The Holocene tends to err on the side of brilliant obscurity; Atlas Sound played there earlier this year, a slew of upcoming acts sends one to les internets to get the full story. (Like Thao and the get down stay down coming in July. Check the album review to get ready for the show.) This particular night though it was a more ‘mainstream’ act that got the crowd moving. Mainstream, of course, being measured on an insider’s scale: the SMD boys were recently dropped from their label—but the show proved that stuffy label execs have no clue what they’re doing.
The challenge of electronic shows is making the artists appear to actually…do something. With the gear in a circle, the visual movement of James Ford and James Shaw added to the lively electricity in the air. The show kicked off with “Sleep Deprivation,” though significantly more striped down the their album’s sleek opener.
Ford’s occasional air-pumping and Shaw’s rarer glances and smiles at the crowd kept the crowd believing that on-stage was possible more fun than offstage. Looks of strain and boredom were absent, which was a nice break from those more famous than ourselves who can appear to sulk their way through a show, and seem to guilt their machines into beeping out familiar rhythms while daring the crowd to enjoy themselves. SMD, on the other hand, took notice when the crowd exploded as the beat for “Hustler” morphed from the previous song.
The simple stage set-up with columns of lights and strobes harkens back to a precocious time—the days when people went to parties because dancing around with sweaty people, enduring conductive hearing loss and drinking rum and cokes was just plain fun. If a genie popped out and gave Moby one wish, he’d be wise to request SMD’s ability to bring sound without ego.
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