RA EP Review: Peggy Gou – Moment

Published April 19, 2019 on Resident Advisor

Slick house from one of dance music’s biggest names.

On Peggy Gou’s new EP, the first on her new label, Gudu Records, she wonders, just how long is a moment? (Her moment.) Reviews of Peggy Gou’s recent 12-inches usually begin by talking about it being her “defining year.” This has been happening since 2016. The satisfying Moment ensures her own will last a lot longer than the spotlight’s bulb.

On “Starry Night,” an acid-tinged piano house track, Gou is more self-aware than a thumb through her aspirational Instagram grid might let on. Underneath the shimmer and sparkle—on Instagram this is designer clothes and stunning settings, on the track they’re the light-as-air xylophone and dreamy “ooh”s—you’ll find something, and someone, more grounded.

In her native Korean, Gou sings about how quickly popularity and tastes can change. Twice, she switches to English, a gift to her non-Korean-speaking fans who sing along to “Itgehane” but butcher the language. She states nouns, adjectives and commands that you can imagine a crowd repeating back at her as she closes out her set, the final verse going: “World, fearless, pleasure, edge, listen / World, freedom, listen / Now, us?” The warm piano returns as if answering that question: “Yes, you. Dance, now.”

If “Starry Night” is for daytime sets, “Han Pan” is for when the sun goes down. The mood is deeper, with subdued steel pans and Gou’s distant, cool vocals adding hazy texture. There’s a noodling synth line, almost functioning like a post chorus, which also lends itself well to a sing-along. A little over one year after her star-making Once EP, Gou has tightened her modern, versatile formula.

Read the single review on RA.

RA Event Review: Re-Textured Festival 2019 – Five Key Performances

Published April 1, 2019 on Resident Advisor

This festival review was a three-critic team effort. Here are my contributions:

Fatima Al Qadiri

The danger of experimental events is that they often draw a chin-stroking crowd, which can create something of a vibe vacuum. But Fatima Al Qadiri, who performed live in character as Shaneera, the “outrageous,” hyperfeminine, “evil queen” persona from her 2017 EP of the same name, was having none of that. Wearing a luscious wig, metallic makeup and T-shirt with her own alter-ego emblazoned on the chest, Shaneera taunted the crowd while delivering exaggerated vocals, flipping her hair when she pleased. She performed at ground level between two imposing speaker stacks at Concrete Lates‘ usual spot, the foyer of Queen Elizabeth Hall. Behind her, a screen projected visuals of hair, nail polish and other items typically perceived as feminine, magnetised so aggressively that they looked disgusting—the bass was also appropriately uncomfortable. While the eye-level crowd interaction was fun, it didn’t feel right: Shaneera deserves a raised platform, vamping for all to see.

Jan Jelinek

Lucrecia Dalt wanted to confuse you. The Colombian artist, who opened Village Underground on Saturday night, sent beams of white light pointing to the center of the room, while thin red lights flanked the dark stage. At first, it looked like she might be among the crowd, lit up by the bright beams, but then there was her shadow lurking between the red rods. Once her robotic haze of a set ended, Jan Jelinek flipped the script and the light switches.

Positioning his table of hardware beneath a camera exposing every turn of a knob and press of a button (as is his preferred live setup), Jelinek was as transparent a performer as he could possibly be, one step short of giving a demonstration. It’s hard to know if he leaned more experimental than usual for the show. His synth noodling featured fuzzy radio-inspired samples from his last LP, Zwischen, which might’ve frustrated fans of his influential 2001 album, Loop-Finding-Jazz-Records. A group of nearby lads were demonstrably itching for a kick drum that never came.

Read the complete event review on RA.

RA Album Review: Julia Holter – Aviary

Published October 30, 2018 on Resident Advisor

RA Recommends: Cinematic avant-pop inspired by the din of modern life.

It says something about the current moment that Julia Holter chose to make an album capturing the present. Her previous inspirations have been consistently antique. 2011’s Tragedy was an operatic take on Euripides’s play Hippolytus, and 2014’s Loud City Song pulled from the mid-20th century French novella Gigi. While creating Aviary, Holter sifted through the noise around her. In an interview with Mary Anne Hobbs, she said, “[The album] is an exploration of sounds in times where I’ve felt speechless. I don’t really know what to say these days about anything. It’s a crazy loud world, and there’s so much going on… It’s hard to find words for it.”

