"East Coast media bias" is a phrase most often used by Americans on the opposite coast to explain why everything great happening over there doesn't get covered by magazines, television stations and outlets that make their headquarters in New York. It extends to dance music too: While everyone raves about New York scene, the WMC and even brings itself to travel all the way to Detroit once a year, there's been a stunning lack of ink spilled about Los Angeles, San Francisco and Seattle over the years aside from their loyal local press.

All of that is beginning to change. In recent months, Los Angeles has become hotly tipped as one of the must-see cities for electronic music, while San Francisco is currently gearing up once again for its annual weekend blowout centered around the SF LoveFest. Unlike their Californian counterparts, however, Seattle's contribution to the electronic music community has for the most part been relegated to recordings. Jeff Samuel, Bruno Pronsato and Caro all have lived there at one time or another. (Samuel and Pronsato now, predictably, have moved onto Berlin.) Michaelangelo Matos pointed out to me that it's obvious why: Many of the producers who live here can make a living programming software or doing videogame sound design.

With so many producers, though, it seemed only a matter of time before a festival began to harness local talent—and to bring in outside DJs and producers as well. Five years ago, Sean Horton did just that and over the course of that half-decade, Decibel has grown into perhaps the most important fall festival dates on the American electronic music calendar. Sure, it's no DEMF or WMC yet, but it also doesn't want to be. Decibel is a festival that seems to mirror its city: Understated, professional and a refreshing lack of "industry bullshit," as one DJ put it. And 2008 was, by all accounts, its best edition yet.
- Todd L. Burns

Thursday - 25 September 2008

Sean Horton: Recovering after being snubbed at the door on Thursday / Credit: Donte Parks

Opening night's Peloton showcase was a pretty perfect beginning. The label's Team Peloton DJs opened things crisp and techy, setting the stage for Mister Leisure, AKA local producer and occasional critic Matt Corwine. He fired off a lot of tracks, one after another, but there was no clutter: everything was clean and direct, even when the bass began to swarm later on. Stewart Walker appeared next; when he brought in an acid line early on, the first dancer with glow-balls on strings hit the floor. That did it: an initially reticent opening-night crowd soon filled the floor, and during Walker's set the venue reached capacity, at one point leaving Sean Horton, Decibel's founder, turned away at the door. His hard-chugging set the stage for [a]pendics.shuffle, the closer, who kept things moving with multilayered bass and cloudbusting filters.
- Michaelangelo Matos

Communikey Showcase

Alala.One warmed up the crowd with a dub-inflected set / Credit: Ken Roeder, Soulful Elements Photography

Boulder, Colorado is yet another bourgeoning scene for electronic music largely ignored in most media outlets. You shouldn't blame them, though: The Communikey crew only put on their first festival earlier this year and contains a host of upstart DJs and producers that are just beginning their careers. That much seemed obvious, at least, by the somewhat messy live set of Les Freres Courvoisier. The press notes claimed that they were debuting material for the first time and it sounded like: Each time they pulled out a triumphant moment of pop minimal brilliance, it would somehow be marred by a sound issue. Not so for the banging set of Cubenx, who turned in one of the best performances of the festival. The Mexican producer was also playing new material, but his self-assured snare splatter-laden melodic techno seemed at times like it had been beamed in directly from Nathan Fake's hard drive. One to watch out for.
- Todd L. Burns

Deconstructing Pop Showcase

Tujiko Noriko stokes a paparazzi riot / Credit: Ken Roeder, Soulful Elements Photography

Seattle's mega-indie radio station KEXP sponsored this one, and hearing Barbara Morgenstern's "The Operator" in the afternoons, rather than Michael Franti, again, was pleasant promotion. "The Operator" was the effervescent Berlinette's final song, whipping the too-small but appreciative crowd up for the sexual energy of Jahcoozi. Morgenstern danced, laughed, and cracked jokes. "Morgenstern for President!!" was the word on the local techno mailing list the morning after. I unfortunately missed openers Careen Ajar, a three-piece including Naut Humon, Scott Arford, and haunting vocalist Li Alin. Puerto Rican quartet Balun—repeatedly dubbed "Cute Overload" by a fellow journalist—were on when I arrived, and were followed by Tujiko Noriko, who sparked a paparazzi riot. Alone with a laptop, and set against visuals of jellyfish, she looped lyrics like "You're so beautiful now/ Looking back at me" over Pop Ambient tones, then played them backwards.
- Rachel Shimp

Friday - 26 September 2008

Optical 1

h.dot's visuals referenced a time long past / Credit: h.dot

Held in an independent movie theater only a few blocks away from the major night venues of the festival, Decibel's Optical showcases were the appertifs before the main course of full-on techno on Friday and Saturday. Ideally that would have been the case, I suppose. Through a strange choice in programming, the headliners ran into the beginning of each night's showcases, leaving festival-goers possibly missing something at another venue. That something on Friday was William Basinski, whose tape loop experiments have been lulling audiences into reverie for the past three decades. What I did get to see, instead, was relatively innocuous ambient mixed with visuals that seemed to barely react or reference the music being played in the theater. It was hard to tell what kind of visuals would've been appropriate for Jeff Greinke's ridiculously dated New Age constructions, though. Greinke tried to spice things up with a trombone and drum & bass along the way, but there was no helping his soundscapes from sounding terribly out of touch.
- Todd L. Burns

