concert: prefuse 73

On Wednesday night I took a break from school to see one my favorite electronic musicians: Atlanta's Scott Herren, aka Warp records recording artist prefuse 73. We sauntered into Bimbo's 365 a bit late, so missed the first act - Beans from the Anti-Pop Consortium. What we did catch, however, was an amazing set by Four Tet. The beats, grooves, and melodies he threw down were awesome, and at many points mesmerizing... I'd come-to after a minute or so, realizing I had completely spaced out on the music, losing my sense of place (and I was dead sober, I swear). Four Tet would then glitch out, turning all the knobs higher and higher until the music transmogrified into pure cacaphony. The glitchy madness would then cut out, and you'd feel your self synesthetically plummet, until at the last moment the near-forgotten beats and melodies of 3 minutes ago would swoop back in, catching you at the last second and setting you back down on the dance floor to resume your groove. Great stuff. I have got to go pick up some of his albums.

Then Senor 73 took the stage, but he didn't come alone. In addition to a back-up DJ spinning, there was a drummer on stage. The drummer was pretty awesome, keeping up with prefuse's constant changes and really enriching the percussion (the double effect of both live and synthesized beats was great). The songs played mostly came from prefuse's latest installment, the sublime one word extinguisher (though also check out the nearly-as-wonderful vocal studies + uprock narratives and the all too short '92 vs. '02 collection EP). The set ranged from rocking to revelatory, and was over much too soon. For the encore, Beans came out and "jammed" with Mr. Herren for a nice little number that would have made a great little lulla-good-bye. Would have, I say, because I was still pumped up for more.