- Wolf and Lamb have seemingly come to a point where they can do no wrong. After making the jump to vinyl in late 2008 for their releases, the accolades have rolled in, and their all-night affairs at their home/musical laboratory The Marcy Hotel have become the stuff of legend.
Leaving their homebase for another space in Brooklyn on this evening, within seconds of arriving at the SLAM Warehouse, it was easy to see why the label had chosen to move out for a night. Aside from being situated close to The Marcy Hotel in Williamsburg, the venue had an off-the-wall quality. Upon entering the large main room, No Regular Play's live set was well underway and there was a full stage of performance art in progress as well. The makeshift stage was raised directly behind the decks, as if to directly link the music to the performance. The crowd was made up of extractions of various scenes: from the hipster contingent to the art student sect to the techno faithful.
Photo credit: Viktor Shekularatz
Wolf and Lamb's cofounder, Gadi Mizrahi, took over deck duty for the last act of the performance art, playing a short but complementary mix of subdued techno. The onstage performers uniformly acted out the parts of being possessed of mind and body perfectly, simulating reoccurring patterns of restless sleep and dreamlike sequences in whimsical fashion.
By the time Nicolas Jaar's live set was ready to begin, the onstage performance was coming to a close. The attention then turned solely to the music, as Jaar went into his idiosyncratic live set, filled with intermittent bursts of percussion and strangely intriguing rhythms. His set came to a close with his slow-core deep house anthem, "Time for Us." The track's unconventional sharp 75 BPM downturn subtly aroused the crowd. Soul Clap took over around 3 AM and immediately took the energy up a notch. The duo broke into to their patented soul-infused brand of techno, peaking with the Fever Mix of Plant Soul's "Set Me Free."
Despite the relatively normal ending to the night, it was different than most any other event I've been to recently. The interplay between performance art, the Wolf + Lamb sound and the crowd created a thoroughly original night. The promoter/producer told me he wanted to bring the world of theater and music together for a night. That much was obvious. That both the theater and music were strong enough to hold up on their own was the big surprise. I should have expected as much from Wolf + Lamb.