Aviary gets its name from a line in Etel Adnan’s short story collection Master Of The Eclipse: “I found myself in an aviary full of shrieking birds.” On her fifth album, Holter embraces that chaos while also trying desperately to find an escape from it. In the middle of the seemingly sweet and exuberant “Chaitius,” everything starts to break down. A text-to-speech-like voice appears: “Joi, joi / I feel so alove.” (Some of the words are taken from a 12th-century Occitanian poem.) Holter comes back, whispering, “Wait, wait.” The two voices talk over each other until Holter’s defeated voice plainly speaks, “Joi, ah, joi / So joi / I feel so joi.”

After years of work often inspired by myths, plays and musicals (Holter turned Tragedy into a full-length opera in New York last year), it’s fitting that Aviary feels like a film. Over 90 minutes, Holter guides you through euphoric, dramatic highs and anxious lows, dream-like montages and unbearably tense sequences. It’s as cinematic as music can get.

But you don’t have to listen to it that way. As Holter told Hobbs, “I want people to pick their path with it… It’s not a start-to-finish type of thing.” Each song is its own complete world, and visiting just one can be satisfying. Take the discordant “Everyday Is An Emergency,” the most lifelike representation of birds on Aviary. When its stressful tones eventually dissolve, Holter plays the piano while singing a chain of rolling prepositions: “Heaven in the human in the arches in the weather in the table in the somber in the clanging in the kingdom… ” Holter says she “was trying to create a sound bath, a cathartic experience.” She does this by enunciating her lyrics so that they barely resemble recognizable words, and in the way she makes the synths, strings, horns dance around each other in the mix. The effect is both chaotic and calming.

Holter has always taken pop and presented her own masterful version of it. But her desire to break through the distressing clatter of the present is what makes Aviary her most captivating album yet. You feel the force of her willpower when you reach the determined “I Shall Love 2” and the cathartic release of the penultimate track, “I Shall Love 1,” in which she invites you to join her in euphoria: “I am waiting for you / Come on over.” Instead of reimagining and refocusing on moments come and gone, Holter’s shift in focus reveals the meditative power her music can have in coping with and conquering the overwhelming noise of the present.

Read the album review on Resident Advisor.

RA Event Review: Polifonic Festival 2018

Published August 7, 2018 on Resident Advisor

With a strong focus on local artists, this festival is bringing a deeper strain of dance music to one of Italy’s most scenic regions.

The lunar eclipse started shifting to red at around 10 PM on Friday, July 27th, right as festivities at Masseria Eccellenza began to stir. Astrology says the blood moon exposes our deep inner and outer conflicts, forcing us to face them in order to consciously change and grow. Until nearly midnight, the moon was in transition—this was the longest lunar eclipse of the 21st century—creating a shift in the air. Sitting on the lush lawn of the southern Italian estate, it was almost as enjoyable watching festivalgoers taking notice and pointing up to the blood moon as it was watching it slowly change from white to black to red and back again. Polifonic had begun.

Locals talk a big game about being on “Italian time,” which means never rushing and letting things happen when they happen. Showing up at the scheduled start with my city sensibilities, I waited nearly an hour before I could find a bar ready to serve. I seemed to be the only person concerned about that. Part of the reason for the delayed setup was that the venues changed each day—Polifonic wanted to give you a mini-tour of Puglia. The second night upped the ante from two stages to three at Masseria del Turco, a grand venue overlooking the coast with a perfect view of sunrise. Sunday’s events took you to Le Palme Beach Club in Monopoli, where you could walk right up to the sea and still hear Dekmantel Soundsystem.

The festival definitely catered to locals. Punters who traveled to the event didn’t have many options in the way of central accommodation, and The Pop-Up Hotel was only convenient for the first night as it sat among the idyllic olive trees on the grounds of Masseria Eccellenza. Nor were there any convenient taxi services. Those who didn’t rent a car were stuck if they wanted to explore the area, let alone safely travel to and from the sites. Even people familiar with the area admitted that finding the venues was tricky, as Google Maps leaves a lot to be desired in such quiet parts.

