The opening weekend of the
Transnatural festival at Nemo featured The Field and Fantastic Mr. Fox, two
electronic musicians with very different approaches to live performance. Within a larger idiom of dance, both
artists were concerned with mobilizing the minds and bodies of the
audience. The Field’s performance
on Friday night was a looping, meditative experience that incorporated both
live instrumentation and pre-recorded samples, while on Saturday night Fantastic
Mr. Fox played a set of stuttering house and techno tracks that included many
of his own R&B-infused productions.
Overall, the weekend’s musical entertainment provided moments of extreme
payoff, and I am still attempting to understand how both artists were able to
achieve such gratifying results using very different sets of tools.
With moments of slow build-up and
release, The Field’s performance was an intensely rewarding experience of
moving gradually from one idea to the next. A song would begin with the introduction of a single loop. Then, the drummer and bass guitarist
would then build on top of the groove for several minutes, slowly increasing
the tension. The song would expand
with the addition of manipulated loops or articulated phrases. After what felt like an eternity of
build-up, the song would begin to sound like a wall of sound, grounded solely
upon the forward inertia of the original pulse. In these moments, the Field managed to create a dream-like
sense of bliss, not unlike the sound of shoegaze or noise rock groups like My Bloody
Valentine. To puncture the moment
of high drama, the band would contract the song, achieved through alignment of
an arrhythmic looped phrase with the drummer’s live playing (and in one case, a
fleeting moment of silence). The
gradual transition into the next song would proceed with a series of
subtractions, followed by the introduction of the next loop, which might at
first sound at odds with the previous loop. The steady alignment of these elements, along with the
subtle interplay between sampled and live elements, resulted in an intensely
engaging experience of being completely absorbed into the gradual processes of
waxing and waning. Erasing all
senses of time, the 75-minute set felt like three hours of focused
contemplation.
Whereas the rush of The Field’s
performance hinged upon the slow evolution of one groove into the next, the
strength of Fantastic Mr. Fox’s set lied in its deliberate disjointedness. A rich collage of beats and textures,
the performance consisted of cut and pasted tracks that overlapped and
intersected in interesting ways. A
four-to-the-floor track would collide with one of the artist’s own angular
productions in a way that demanded a physical response. The deep sound of the bass, combined
with the compressed squelch of the highs, created a tactile experience that
succeeded on the dance floor in an unexpected way. The music, which might come off as overly mathematical and
metronomic, achieves a remarkably sensual quality. The only vocal samples used during the set had been
processed and fragmented to such a degree that they were completely incoherent,
which felt counterintuitive given the current obsession with the nostalgic diva
vocals of 90s-era Detroit and Chicago style house shared by many of Fantastic
Mr. Fox’s contemporaries in the UK.
The de-emphasizing of vocals shifted the focus of each track onto its
rhythmic and textural elements, which intensified the physicality of the dance
experience. Consistent with this
decision, Fantastic Mr. Fox also included some tracks sampling Brazilian drum
music, which possessed an interesting metallic timbre. My only regret from this performance
was the duration of some of the regions of overlap. There were a couple moments of enjoyment that felt too
abrupt. He would construct an
interesting layering of beats like a teetering edifice, only to tear it down as
soon as it found a stable footing.
The set felt a bit heavy with the denial of gratification, but perhaps
this was an intentional decision to create a certain edge, which made the
moments of resolution that much more potent or memorable.
In
the larger context of the Transnatural Fesitval, which showcases art and design
innovations that are related to energy applications and smart materials, the
choice to feature The Field and Fantastic Mr. Fox seems even more
appropriate. Fantastic Mr. Fox’s
manipulation of sound found a direct physical analogy in the recycled and
sustainable plastics on exhibit, which allowed visitors to feel the interesting
textures and surfaces forged from composite materials. The propulsive feel of The Field’s set
seemed to embody the forward-looking, innovative spirit of the festival, which
sought to erase pre-existing boundaries between art and technology, between
aesthetic expression and engineering pragmatism. On the dance floor, these considerations were irrelevant in
the immediate context of music as a celebratory act. However, as an artistic endeavor worthy of contemplation,
dance music, perhaps more than other genres of electronic music, represents the
creative desire to render mathematical abstraction into a palpable
reality. These two artists,
through drastically different methods, highlighted the exciting possibilities
available through the act of translating electronic information into a
collective physical experience.
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