The Trinity

Jeff Samuel high above the Sole Repair crowd / Credit: +Russ

Sole Repair's gradual start Thursday was not repeated Friday. A half-hour after opening, with barely a dozen people inside, the vibe was already electric. That's partly because local favorite Jerry Abstract didn't treat his set like an opener, playing dark and epic, full of cranked breakdowns and build-ups. As if to cleanse the dancers' palates, New York's Derek Plaslaiko began very slowly but soon worked up to a hard clip, climaxing with the grinding bass of ACR's "Killer." Jeff Samuel, a one-time Seattleite now in Berlin, finished by turning things toward the squelchy and playful, as is his wont. He also nodded to the past by throwing in a couple decade-old Thomas Bangalter tracks and finishing with some Kenny Larkin/Dark Comedy. The floor stayed at capacity pretty much throughout.
- Michaelangelo Matos

Dirty Dancing Showcase

Abandoned mau5 head / Credit: Sarah Hunt

Dirty dancing, you betcha! This is reliably my favorite showcase each year, with fond memories of Green Velvet and Speedy J crowds shaking the floorboards. It's also usually the one I'll ride the E train to, but this year I decided to abstain. Absolutely in the minority on that one, I nevertheless danced immediately upon hearing Chicago-based producers Santiago & Bushido's crisp, cracking techno. Then…what's this? Mouse ears made from paper plates? Old school puffy white raver gloves? Young men fondling my sequined dress and trying to (gasp) dance with girls? One lacks the motor skills to learn the "You Fucking Rule" handshake, but as hard as I try to feel old and superior during Deadmau5's banging, kinda-samey set, I can't. It's a rave but nobody is laid against the wall. It's joyful, palpable, electric, mouseketeer madness—and an awful buzzkill for everyone when the lights go up at 1:30. Damn you, Seattle.
- Rachel Shimp

Saturday - 27 September 2008

Optical 2

Carole Kim's projections were a revelation / Credit: Carole Kim

Despite the continued bog-standard multimedia/ambient acts that began the second Optical showcase, I raised my hopes for both Library Tapes and Akira Rabelais to save the experimental portion of my Decibel experience. Library Tapes, however, was something of a disaster: While his simple melodies and languorous tracks work on record, seeing him play them live was a severe reality check. Sure, your eyes are supposed to be on the screen projection for the duration of the performance, but when a guy slowly, meaningfully plonks out piano chords at a snail's pace and brings out his wind chime as well, you can't help but look down to see what's going on. Akira Rabelais, on the other hand, did it exactly right. He set up behind a screen, further obscuring himself from the crowd and engendering Carole Kim's stunning visuals with a strange doubled image—they projected through (and on) the screen and onto the movie screen as well. It was a stunning conclusion to an otherwise disappointing show.
- Todd L. Burns

Decibel in the Park

Truckasauras get patriotic / Credit: Donte Parks

Saturday afternoon brought the first-ever Decibel in the Park, in the middle of Capitol Hill's Volunteer Park. The day was perfect early fall—sunny, cool, with a slight breeze—and the many kids and pets on the lawn made it feel even more like a family affair. Still, there were technical issues: there was a near-ten-minute sound outage during Seattle techno duo Jacob London's set. By contrast, local cult heroes Truckasauras had their blown speaker fixed in a minute. Their set was the easy highlight, frosty, long-limbed electro whose songs mutated amiably before wrapping up around the four-minute mark. That compactness worked terrifically outdoors. Not so much Glitch Mob, from Los Angeles, whose twice-baked hip-hop cut-ups and laptop-noise beats sounded pedestrian, especially their reworking of Lil' Wayne's "Lollipop." They do get credit for inciting the most dancing of the day, though, from a very mixed group of hippies, Burning Man regulars, random passersby and Decibel diehards.
- Michaelangelo Matos

Detroit Techno: Past, Present & Future

Carl Craig: Calmly blowing minds / Credit: Kate Coffee

All that sunshine in the park clearly had an effect on the Decibel crowd, which seemed ready and open for anything. Chuck Flask's opening DJ set jumped effortlessly from the serrated and severe to gorgeous liquid-smoke disco. Near the end, though, he went low-key, giving Audion—who followed—some room to rebuild. Matthew Dear didn't jump so much as move in a single, sinuous line: a slow-rolling, slinky, bewitching endless uncoiling, peaks passing by, like mountains on a country drive. All this expansiveness proved mere warm-up for Carl Craig. Orchestral opener; Plastikman's "Spastik"; Craig's "In the Trees" remix; "Strings of Life"; "Good Life"—the headliner summed up his showcase's title all by his lonesome.
- Michaelangelo Matos

