Brainfeeder London part 2, June 2009

Airhorn. It’s sometime around midnight on a warm June Saturday night in a carpark near Liverpool St in London’s east end. This carpark has been taken over for the night by the Brainfeeder label/collective (headed by Flying Lotus) and Warp records for the second edition of Brainfeeder in London. Kode 9 is on the stage, located at the back of the carpark’s main ‘area,’ which acts as the dancefloor for the night, honking a yellow plastic airhorn while setting up for his live show as Gaslamp Killer finishes his set.

Rewind a couple of hours. I reached the venue, Hearn St carpark, around 10pm thinking that pacing may well be key to surviving Brainfeeder’s second London party, following their debut in the capital in June 2008. With an impressive lineup of modern beat/hip hop/electronica/dubstep/good music luminaries and an advertised ending time of 5am, I thought pacing might well come in handy later on in the night. And it did.

One of L.A’s long-standing pioneers of the beat scene and one of its best kept secrets, Take (who is in the process of renaming himself Sweatson Klank – you try and google any info about an artist named Take and see how long it takes you to sift through the irrelevant results), was getting into the full swing of his live set as I stepped in. Having seen his live show a week before at the Gramaphone, where it didn’t quite get the reaction or have the setting many of us felt it deserved, it was a pleasure being able to see it once more this time in a setting much more conducive to its full impact – the crowd was amassing in the carpark and the walls of speakers were pumping out Take’s beats, as he twisted and turned them from his laptop.

Brainfeeder is a label and collective set up by Flying Lotus sometime in early 08, though the name was already floating around before that and the first time I heard it was in the summer of 2007 when Flying Lotus and other L.A beatsmiths did a 4h Brainfeeder Radio broadcast via the excellent Dublab radio station. Brainfeeder’s, the label, artists include Flying Lotus alongside many of his L.A and U.S peers and newcomers, such as Samiyam, The Gaslamp Killer, Ras G, Lorn, Mono/Poly and Teebs. Brainfeeder, the party, which if I’m not wrong was first held in London in June 08, has gained a reputation as one of the best around in the last year, using Flying Lotus’ increasing popularity to put together the kind of forward thinking line ups most fanboys and discerning music fans crave for and which also serve as the perfect introductory point for lesser aware fans and passer-bys to discover a new world of modern musical possibilities. In the last year Brainfeeder has hosted parties in London, San Fran, L.A, New York and Barcelona.

The second edition of Brainfeeder London brought back a selection of the label’s own artists and friends, Flying Lotus, Samiyam, The Gaslamp Killer and Take, alongside some of their European friends, namely Bibio, Kode 9 and Spaceape, Dorian Concept, Joker and Benji B. As I said the kind of line up that ticks all the right boxes of any knowledgeable fan and is sure to open the eyes and tickle the minds of those who may not be too familiar with the music.

Following from Take’s set, another two Brainfeeder artists stepped up. First was Samiyam, who dropped what I’m assuming is what has been referred to as his ‘West Coast hip hop set’ online. 45 or so minutes of his own beats, old and new, with their deliriously loose and fun drum patterns and at times squelchy synth lines, combined with hip hop club bangers and older gems from the West Coast’s rich hip hop history. The result was a carpark full of people happily dancing and swerving, and getting fuller by the minute too.

Following him was The Gaslamp Killer, a man known for his eclectic tastes and equally eclectic DJ sets. He lived up to his fame, punctuating short bursts of some of the most ‘what the fuck’ indulging dubstep drops currently doing the rounds with funk and psych rock gems. Watching the crowd’s reaction as he switched from one to the other was nearly as entertaining as the set itself. Two things I remarked during and after his set: the first one is that in many ways GLK is like a wilder, longer-haired Z-Trip. He talks to the crowd (something European DJs pretty much never do) and he generally quickly switches between genres and styles, creating mixes that are like giant collections of peak moments, of all those ‘whoa’ moments in songs we all know, two things Z-Trip used to do (I haven’t seen/heard him in ages, so maybe the comparison isn’t valid anymore, regardless it’s tongue in cheek, so don’t get on your high horses in the comments please). The second thing his set made me realise is that while I don’t really have much time/preference for the more in your face, lowest common denominator dubstep that’s around these days, the way he plays it, going from drop to drop, focusing on those peak, ‘what the fuck’ moments this strain of dubstep excels at, is perfect and makes it a lot more bearable and enjoyable.

Airhorn. Enter Kode 9 and Spaceape with a rare London live show. As the show starts, with Kode 9 feeding what sounded like frequency tests through the system’s speaker stacks, it occurs to me that I’ve never seen the two of them ‘live’. It’s always been DJ sets and while I’d never seen them do a live show it felt like I already knew a lot about it, having spoken to Kode about it when he was over in Japan in the summer of 07 (when he showed me how he was using Ableton to play with loops of all the different elements that make up his tracks) and heard recordings of previous ones (including the excellent Mutek performance, which you can download here). Unfortunately their show ended up plagued by one major technical ‘fault’ – Spaceape’s mic was barely audible, essentially removing/muting half of the live show’s content. I thought it might have been because we were towards the back (I’d forgot my earplugs and there’s no way I was paying the price of standing at the front for the whole night) but speaking with them after it turns out it was like that for everyone pretty much. It’s one thing not having the mic properly leveled at the start of the show, but for a whole 45 minutes? Shame really.

