- Looking back on 2006 it is easy to see it has has been a standout year for Troy Pierce. The Run Stop Restore member has gone from strength to strength, honing his minimal sound on releases for M_nus and on his impressive debut album under his Louderbach alias. He has been in hot demand as a remixer, producing a string of stellar remixes for The Knife, Donnacha Costello, and Lawrence. He has also toured constantly, his DJ sets earning considerable praise, with his contribution to RA’s podcast series in particular becoming semi-legendary. At the relatively new Colors Studio club in Tokyo, an eager crowd recently had the chance to check out Pierce’s DJing skills firsthand.
Following in the footsteps of Richie Hawtin and the M_nus crew, Pierce’s DJ set blurred the line between DJing and producing. Armed with Final Scratch and a laptop, Pierce layered elements of tracks atop each other, creating a seamless mélange that made techno trainspotting difficult; a touch of Sleeparchive here, a hint of Magda there, all of it coming together to create something “new”. The sound itself was dominated by Pierce’s personal take on the M_nus minimal aesthetic; dark and woozy, filled with pinging ping-pong balls that seemed to bounce around the club, and grounded by basslines that contained a surprising amount of groove.
Colors Studio, fast becoming a place to keep an eye on in Tokyo’s techno scene, provided the perfect ambience for Pierce’s set, keeping the dancefloor so dark that seeing your own hand in front of your face was difficult. Combined with Pierce’s echoing grooves, time and space seemed to collapse in on themselves, leaving seconds to stretch forever and hours telescoping down into minutes.
Pierce built his set in a fashion similar to his Run Stop Restore partner Magda, refusing to structure his set around a peak. While many sets build gradually towards a single glorious climax, Pierce’s set was a series of teases; tiny bursts of energy and groove that kept the dancefloor moving, yet also kept people on the dancefloor, hungry for more. Some may have been dissatisfied that a rushing climax never came, but the crowd’s reaction was overwhelming positive, appreciative of a set that subtly teased and enticed instead of launching an all-out attack on the pleasure centers.
Special thanks to Satoshi Endo and M_nus.