Ghostly International Showcase

The mysterious Sight Below / Credit: Nathan Howard

The tiny Baltic Room seemed an odd choice of venue for Ghostly International's showcase on Saturday night. Didn't Decibel know that Sam Valenti's imprint would have lines outside the tiny space? The organizers didn't have much choice in the matter: The only other option was to put it at Sole Repair, whose remit seemed to be banging techno throughout the weekend, and wasn't much bigger anyway. Either way, the capacity crowd greeted the mysterious bescarfed Sight Below and his set rapturously. Sure, the music is a shameless rip-off of Wolfgang Voigt's Gas project with the significant difference being a heavier shoegaze influence and a slightly clearer bass drum, but everyone likes Gas. Myself included.
- Todd L. Burns

Kontrol Showcase

Alland Byallo, storing a CD on the turntable / Credit: +Russ

It seemed like we had made the wrong decision in leaving the packed Baltic Room to race over to see San Francisco's Kontrol crew ply their wares tag-team style at Sole Repair. At 11:00 PM, only three hours before the lights were scheduled to go up, the place was almost entirely empty. Things didn't pick up too much throughout the night, but you can put that down to the event going on directly across the street. Would you give up the opportunity to see Audion and Carl Craig for Alland Byallo and Nikola Baytala? As someone who lives on the East Coast, I was one of the few that seemed to answer an enthusiastic "yes" to that question. Luckily, I was graciously awarded with getting to hear a set that didn't lean on nostalgia for its power. Between DJ Tonka's forthcoming "Orca" and the Wighnomy's "Guppipeitsche," I was a happy man.
- Todd L. Burns

Decibel Afterhours - Earplugs

Dixon looking dapper / Credit: Nathan Howard

If you wanted to experience dance music culture firsthand in Seattle throughout the Decibel weekend, you needed to look no further than Cheap Sunglasses' Earplugs afterparty on Saturday night. Instead of acting and looking like an electronic event fitting into an indie rock space, Earplugs was held at a place called Church of Bass, which basically consisted of a large room on the outskirts of the city and little else. Dixon seemed right at home throughout, playing a set that included Still Going, Stimming and a whole host of current hits from the Deep House Top 40. He didn't surprise me much over the course of his two hours and change behind the decks, but I also couldn't keep a smile off my face either.
- Todd L. Burns

Sunday - 28 September 2008

Decibel BBQ

Local Seattle legend Caro, pony unpictured / Credit: Donte Parks

My homeboys Sun Tzu Sound—purveyors of Seattle's funkiest, most Gilles Peterson-informed aesthetic—threw this party, so it was incredibly lame of me not to enter. However, what barbecue in Seattle has no vegetarian options? I was all about the "music meant to be enjoyed on a sunny afternoon filled with friends, an ice-cold drink in hand, and a plate full of good-old American char-grilled animal flesh," but my pass-less date wasn't. Kid Hops shared some Positive Vibrations (also the name of his weekly reggae show on KEXP) to a small crowd as I went to eat across the street; when I came out, another local legend, Caro, was working a crowd that had tripled. I even heard that, later, the carnivores got to see Jeremy Ellis work an MPC with his mouth.
- Rachel Shimp

Decibel Ambient Showcase

Brian McBride sees the light / Credit: Ken Roeder, Soulful Elements Photography

Our failure to reserve a table at the Triple Door, which is definitely Seattle's best live venue, acoustically-speaking, results in a standing-room situation which actually isn't bad. From the rear of the candlelit dinner theater, we could see the dreamy flora-and-fauna visuals that accompanied opener Helios. After being moved to stage left, the visuals were replaced with an almost uncomfortable proximity to the artists. Corn on the cob looks great, but proves a weird choice when you're mere feet away from someone playing a guitar with a violin bow (Deaf Center). My date, not a person familiar with Brian Eno or four-hour long ambient lullabies, lasted until Stars of the Lid's Brian McBride and his string section before becoming visibly bored. Despite this, the group's tones, drawn out and around each other in never-ending hums, were among my favorite sounds of the entire festival.
- Rachel Shimp

Decibel Finale

Supermayer: Sweaty and saving the day / Credit: Kate Coffee

Sunday's finale was a bit subdued: the crowd seemed ragged in the after-party's wake. Fax's laptop-plus-guitar set a cozy, post-rave spaghetti Western tone, which was promptly torn asunder by Flying Lotus. Mixing selections from his stunning Los Angeles full-length with a handful by others, including Zomby's head-spinning "Spliff Dub (Rustie Remix)," he abstracted his beats and bass to the edge of coherency, but not past it. (His loping version of "A Milli" towered over Glitch Mob's Lil' Wayne remix, too.) Too bad The Bug and Warrior Queen had to follow that, with an unfocused set full of obvious outside choices (Dizzee Rascal's "I Luv U," a heavily distended mix of Dawn Penn's "No, No, No") and little real stage presence. This show called for a Supermayer, and with Michael Mayer kindly tossing out water bottles to the crowd and he and Superpitcher stretching a hard, zingy groove until the festival ended, they made it feel like this sort of thing happens a lot more often in Seattle than it actually does. Let's hope it starts to.
- Michaelangelo Matos

Header photo credit: Ken Roeder, Soulful Elements Photography