review from one of the many messageboards I frequent:
Simone and I got to the show at around 10:30, when Kenny Muhammad "The Human Orchestra" was on. HOLY SMOKIN SHxT!!!! this guy was doing amazing techno, breaks, and drum and bass all with his mouth, beatbox style!!! I've never seen anything like it - he did the breaks AND the basslines at the same time. he was freakin it HARD! plus, he had good MC skills and had the crowd cheering and clapping in time with his beats.
This guy was the coolest, most original music act I've seen in months. He had me cheering and ooohing and ahhing. Everything from hard acid techno to some DARK d'n'b, all coming out of his mouth. wow. the crowd itself was huge - it was wall to wall. most people were standing, but there was a lot of dancing too. Kids were getting down and cheering the whole show through. You could definitely tell that this show was sold-out.
then they had this DJ in between acts, he was playing hard as fxck jungle. can I just say that the Wexner soundsystem is fxcking DOPE?! it was such a pleasure to hear quality rough-in-the-jungle bizness on such a huge system. I guess it's not even that huge, really, but it is perfectly tuned for the space. Yanno that classic rave experience when you went to your first party, stood in front of the speakers and let some sick @ss d'n'b basslines run through you like a freight train? ohhh yeah, that's how it was. The DJ himself was just sorta ok - I expected better, but he was smooth at least. Still, with crazy jungle like that, I wanted to hear lots of juggling and cutting. oh well.
then Squarepusher went on. DxMN! his shit was dark as fxck and hard as hell. his first few tunes were my favorites - he started out with fairly traditional jungle breakbeats and then freaked them and built them up until they were a brain-frying wall of motherfxcking noise made of layer after layer of evil analogue glitches and squiggles. At one point, he played this soul-crushing organ solo for what seemed like at least 5 minutes. It got to the point where I felt like I couldn't take it anymore, the deep slow basslines skaing the walls of the place and dragging me down. Then he came back with some ill breaky noise!
all through his set, the only lighting was 4 spots and two strobes, which were all white and super bright. I gotta say, this was one abusive performance. It literally made me flinch and close my eyes. Squarepusher definitely knows how to fxck with your brain and your emotions with sound. it was as brutal a performance as any break-core set I've ever heard.
Unfortunately, then he picked up a bass guitar. Now, I dunno if there was something wrong with the sound or what, but I couldn't really hear the guitar except for weird little bits that were off kilter. It looked like he was really jamming out, but only strange chunks of what he was playing came through the music. Plus, all the songs he played with the bass were more 4/4, super fast and repetitive. I really didn't like them at all as much as his break-beat stuff, and he kept going on and on with them. It was really kind of blah and didn't affect me like his breaky stuff. But since it was still hard as fxck and loud as hell, it started to really wear me down. After about 3 tunes like this (20-30 minutes), Simone and I were ready to go. Which was about 15 minutes from the end anyways.
so that was the show... I'd say def. worth the $16 tickets, and afterwards I promised myelf I would start paying more attention to the events there. the music at the Wexner is awesome, and I've been going for the last two years, but it's always once and a while... there's more great shit going on there soon (like Prefuse 73 and RJ D2 ) and I will post up about it in the future so you guys can get your tickets in time!
I wasn't able to get in due to it being sold out. after hearing this I'm going to Chicago to see the show Friday, there were different reviews on the bass playing in different parts of the thread.. but this was the only DECENTLY WRITTEN review. sorry I had to edit it to get the swearing out there.. posting from work, I'm not sure what gets flagged..
if you really want to waste some time and check out the thread I nabbed it from:
http://www.ravetrash.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=14915
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