Wednesday, January 28, 2015

Can a DJ combine a performance setup with a live band?


Todd Terje thinks you can.
This video starts with just Terje basically DJing on his own.  There may perhaps be a bit too much magic behind the scenes (partly due to the lighting distracting us away from the performer), but he is definitely performing in real time, controlling two synths in real-time.  In one hand, he controls harmonic content with a keyboard-based synth, while controlling textures and filter on another synth simultaneously.
Then the band joins him.
The bad news is the audio that accompanies this video malfunctions from the 2-10 minute mark.  The good news is the whole video is 75 minutes long, so there is still plenty of material to analyze.
Some of this music definitely starts to pull away from being explicitly techno, but some similar live performance sensibilities can certainly be applied.
At 14:30, we hear a looped electronic beat get augmented by hand percussion and a drum kit, before a keyboard plays a synth bass line that is decorated with horn sounds.  There's strings adding texture, too.
50:30 is a spot to check out, too.  Using an effected vocal to construct hamonic/textural layers is definitely something we could easily do.
The song "Oh Joy," which begins at 58:35, is an example of a gradualistic compositional structure that uses evolution in arrangement and timbre to make various repetitions interesting.  And, it's interesting to watch, because even though there are automated electronic components, we are definitely always observing live musicians performing, often times even in a relatively orthodox manner.
And the finale is just a ton of fun, with a huge group of dancers joining the performance.

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