my thoughts on cex...
live:
those uncomfortable with silliness will probably squirm watching a Cex set.
When he played in NY a few months ago, he pick-up on the NY audience's prudishness and proceeded to spotlight them with a flash light and really get up in their faces.
He lets the laptop play the tune while he does what i would call performance art. with an amazing amount of energy (that he is lucky to have because of his relative youth) he did strange dances, (one of my favorites was a sort-of frankenstein imitation), writhed around all over the place in contortions, jumped off of things (i was afraid he might injure himself in his frenzy), and sang his own version of DMX's 'What's My Name'
he's wacky and good natured and definitely worth seeing if you're interested in a laptop artist doing something different (like trying to give the audience a sense of something fun and exciting)
his music:
if you've only heard 'Cells', the full length debut he put out on his own label a few years back, you may think his brand of idm a bit juvenile.. but his style has advanced dramatically since then. nowadays his crunchy dsp-ified beats are up there with those of say funkstorung (and some of kid606's best) the synths over the beats are either droney ambient on some tracks or highly melodic on others. imho i'd say his melodies need the most work out of all the aspects of his work.
and frankly i find the vocals (done by some punk band's singer, i think) on the 'academy award' track to be horrifying, but other than that, worth checking out.
-roy
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