- Vancouver's New Forms Festival celebrated its tenth year with a new venue in the form of the recently-converted W2 Storyeum, a gallery space specially fitted with audiovisual installations for the festival's duration. "The Opposite Of Fear" night presented the triple threat of UK DJ/producers Blue Daisy, Illum Sphere and Slugabed, promising a night of unpredictability and chaos. In the end, that's what was delivered—in a sense much more literally than one could have expected.
London's Blue Daisy was the first up of the three, stepping up to the decks with little fanfare to a sparse crowd. Clad memorably in a gas mask, his energy was contagious as he danced and bobbed throughout a brave and eye-opening set. Starting gently with his unique hip-hop-tinged brand of dubstep and steadily heightening the intensity, he coaxed the hesitant but ever-growing crowd closer and closer to the speakers. Beats rarely lasted more than a few bars and the bass felt interrogative, but by the end Daisy had the crowd firmly in hand as he built a tune around a sampled line from Lil Wayne's "A Milli."
On record, at least, Manchester's Illum Sphere seems the most subdued of the three producers. Not here: His hollow percussion felt like chunks of the ceiling crashing onto the floor. Starting off with slower tunes like "Go Killum," the considerable bass-weight primed the dance floor for a steady ascension as Illum incrementally upped the pressure; his set peaked with the flowing white-hot liquid metal of "Titan." In the feverish abandon that followed, snatches of Ciara's "Ride" and Kelis' "Caught Out There" were audible in between see-sawing dubstep bangers. Complaints about patchy mixing went unnoticed by the rapturous crowd, though his overuse of a siren sound effect was admittedly a little grating.
When it was time for Slugabed, the room was packed and eager, ready for his stomping mix of video game textures and ultra-compressed sawtooth bass. Slugabed recklessly collided tracks into and out of each other, 8-bit melodies shooting up from the snarling wreckage like dazzling fireworks. Just as Slugabed's set seemed to be moving into more experimental territory—a labyrinth of twisted metal choking Starkey's "Stars," into a uncharacteristically percussive monster—the power went out. The crew ran around for about 30 minutes as determined dancers attempted a sort of makeshift drum circle, stomping on the wooden stage and squashing plastic cups.
A drum kit was brought out as Vancouver DJ Calamalka played nondescript but infectious beats for the thinning crowd to dance to. Things became even more surreal when an unfamiliar face brought in a portable mixer, spinning pedestrian electro-house and hip-hop as Calamalka continued to bang away in the corner. The mystery DJ's laptop soon lost power, as did the mixer after about 20 more minutes. Derailed ending aside, it was a fascinating night of forward-thinking bass music while it lasted, and if anything else, I walked out a newly-affirmed devotee of Blue Daisy.