I went to this show at the Recombinant Media Labs Compound last night.
I’d been to a show at the RML before, but at their old location in Hunter’s Point. I’ll start off by saying that their new location is in a thankfully less scary area of SF, in the SOMA near 7th street.
I arrived 10 minutes early, and the show didn’t actually start till around 10, which was kind of annoying. I guess the first hour was for the benefit of their regular crowd, who consisted mostly of grey/black-wearing trendy-young-professional types, mixed with a healthy dose of tattooed, dreadlocked alternative-y folks. The first group is the kind you’d expect to see in a modern art museum doing a lot of chin-stroking in front of Rothko paintings. They all seemed to know one another.
Once 10 PM rolled around they lead us into the studio, which is the room pictured on their homepage. It’s an amazing space, you’re completely surrounded by speakers and a seamless wall of screens for their “surround cinema”-related stuff.
After everyone was inside, we were treated to three experimental videos which utilized the surround cinema effect. A guy who introduced himself as “Not Human” forewarned us that the first two videos were at normal volume but the third was “fucking loud” and that we were advised to utilize our earplugs. The videos were set to two Biosphere tracks, and the third was a recording (I think?) of one of the tracks Ryoichi Kurakawa played there a couple of weeks ago, and was as loud as advertised.
An aside on the loudness of their system - on the way into the studio they have a machine that dispenses earplugs, and warnings that the sound level inside exceeds 120 dB regularly. That pretty much sums it up.
After the third video and a short break, Deadbeat stepped up to a laptop plastered with an “I <3 Dub” sticker and began to play. I’ve heard people say that Deadbeat’s albums are kind of a pale reflection of his live performance, and after finally seeing him perform solo I can see where they’re coming from. It was interesting seeing him play very loudly, as his dub basslines are groovy enough to encourage dancing, yet his music isn’t quite uptempo enough to allow one’s self to actually dance continuously. Thus everyone was very vigorously head-nodding or swaying for most of his show. He ended with a DNB-esque remix of Saul Willliams - Black Stacey, which was awesome.
I didn’t know what to expect from Richard Devine, as all I previously knew was that he produced abrasive IDM. It’s kind of hard to put a description of his set into words, but I’ll try. Essentially, Richard Devine is a complete psycho, a rockstar, and his music is the electronic music equivalent of death metal. I’m almost surprised people didn’t start moshing during his set, it was that percussive. People (including Devine) were seriously throwing the devil-horns hand sign during pauses in the harsh beats. On that note, Devine was incredibly fun to watch, as he grimaces and winces like he’s struggling to defecate pieces of solid iron. After the show was over I seriously felt like I’d been beaten; the sound was so loud you could literally feel the waves of compressed air from the subwoofers travelling over your skin. Amazingly enough, the earplugs did their job and my hearing was pristine once I removed them.
Oh, and I got to watch Deadbeat rock out during the Devine set. He was jumping around with the enthusiasm of a little kid, it was great.
All in all, an amazing show. I’ll definitely be attending more events here.
