KID606 with DJ /RUPTURE at Lee’s Palace, August 18. $12. Attendance: 300 Rating: NNN Rating: NNNNN
Technically, dj /rupture was pretty good doing his three-turntable thing at Lee’s last Monday, but his excursions into world beat mixed with hiphop breaks toward the end of his set just didn’t sound like what a cutting-edge underground artist should be doing in the year 2003. Despite riding some mixes for an impressively long time, he wasn’t much to watch up there on the stage, even if it was his birthday. No wonder he accurately predicted in an interview last week that the crowd of indie kids at his gig would mainly stand around and sway back and forth a bit.
Kid606 , on the other hand, has mastered a method of turning the laptop performance into something visual and physical. You can watch his hands move and hear a corresponding sound. Bobbing and bouncing behind twin Macs, he’s got great presence as a performer, something that’s rare in electronic performances.
But there’s way too much early-to-mid-90s rave debris in his sound to convince me he’s actually on the cutting edge of contemporary electronic music.
Maybe the overt references to old hardcore and jungle are meant to remind us how experimental those forms were and to salvage their reputations after years of mocking by music store nerds.
He’s got a point there, but he’s often credited with way more. When there’s so little difference between these and the crystal-meth-inspired breakneck breakbeats of the rave heyday, you have to wonder whether this might be a case where indie kids think they’re too cool to go to actual raves and therefore don’t see how much this material is derived from decade-old hardcore techno.
Still a pretty good show of indie electronica, but not nearly as mind-blowing as the hype would lead you to believe.
benjaminb@nowtoronto.com
