Live: Portland’s Music Fest Northwest

As much as going from Beirut to Danny Brown felt shocking, going from Danny Brown to Mirrorring, the collaborative project between Grouper and Tiny Vipers, was even more out there. The duo played in an old church, using the natural acoustics of the room to emphasize even the smallest sounds. On record, Mirrorring sounds fully collaborative, with Grouper’s ambient song sketches pushing against Tiny Vipers’ more concrete, powerful vocal performances. At this show, though, it was about emphasizing what each artist does so well individually, and then letting those things butt up against each other in a way that emphasized ambient drifts and both their considerable vocal abilities.

And then, of course, there’s A-Trak. You know how sometimes you know a dude, and whenever that dude shows up, you get all excited because he’s always the one that makes everyone have a great time by sheer force of will? A-Trak is like that, except he’s more just a really excellent DJ, who knows exactly how to get people freaking out before he’s even 10 minutes into his set—at which point, it was all shirts off, a mass of people bouncing in tandem. Sometimes it feels like he’s created an entire subgenre of dance music, specifically so he can get people to freak out as quickly as possible.

To further emphasize the weirdness that is any music festival, I immediately went from A-Trak to the much more somber Chelsea Wolfe, who has an effortless, somewhat terrifying, ability to dominate the stage. she was constantly cradling her face in her hands, her hair hanging limply over her face, while her band whipped and whirled around her. Like Tanlines and Danny Brown, it felt like Wolfe was on the verge of something a little bigger. Like the stage maybe couldn’t quite contain her.

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POSTED September 10, 2012 2:15PM IN MUSIC NEWS TAGS: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

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