The lineup featured lots of local and rising talent, letting Italians set the mood each night. Alfredo Mazzilli opened Friday with a vibey set at Masseria Eccellenza’s smaller stage, Magic Wood, leading the way for a darker ride picked up by Dona AKA DJ Plant Texture and Dino Sabatini. (Full disclosure: Resident Advisor ran the Magic Wood and Sunrise stages on Friday and Saturday respectively.) The whole venue felt intimate, like you were invited to a fancy house party by a well-off, but not flashy, local business owner. Clark Cvk, Futuro Tropicale and O.Bee set the Garden stage up for success with groovy house, perfect for the breezy summer evening. Back at Magic Wood, Z.i.p.p.o. clashed with a name you could hear muttered around the grounds all night—John Talabot—but his dynamic house tunes stuck out over Talabot’s steady and smooth selections. Gerd Janson closed out a characteristically joyous performance with a killer one-two punch, going from his remix of Krystal Klear’s “Neutron Dance” into DJ Koze’s “Pick Up.” Magic Wood continued on later than scheduled, with Freddy K and Phase Fatale giving the early morning heads higher BPMs and techno tones.

Saturday saw lots of lineup shuffling after bizarre travel delays across Europe forced a handful of DJs to cancel. Highly anticipated Main Stage names such as Elena Colombi and Carl Craig were no longer able to perform, so Kornél Kovács, Hiver and Jay Medvedeva filled in the gaps with extended sets. These felt like a blessing in disguise, as the DJs had more room to take the crowd for a ride. Judging from people’s reactions, you would have never known the night’s headliner was missing.

Upstairs at Masseria del Turco, Sunrise and Valley Terraces brought two different moods. The latter dished out pulsing techno via Samantha, while the former delivered dance tracks to make you burst with joy. Fireworks erupted over Tama Sumo’s wicked set at Sunrise (Lakuti was another casualty of the flight cancellations), which featured Sirens Of Lesbos’ “Erytrea Nèdègé (Saho)” and had the crowd primed to make it till dawn. Earlier in the night, Mike Tansella Jr. handed over the decks to Yanik Park with the Robin S classic “Show Me Love,” guaranteeing that smiles were plastered on everyone’s faces for the rest of the night. After Tama Sumo, Park stepped up again to fill the shoes—and then some—of Job Jobse, who nobly gave up the single remaining seat on the last flight out to his travel buddy Hunee. The Rush Hour star seemed to personally instigate the sunrise with the warmth of his set, confidently powering through three bright hours that climaxed with Marlena Shaw’s stunner “Touch Me In The Morning.”

By Sunday, a day at the beach was necessary. The remaining battlers earned those luxurious loungers at the chic Monopoli beach club, letting the well-suited disco and soul tunes wash over them. Mano Le Tough closed out the festival, continuing the sunny grooves as the beach club’s usual members trickled out, before diving into deeper fare for the final hours. At one point, he dropped DJ Koze’s edit of “Operator” by Låpsley, and I immediately ran away from a conversation straight to the dance floor. We should all be so lucky to get moments like that.

Read the event review on Resident Advisor.

RA Event Review: All Points East Festival 2018

Published May 31, 2018 on Resident Advisor

“Mostly what I say onstage is a reminder that we’re all gonna die,” said James Murphy during LCD Soundsystem’s headline slot on the first night of All Points East. “It’s just a fact of the mortality of life.” A lot hung heavy in the air this past weekend at Victoria Park in East London, even before the arch frontman took centerstage on the muggy Friday.

Victoria Park has been at the centre of a London festival shakeup. Last autumn, AEG Presents secured the rights to host events at the East London spot in a deal with Tower Hamlets council. This forced out London’s Field Day and Lovebox festivals, which have called the park home for at least ten years. In the midst of this, Goldenvoice, which is owned by AEG and runs Coachella, introduced All Points East. Its corporate reputation preceded it—and corporate it was. Onsite, there was almost always a brand logo in your eye-line. Brand activation booths were all over the grounds, though it was unclear what any of them involved. Samsung even managed to place an obnoxiously bright viewing booth in the perfect spot to ruin everyone’s Instagrams of the lightning storm looming over Björk’s ethereal closing set on Sunday night.

