Years before rock superstars began incorporating electronic dance rhythms into their songs and large entertainment corporations started forging alliances with grass-roots techno labels, a network of artists, DJs, promoters and fans nurtured a thriving underground scene at clubs and warehouse raves.
Now, with everybody from David Bowie to Entertainment Weekly embracing it as the next big thing in popular music, electronica–an umbrella term for various types of digitally produced dance music–faces a twin challenge. Can it fit into the mainstream, and can it do so without being compromised by conventions of mass-appeal music?
As ambient techno veterans the Orb and current hot property The Chemical Brothers tweaked knobs late Saturday night before a full house at the Aragon Ballroom–an unusually large crowd for electronica, at least in the U.S., it was clear that the former task will be easier than the latter.
Although the Orb demonstrated that its complex, intriguing collage of sounds and visuals is compatible with big American concert halls, The Chemical Brothers’ simplistic, rock-flavored presentation proved more effective at moving a large crowd.
Granted, the dreamlike music created over the years by Orb leader Alex Paterson and a varying crew of co-conspirators isn’t meant to prompt high-energy exertions. From dub–the slow-motion, echo-heavy reggae offshoot–Paterson takes bass lines so low and loud they make your pants legs vibrate. Above them, he lays skittering, sharply punctuated drum beats and syncopated electronic melodies.
Working inside a triangular booth that appeared to have been wrapped by Christo, Paterson and two accomplices varied and interrupted patterns, added vocal samples and sound effects, and threw in dashes of Paterson’s cheeky British humor. As a breathtaking montage of video images appeared on the fabric stretched around, behind and above them, softly colored lights swept the crowd. The Orb coupled a serenely beautiful mood with an insistent rhythmic undertow.
By comparison, The Chemical Brothers–in truth, the unrelated British duo of Tom Rowlands and Ed Simons–set out to jar the audience into activity, and succeeded. The duo mixed accelerated, over-amplified rap break-beats, muddy bass throbs and video-game noises, with Rowlands repeatedly using oscillator effects to add tremors of sound.
The Chemical Brothers created electronica that approached the bombast of arena rock. With little variation between or within songs, however, The Chemical Brothers’ grooves quickly grew tiresome.
