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Over a decade after the
original European explosion of electronic dance music, baffled North
Americans are just starting to get to grips with "electronica". It's
easy to laugh at their naive enthusiasm but it has created a
wide acceptance of music that most Europeans regard as inaccessible
and pretentious. Hence, the excellent turn-out for this little-publicized
show. Hence, too, the fact that jangly guitar specialist K Records has signed Seattle duo IQU. Their set augement programmed grooves with a range of in-vogue instruments/gadgets: turntables; Theremin; vocoder... The result was beguiling-but-unremarkable. Top marks for the rugged jungle beats/ guitar outbursts but slaps on the collective wrist for the hints of stiff faux hip hop beats/cheesy "intellegent" techno. Also, IQU did little to add a visual element to their rather unenergetic performance. No such problems for the mighty Mouse on Mars who are a notoriously full-on live experience. This is remarkable as the German duo's recorded works are delicate, woozy, intricate and meandering structures, often with very little in the way of rhythmic impetus. On stage, the additon of a hard-hitting live drummer provides a taught rhythmic springboard from which to launch their journey's into sound. If there was a difference from past shows on this occassion, it was a shift towards faster beats and less crowded soundscapes. This stripped down, more conventionally danceable aproach actually did their seismic power a disservice and some numbers slightly lacked impact. Still, it seems stupid
to quibble with details concerning a live band this uneqivocally great.
Everything they do is utterly immediate, yet never trite. They're always
willing to drop a spanner in the works, then yank it out again just
as the machine grinds to a halt. The effect is stunning. Everything
else is going to sound pretty lame in comparison for some time to come.
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