Although the three tents and main stage of Electric Zoo are mere marshmallows in the distance, the bass cuts through the air as if it’s right beside us.
“Holy shit do you hear that?"
No, but I do hear a death rattle if that’s what you mean.
Already, it is more than apparent that the two-year-old New York electronic music festival based on Randall’s Island is a force to be reckoned with.
Electronic may be the most terrifying conglomerate of sound ever unleashed. It’s also paradoxically simple and multilayered. Thanks to technology that I will never understand, electronic artists have the power to cut, splice, combine and dice nearly every recorded sound into an entirely new one.
Flying Lotus, an artist who played an incredibly diverse and well-executed set during day one at E Zoo, bases one track from his most recent jazz/hip-hop influenced album Cosmogramma off of the sounds from a ping pong ball.
Diplo and Switch’s Major Lazer, who also performed on day one, released Lazerproof this past summer, a club hall doused, yet quietly ethereal smash up of their work and La Roux’s.
Ten minutes into Erol Alkan’s set, the first one I visited on day one, it became clear that this paradox was running full throttle at E Zoo. Playing off the vibes of the audience, Alkan approached the build up and drops in his tracks, accessible for both new and experienced listeners, with musical prowess, an approach which day two performer DJ Mehdi miffed up when he failed to deliver any memorable drops.
Overall, most performers presented equally powerful, yet refined sets, with a few exceptions, such as Diplo -- who seemed naked without his Major Lazer set and far too dependent on commercial club hits -- and the long haired, eclectic artist Bassnectar.
Yes, you read correctly, I did not enjoy Bassnectar.
Most of Bassnectar’s fans rave about his mind-blowing, even life-changing, sets, yet the deejay work, which I have seen twice so far, is rather uniform (bass, bass, and more bass) compared to the diversity alive in Boys Noize, Flying Lotus, or Erol Alkan. At the end of the night, it is not Bassnectar who was life changing, although his album work is remarkable, it was his fans, all of whom were more akin to heavy metal enthusiasts.
It is this passion that is the driving force at E Zoo. Unafraid to dance their asses off, those twenty-five thousand electronic music junkies embraced the death rattle and turned it into a heartbeat.
