- Rarely are electronic music events staged in venues with assigned seating and galleries, yet somehow this arrangement felt fitting for the second night of the Barbican's Transcender programming, which featured Nicolas Jaar and Evian Christ. Neither artist identifies with a single electronic genre—both explore soundscapes very much on the periphery of club music.
This was reflected in the night's clientele: snapbacks and trainers not entirely abandoned, though still outnumbered by a decidedly more mature and arty appearance than you'd find in the queues outside most London clubs. Which isn't to say an urban edge was absent from the night. Evian Christ's opening set was met with the loudest cheers when southern rap verses and fast-paced industrial rhythms were re-appropriated to explosive effect. The Joshua Light Show—now more than four decades into its dazzling display of manual manipulation of colour and light—proved a crowd-pleasing accompaniment as anticipation for the night's headliner reached its peak.
Jaar took the stage to a very palpable sense of energy in the crowd. Much as his records deny the listener a thumping 4/4 beat, his performance was a fluid journey through straying rhythms and melodies rather than a series of transitions from one track to the next. Loops would creep in for several minutes before fading out, then would reappear minutes later alongside strings and tinkles of piano. Backstage, the Joshua Light Show sent blooms of colourful oils furling upwards, while a kaleidoscopic lens widened and contracted to truly hypnotic effect.
Despite the thoughtful and adventurous nature of the event, it seemed the crowd were left hungry for more. Jaar's Darkside partner Dave Harrington eventually came to add riffs on his guitar, but it was only when a bonafide dance floor beat dropped that the audience really voiced their enthusiasm. Nonetheless, if any expectations weren't met, perhaps that's what the Transcender programme was challenging: the existence of a singular expectation in electronic music performance at all.
Photo credit: Marc Sethi