- Low End Theory. Three words usually preceded by the phrase "world-renowned club night." Yet the description is misleading, for Wednesdays at The Airliner in Los Angeles have become much more than a club night for those who attend. Low End Theory is a way of life, a community, and a home to many who walk out each week past hot dogs grilling on shopping carts with fresh beats dripping out of their ears. Like the dense purple blunt smoke that permeates the balcony level, the energy and excitement in the air around Low End Theory is so thick that everyone there knows that they are taking part in something very, very special.
The only thing you can expect at Low End Theory is that you never know what to expect. What connects this long line of Wednesday nights is an open-minded ethos where experiments are welcome and freaks are lauded by an audience who grants each new player a chance to stretch his or her musical wings. This stimulating attitude is the opposite of the elitist vibe that sometimes permeates other genres of electronic music and serves to repel younger enthusiasts; at Low End, minors with the mark of the beast on their hands make up about half the crowd.
On this night, resident D-Styles played a popping set of thunderful bass crisscrossed by scratching; his turntable chops are on par with the best in the world and indeed they were as surprise guest Z-Trip jumped up on the hot stage beside him and threw some love down on the appreciative crowd. At Low End, big names are always listed as a "secret guest," otherwise The Airliner might have a riot on its hands—a bigger riot than usual, anyway. Nobody got his groove on, Daddy Kev dropped some gangster so lean it was horizontal and then I turned around and the dance floor was completely full.
Newcomer and guest resident Baths, a 21 year-old Bay area transplant, delighted the crowd with his combo plate, dense with sonic abnormalities yet soaring all the same as he live-looped his voice and submerged it into the beats, whipping things into a thrilling tornado. He really lit the frenzy of the crowd, and whether the kids were there specifically for him or perhaps just lit already, Baths is most definitely a rising star.
Lush and purposeful, Poirier's set was no meandering "sonic exploration" where the audience is asked to come along for the ride. We were swept away in sound with no questions asked. Or perhaps Poirier was exploring but just knew what the hell he was doing and where the hell he was going. It wasn't just the front-of-the-dance-floor freaks who were feeling it, but the entire club from the head-nodders in the back to the bar-hangs on the left. Complemented well by the graceful voice of MC Juakali, Poirier carried us along in his rich river of beats, teeming with big fish bass that brushed against your quivering thighs before diving away, down into the ocean of sound.
Nothing less can be used to describe the immense reverberations pumping out of the speakers, tweaked to perfection in the shadows by a silhouetted Daddy Kev, the mastermind behind Low End Theory and Alpha Pup Records. These two respected elements of the thriving LA electronic underground are key players in exporting a new era of beats inspired by asphalt dreams and sun-drenched skies from the West Coast to the world.