A Word About Electronik Warfare (by Defensive Listening)

The Electronik Warfare show at House of Tinnitus the week before last completely exceeded my expectations. When I first heard about the group, I pictured the sometimes awkward on-stage marriage of a laptop and a vocalist, which is something that always seems difficult to successfully pull off in a live setting due to the typically numerous technical difficulties that tend to plague overly ambitious electronic shows. Needless to say, my expectations weren't extraordinarily high based on past experiences with such groups, even though I was intrigued by the musicians involved in the project. But instead of having to sit through an onslaught of awkward technical delays and misguided technique, Elektronic Warfare's set ended up being one of the best electronic performances I've seen in sometime.

Andrew Michael of Oveo started things off hunched over a mini-Korg playing a Handel piece that was completely warped by the synthetic strains of the faux symphonic setting. Michael's demeanor on stage appeared immediately to be the opposite of his low-key presence in Oveo, complete with sunglasses-at-night and audience interaction. As the Handel piece segued into the white-noise tinges of "The Requiem," Michael wandered into the audience passing out flowers to various female audience members. That sort of behavior usually screams dickery but Michael was just charming enough to not come off as an annoyance. This went on for some time until the stirring dramatics were completely interrupted by something else entirely. As I stood tip-toed to try to catch everything that was happening up front, I was pushed really hard from behind, and as I turned around to shoot a scowl at the offending party, I caught the dust of Lars Larsen storming to front of the room. And I mean storming, too, because he looked like a storm trooper with a massive motorcycle helmet, black gloves and a bull horn. Andrew Michael went into the first vocal track shortly after Lars' arrival, and when the Korg drum machine beat finally kicked in, the place went fucking crazy. The keyboard parts had the menacing groove of some of Tuxedomoon's darker moments without sounding overly cold, and the crowd's enthusiastic response to such unusual sounds was quite easy to get swept up in.

One of the most impressive parts of the performance was the simple fact that most of the music was performed in real time. I don't care if someone is singing along to a CD-R, but I enjoyed the organic lock of the drum machine beat over the keyboard parts, and the performance as a whole seemed to benefit quite a bit from the live set up. There were some pre-recorded bass sequences in there to, and much of they pay off came from simply watching the crowd as they waited for the minimal beats to collide with the intro for each song. As the music continued to impress throughout the set, Lars spouted off the kind of Post-Futurist lyricism that both he and Michael are known for through comments on We Shot JR and Andrew's New Century Media blog. These seemingly positive words either come off as a warning or a Utopian promise, depending on your personal view, but none of it would have mattered much if it wasn't for the excellent basslines, beats, and synth attacks tying everything together. I was expecting Electronik Warfare to be an interesting and predominantly intellectual exercise, but it was refreshing to see that people can dance and have fun without compromising either of those qualities. I'm looking forward to seeing what these guys do next.