July 14, 2017

What a tale of two sets. The first set here is punctuated by a lot of really interesting, solid jamming. The second set is almost entirely forgettable.

Lai is fine. Nothing novel going on here. Rockafella has an interesting jam. This switches from the usual downtempo jam to a DNB jam, then to a weird march. This is unique and even though it’s not the most interesting, musically, I like the attempt to do something new. The jam in Munchkin is absolutely beautiful. This is pure Blissco from almost the first note of the jam. Lovely, lovely stuff. Sadly, they shift dramatically around the 8:20 mark and head toward more minor key stuff, but this was still really neat regardless. The rest of this is basically a long Orch Theme intro. The Orch Theme first jam begins with Magner teasing (playing?) Divine Moments of Truth by Shpongle. That’s very cool. The segue into Voices is effectively a drop segue. The jam out of Voices is another fantastic Blissco jam. Magner is playing a melody similar to “I Can See Clearly Now the Rain is Gone,” but they manage to pull this off without feeling corny. This turns on a dime and switches into a very nice Ladies peak. The Ladies jam switches into major-ish territory for a little bit before headed to the Munchkin peak. This is a nice little Blissco jam again. Love this set.

The Solstice jam has a really nice vibe to it. This is just an average jam, and I doubt I’d ever be interested in re-listening, but this isn’t bad necessarily. The Spacebird jam is instantly dancy and has a great pocket. However, around the 7-minute mark they ditch this pocket for this weird repeater thing that Brownstein and Barber get fixated on. Not for me. Near the end of this jam, Magner has these cool swell pads that he does some interesting stuff with. This whole section is pretty weird, and honestly if they just stuck with this a little longer I think it could have gotten into some really phenomenal territory. Unfortunately Barber just drops the Gangster riff and off we go. The first few minutes of this Gangster jam are upbeat, dance-heavy, and Magner-centric. I think they stumble a bit here and have some difficulty settling on what to do next, and there are a few minutes of indecisiveness. I think they stick the landing here, but overall this jam doesn’t make me want to relisten in any way beyond the first several minutes. First Memphis jam here is not bad, and has a nice groove to it. However, I can’t say I’m in love with the theme they make here. The second jam is short and is basically just a lead in to Controversy. Same thing goes for the jam out and into Bombs. The Bombs jam is a little too much Shred God Barber for me.

Highlights: Rockafella, Munchkin**, Orch, Voices**, Ladies