All Points East did little to promote a personality, but its bookings made a statement. The lineup, which spanned dance, hip-hop, indie and pop with an electronic thread running throughout, had a stronger gender balance than most festivals with similar lineups. Headliners LCD Soundsystem, The xx and Björk made sense next to each other on a flyer, but the mix of Lorde, Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Beck, Dixon, Justice, Sampha, Phoenix and Father John Misty felt like a jumbled, if still enticing, effort to make everyone happy. The small-typeface names proved the most interesting, including Omar-S, Popcaan, Kelela, Hunee, Call Super, Shanti Celeste, Yaeji and Mr. G.

Before LCD Soundsystem’s loving exercise in the sort of nostalgia their songs rail against, Friday night’s calm lineup helped festivalgoers get a feel for their weekend home. I could hear Yeah Yeah Yeahs’ Karen O commanding the North Stage from the security lines and regretted not leaving the office sooner. Walking into James Murphy and 2ManyDJs’ Despacio felt like stepping into a club, with an already strong crowd grooving to house and disco in the sweaty tent. Despite touring again since 2016, LCD Soundsystem’s headlining set at the East Stage still felt like a fresh family reunion. Wry as ever, they opened with “You Wanted A Hit” because they want you to know that they know; it wasn’t until five songs in that they played material off American Dream. Emotional whoppers “Someone Great” and “Home” were interspersed with new cuts “Tonite,” “How Do You Sleep,” (which they’ve only just started playing live, a real treat for us) and the Nancy Whang-highlighting Chic cover, “I Want Your Love.” The night ended with “Dance Yrself Clean” and “All My Friends” singalongs, and probably some tears.

Last-minute, unannounced lineup changes at the X Stage, the festival’s dedicated dance music stage, were a frustrating start to Saturday. Koyejo Oloko stepped in for an absent DJ Python with an atmospheric set, featuring slow jams such as Babyfather’s “Meditation.” Moxie then filled in for Call Super with a set that mirrored the growing excitement as day turned into evening. Shanti Celeste and Hunee followed with joyous disco and shaking hips. A strong presence on the North Stage, Lorde balanced letting her warm personality and deep emotion shine through with jumping bops “Supercut,” “Ribs” and “Green Light” and quiet ballad “Liability,” during which she sat on the stage’s edge while the almost-full moon looked its brightest. She shouted out Disclosure after performing their sultry revenge collab, “Magnets,” with an on-point observation: “I feel like they’d be here. Have you seen them? Say hi from me.”

Now that it was properly nighttime, The xx could take the stage. (According to Jamie xx, the band’s contract insures they only perform after dark.) Having previously seen the trio at the US venues 9:30 Club and Merriweather Post Pavilion, it was rewarding to watch them successfully grow their intimate show for the massive East Stage, boosted by the impressively clear soundsystem. They projected heat as they slinked around the stage, with glowing red graphics to match. In the middle of debut album cut “Islands,” Romy Madley Croft snuck in a cover of Madonna’s “Ray Of Light.”

Storms threatened the last day of All Points East. In the balmy afternoon at the X Stage, Mr. G danced, kicked and jumped his way through the weekend-highlight performance. Yaeji kept spirits up, before The Black Madonna gave dancers the final release they needed with crowd-pleasing house and disco edits and classics, ending on Metro Area’s “Miura.” She wore a Black Lives Matter T-shirt, which further charged the political current running through the weekend—talk of Ireland’s abortion ban and neon “Bollocks To Brexit” stickers abounded.

Finally, it was time for Björk. The sky was ready, too, as an appropriately theatrical lightning cloud inched closer. Wearing what could only be described as an extremely Björk ensemble, she greeted “precious little London” and closed out the festival with a dreamy comedown set, adorned by graphics of dying flowers and a stage full of greenery and dancing musicians. A sign-language translator stood next to the stage—another inclusive move, in addition to accessible toilets, low-height bars and a wheelchair-friendly viewing platform, to make the festival welcoming to all. At a festival that tried so hard to be Fun and Cool (it succeeded with the former, to some extent), Björk was unconcerned with playing up to the setting, letting her personality burst through. All Points East should take note.

Read the event review on RA.