent billings as “ZOMBY [Live]”, I had no expectations with his set. I couldn’t tell just quite what he was manipulating on stage but it didn’t seem like much. The first half of his set was a smattering of old jungle/hardcore tunes & Zomby “classics” (if we can all agree that such a distinction exists). “Test Me For a Reason” & “Natalia’s Song” were squished strangely between banging jungle, but the contrast almost became part of the dynamic of watching Zomby’s first gig on North American soil. The ravey breaks & air horns were perfect – I don’t think anyone cared that it was obvious that he wasn’t playing “live”.

But through the entirety of the set, Zomby was stoic as can be & around the 40 minute mark, he really seemed to lose interest. Right around this time, he moved to hip-hop and in a bizarre move, played three AraabMuzik tracks in a row. Right after Araab just played down the street. Jeez. Then some Lex Luger beats, then Drake (which ironically was the only thing that I saw Zomby actually physically groove to all night). It was, needless to say, a bit leftfield, but one can’t help but feel like that’s inevitably what Zomby is all about: obscuring the line separating the experimental & the glaringly obvious. Zomby seemed far less interested in splaying his musical guts for everyone to marvel at and way more into just playing some jams that he really likes. He barely mixed much of his set, but it really didn’t bother peeps. Left & right, the crowd was semi-raving, which lent a great atmosphere to the room.

So yeh, day one. BOOM. Not sure that Zomby was really mind-blowing or anything, but holy shit am I ever appreciative of the opportunity to even see him. Really excited to play with the Night Slugs team tonight & catch Martyn on Saturday.

More recaps coming!