April 27, 2007

The first recorded Tractorbeam show. Neat. Strobelights to begin the show has a great dance groove to it, and a solid introduction for the “new” band. Pygmy has a fantastic jam. This begins as a fairly straightforward jam, vamping in a single key. Around 6:45 Marc catches on to what Magner and Barber have been hinting at and adds a second chord to his bassline, and this takes off in a really interesting way. I love this type of movement, and I absolutely love this. I wish they would have expanded this a little more, but such is life. They slide into an interesting part of Morph Dusseldorf, and I’m not sure I can think of another time they transitioned into the middle of the song. Neat. The jam out into Spaga is a breakbeat jam that just never leads anywhere interesting to me. Brownstein telegraphs the transition in a very obvious way, and there is just very little going on here. The jam out of Spaga begins with a typical DNB jam, but then sort of dissolves into this wonderful ambient jam. This is phenomenal, and almost always becomes a guaranteed highlight. Crickets has the same sort of thing – awesome ambient dissolve that slowly morphs (no pun intended) into Crickets.

Munchkin > Abyss > Astronaut in a Tractorbeam set looks so great on paper. However, the first half of this just falls flat. There is a section in the Abyss jam that feels like the band is locked in on some really cool, hypnotic trance. However, they quickly drop this theme for an obvious transition into Astronaut. Meh. There’s a short-ish type 1 SITA jam that doesn’t really go anywhere before returning to the composition. The second Astronaut jam drops into ANOTHER ambient jam, which is again absolutely awesome. Out of nowhere, Allen drops a fast kick beat as the band starts its ascent back toward Munchkin ending. The jam out of Munchkin back into Astronaut ending is fairly cool, but way too short. They develop a really neat theme, but almost immediately ditch it for the ending of Astronaut. That said, at this point, who really cares? Phenomenal all-around show with a unique amount of variety from the band.

Highlights: Strobelights, Pygmy*, Spaga**, Crickets**, Astronaut (2**)