ChinaShop

It’s eleven o’clock on a Saturday night in Detroit — do you know where your average hip hop-soaked, electro-lightning struck music fan is? Probably a cool 1,500 people deep in an eclectic crowd of Detroiters and international globetrotters, nodding their heads and moving their bodies to the intense bass-and-beat, multidimensional punch of the Glitch Mob on the Red Bull Music Academy stage at Movement ’09. From forcefully slapping recognizable, mainstream rap hooks across the face with various effects and hovering them above some of the crunchiest bass lines we’ve ever heard to the trio of electronic wonder boys working the crowd like seasoned rock stars, the Glitch Mob closed the Red Bull Music Academy Stage with not only laid back flare, but with flawless form and function to match. We managed to chase down the West Coast digital maestros — EdIT, Boreta and Ooah (missing in action — “hired gun” Kraddy) fresh after their atomic set; Ooah proudly marching over to the couch with a fifth of Jameson’s in hand and Z-Trip sitting off to the side, listening in. Oh, what a night…

“That was fucking amazing,” declares Boreta, a bit of post-show enthusiasm still alive and well. “There is something about Detroit that people here already get about electronic music, and there’s a thread that already weaves through everything. We don’t have to convince people that it’s already good.”

“[Playing the] Detroit Electronic Music Festival is a milestone for any artist — just like playing Coachella or any other big festival,” says EdIT, adding that their closing set marked their first ever performance in Detroit. First performance or not, the crowd was rabid. Dozens of candy-colored patrons took the very top of the massive concrete pyramid to the point where the security guards just gave up; one even deciding to loosen up and dance a bit (if you call that dancing). But it wasn’t only the throbbing intensity of Glitch Mob’s set that tore the audience into the pieces, but the band’s choice to turn and lean their laptops and other musical machinery to the audience — eliminating the illusion of live computer wizardry and further bridging the gap between audience member and performer. “We’re embracing the fact that computers are the greatest instruments in this day and age,” says Ooah. Adds Boreta, “We’re almost reverse engineering the whole thing. There isn’t a way that someone has laid out to play a computer, so we have to make it up as we go along. It’s a fun challenge. At the base of it, we’re just big geeks.” Are we talking Star Wars or Star Trek here, gentlemen? “Definitely more Star Wars,” laughs Boreta.

Words by Ryan Patrick Hooper, Photos by Joe Gall

 

4.67 (3 votes)

 Loading ...