by Showtrotta

Does it Offend You, Yeah? @ Webster Hall (more by Chris La Putt)

Hopefully you had a good Labor Day weekend in dance. I started mine off with two great deejay sets at Santos last Thursday night. The first was Pharrell'. It was before 11:30 and he already had the floor getting progressively more packed and moving to a set that was surprisingly more melodic and on the groovy house/slightly discoey side than I expected from one of the Fluo Kids. Around 12:30 33hz played a set. It wasn't the best I've witnessed from them. Their usually fun and pleasant retro-pop jams seemed less lively and sounded fuzzy which I credit largely to a robot voice effect they used on the lead vocals for the entire show. Close to 1:30 Alan Braxe went on and treated the crowd to a set that was the perfect balance of classic and updated French house with tasteful hints of electro. We were having such a good time that I don't remember too many tracks specifically, but a few he played were his and Fred Falke's remix of "Bossy" by Kelis. He teased with, but never fully dropped "Music Sounds Better With You". He played "Lumberjack" by Alan Braxe & Kris Menace, and the banging ending of his set consisted of Soulwax's "E Talking" into "Hung Down" by the Presets (both of whom are touring and will be in NY soon-ish). The whole time Alan was really getting into it - clapping, smiling, etc and the crowd reciprocated, mirroring his enthusiasm as they hit the floor.

For me the weekend wound down from there. Saturday I caught a half hour of Hey Convict!'s set at P.S.1 which was decent and very disco-oriented. I took James Chance and the Contortions' set that followed as an opportunity to get some food and hang out, as even after listening to a few songs, it all just sounded a bit too improvised/noisy to me. By the time it was nearly 7:30, I think I was as excited as I've ever been (or will ever be) to hear Matthew Dear. His set with Ryan Elliott started off much more energetic and banging than when I saw him at One Step Beyond a few months back and for a few moments I was feeling optimistic about the set. Unfortunately that was short-lived as things started to sound too repetitive too quickly. There is also something about the beats and effects in Dear's style of music that sounds very sterile (to me).

On a more positive note, there is plenty going on this week again:

Continue reading "the Thursday night in Dance, 'new' Chemical Brothers"