Despite the technical itch, Kode and Spaceape (more dancing than singing) delivered one of the highlights of the night for me. As per their own admissions it’s a ‘risky show’, and despite the mic issues and unconventional venue I still feel that they pulled it off brilliantly. Layers upon layers of drums, bass, synths and melodies looped together, switched, changed, faded, brought back… Kode 9 controlled the music in a way I’ve rarely seen in a live electronic music show, sitting comfortably somewhere between the more traditional electronic live shows and the very basic, loop based fundations of hip hop shows. While there were a fair few high points in the set, most of which are slightly blurred in my memory at this point, the one for me is their use of a loop from GZA’s ‘4th Chamber’, the first bar of the synth line that comes in after the intro. A simple loop that in many ways serves to link the Wu’s ahead-of-its-time, gritty productions with the current beat scene and alternative movements in hip hop and dubstep perfectly. As their set ended, with Kode once more feeding those frequency tests through the system, the crowd erupted into cheer and applause, which I thought was strange considering the seemingly subdued reaction of people during the set, even at its most upbeat, funky moments.

Flying Lotus was next. The man of the moment as it were, the reception at the start of his set was as loud and impressive as when I saw him play the Ligthbox in London a couple of months earlier. What followed was an hour or so along the same lines of what I’d witnessed earlier in the year. I’m not going to lie, I spent most of his set at the bar next to the stage, and whenever I paid attention I heard elements from the recent set as well as some new bits, including a well-placed mix of Snoop’s ‘What’s My Name’ into his own remix of Mr. Oizo’s ‘Stunt’ (see this video for footage of that particular bit). The best bit of Fly Lo’s set this time for me was a seemingly impromptu freestyle jam with himself on the drums, Dorian Concept on the synths, Gaslamp Killer cutting and Alex Bonfanti on bass. Again see the video below, I did a double take when I first heard it from the bar as I wasn’t sure if Dorian’s set had started or not, and watching the video a few days later not only clarified what my tired/alcohol tainted brain was trying to make sense of but also made me realise just quite how good that segment was (it wasn’t just the alcohol speaking then).

Following Flying Lotus was Dorian Concept, a blond Austrian wunderkid that pretty much stole the show. Dorian likes synths (see this interview and exhaustive video list for proof), and he likes to think outside of the production box too, making the kind of hip hop that you could lazily tag wonky but which really is the perfect examplification of someone taking some of the influences that have shaped the beat scene over the last ten years (from Dilla’s drum programming to insane mid-range, at times ravey synth melodies) and making them his own, creating something out of them that is entirely its own thing. Over the space of 45 or so minutes, Dorian very nearly brought the roof down on Hearn St carpark, hyping the crowd into a frenzy and showing that not only does he have an ear for unusual yet attractive melodies and rhythms but that he can also take his music from the studio and onto the stage like few others can. This was no nerd, chin-stroking fest, despite the high proportion of males in attendance.

By the time Dorian had finished making everyone sweat and go slightly mental, Bristol’s young prodigy and purveyor of purple funk Joker took to the decks. It was about 3 am at this point, and considering what had come before him it was going to take a good DJ/producer to carry on the show as it were. And that’s where Joker showed that despite his young age he has the seeming ‘musical’ wisdom of someone much older, something even established names in certain dance music scenes can lack.

Over the next hour or so Joker played a devastating set composed mainly of his own productions (with a few choice exceptions from the likes of Mala and others) and ranging from dubstep to grime, and from hip hop to his own purple wow flavours. Not only did he show talent in how he controlled the crowd over the duration of his set, but also in his flawless mixing and selection, taking people on a little ride, increasing and dampening the energy levels and never losing them. Talking about DJ sets is always a bit strange for me, but if I had to pick out some highlights they’d definitely include a new hip hop track called ‘Tron’ or ‘Planet Tron,’ the kind of production that could easily become a new template for hip hop club bangers (or as Ninja Tune put it in the press release of his new remix ‘what Timberlake might sound like if he smoked skunk in St Pauls’), a track that by his own admission he’d finished ‘12 hours ago’ and a remix for a female vocalist that once more showed a potential for crowd pleasing and cross-over success while staying firmly grounded in the sounds and elements that have made him ‘famous’ so far.

Airhorn. By that point it’s past 4am, Benji B has taken over from Joker, playing a deep selection of hip hop, beats, dubstep, electro and more as the crowd continues to exit the carpark, now bathed in early morning light through the glass panes on its roof, while the rest get closer and closer to the speakers. Kode 9 keeps popping up on stage honking his plastic yellow airhorn as Benji drops classics. As confident as those before him, Benji shows his experience guiding the crowd to the end of a long and highly memorable night.

I can’t quite remember the last time I stayed out till 6am, but if there was ever a worthy combo-breaker than Brainfeeder London 09 was it. Not only did it show just how vibrant, and vital, the current adjacent movements in hip hop, dubstep and other electronic genres are right now, it also proved that you can pack a ‘venue’ and make people dance (even girls!) with music that too often results in sausagefest-like small events.

Without taking anything away from any of the artists on the night, one thing did occur to me – the Europeans (Kode, Spaceape, Dorian, Joker and Benji) stole the show that night. Having missed the first Brainfeeder showcase in 08, which featured another stellar line up of U.S and U.K producers, I don’t know if the Americans were the show stealers last year or not, but one thing was for sure this year: the Europeans showed that the music being made on these shores, whether it be beats or electronic/dance music, is as exiting as it’s American counterpart.

Despite the increase in popularity and attention surrounding Flying Lotus and the whole beats/electronic hip hop movement in the last year, Brainfeeder London 09 proved that there is a lot of substance to the hype. Brains were fed and bodies moved, and that’s ultimately what it boils down to.

Check this Flickr set for photos of the event. And also check the Brainfeeder site for videos and plenty of mixes from the artists and affiliates. Flying Lotus’ last Los Angeles EP, 3×3, is out now on Warp Records featuring remixes from Take, Dimlite, Matthew David and Breakage.