- Two artists known for their subtlety bang it out.
- The Public Works loft was festooned with black paper cobwebs, which only added to the feeling of being lost in some spidery and forgotten corner of the San Francisco club. Compared to the main room, the loft is awfully claustrophobic, and it's a straight path from the smoking area (wet, rainy, not terribly pleasant) up a flight of stairs to the dance floor. Despite ample seating room and a wooden playhouse possibly imported from a rich kid's birthday party, there's not much to do in the space but dance.
Not that anyone wanted to do otherwise. The San Francisco collective Brouhaha likes to coax sledgehammer sets out of dance music's more sensitive souls. Though Huerco S. and DJ Python straddle the hazier corners of club music on record, their performances last Friday were low on subtlety. Python, who's known for a crisp fusion of reggaeton and deep house, blared dembow hits (the audience knew the words to a lot of the songs—I didn't), before Huerco S. shifted the palate towards eccentric yet largely ergonomic house. Most of the time, they played back-to-back.
A pleasant surprise was the local DJ Topazu, who I'd last seen in November warming up for Gas at his first-ever San Francisco show. Sporting a severe haircut, she played terse and unsentimental techno, which helped bridge the gap between Camdaze and Nonsuit's woozy chord-porn and the peak of the party.
The last Brouhaha event I went to, with Project Pablo and Pender Street Steppers, took place in Public Works' main room, which was off limits last week because of a Stranger Things-themed '80s night. Every time you left the loft, it sounded like you were in the world's loudest dentist's office, so forcefully did songs like Sade's "Smooth Operator" and Bon Jovi's "Livin' On A Prayer" boom from behind the thick wooden door separating the two worlds. At one point, in what must have been a playful nod to the nostalgia in the air, Huerco S. and Python let a few bars of "Sweet Dreams (Are Made Of This)" by Eurythmics creep into their set, smiling as they did so.
Photo credit / Daniel Bromfield