DJ /Rupture with Kid606 and Dwayne Sodahberk at Lee’s Palace (529 Bloor West), Monday (August 18). 9 pm. $12 door. 416-532-1598. Rating: NNNNN
The main attraction of the Paws Across America tour – a showcase of emerging talent connected with Oakland’s experimental electronic indie powerhouse Tigerbeat6 – is the mind-melting mix-mash of label boss Miguel “Kid606” Depedro. But it’s the overwhelming sonic assault of Madrid-based triple-turntable threat DJ /rupture, aka Jace Clayton, that’s turning heads and slackening jaws. The Massachusetts-bred Clayton, an ex-Harvard student, was schooled in the use of the Technics SL-1200s as a weapon of mass disruption while a fringe player on New York’s much- hyped Illbient scene, but only came to notoriety last year largely due to his boundary-busting Gold Teeth Thief mix.
The characteristically dense and chaotic blender-style DJ /rupture booty bump not only earned a surprising four-star rave in the conservative R&B-obsessed Vibe magazine, it also hit big with the glitch geeks and made Wire magazine’s 50 Best Albums of 2002 list – even though it was only available as a download on Clayton’s own Web site, www.negrophonic.com, and sound-file swapping. So far, there have been about 30,000 downloads.
For Clayton, currently on his first cross-continent tour of North America, it’s a gratifying testament to the Internet’s growing prominence as a source of adventurous new music that the first few recognizable seconds of a po-mo party jam from Gold Teeth Thief can get a crowd of bored IDM nerds in Denton, Texas, waving their iPods in the air like they just don’t care.
“It’s kinda funny to hear people letting out a big WHOOOOO! when they hear something they know from Gold Teeth Thief or my Minesweeper disc,” chuckles Clayton over a cellphone on the road to Houston.
“So far the audiences have been an interesting cross-section of people from indie rock kids to IDM types, along with hiphop DJs and beatheadz, too. But they tend to modestly wiggle and sway over here rather than dance and go crazy like crowds do in Europe.”
Since moving to Spain, Clayton has been getting away from sample-based music and exploring the possibilities of collaborating with musicians from other cultures.
If everything works according to plan, his forthcoming Tigerbeat6 disc, Special Gunpowder, may make it to the world music section of your favourite store.
“Lately I’ve been working with a number of different people in Barcelona – an accordion player and various musicians playing violin, cello, oud, gimbri and other Arabic instruments. In fact, half the tracks on my new album will involve vocalists in a variety of styles.
“I really enjoy having conversations and exchanging ideas in a truly collaborative sense – rather than merely extracting sounds through sampling.”
timp@nowtoronto.com
