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Attending live electronic music performances is a dicey proposition even if the beats are hitting. There’s only so much fun to be had watching someone poke at a laptop or audio controller if they aren’t bringing something else to their folding table. Credit the performers at Holocene this past Sunday night for doing their level best to keep things interesting on both a visual and musical level. For headliner Crystal Quartez, it helped that their new album, Erospace, slipped past the chill-out room that housed their previous work and moved right onto the dance floor. The eight songs on the LP are as smooth and sexy as the revealing red Lycra top they were wearing this past weekend, with low-slung avant-pop beats sprayed down with color and drone. Quartez kept physical pace with their constant movement, all rolling hips and body rocking.
Bringing some eye-catching delights to the stage is nothing new for opener Dim Wit. Led by Jeff Tuyay, the electro-pop project has already earned a reputation for its homespun costumes and stage props. Nowadays, they’ve added a green screen and a performer in a morphsuit into the mix, adding even more hilariously janky effects. The audience got to see both process and finished project as, on the screen above the crowd, Tuyay fended off small UFOs and hot dogs, while onstage their creative partner swung around the cardboard props.
As for Amenta Abioto’s loop-based electronic project Yawa, all she needed was her 1,000-watt smile to light up the room and to draw the audience into her orbit. The short, lumbering pieces she drew out of her small bank of audio equipment and the fearless joy she brought to Holocene were a needed contrast to the doom of the news cycle and the gray, cold of the outdoors.