After spending half the night geeking out on software with ELM laptopper RD and negotiating a licensing deal with label vampires, Brit-Brazilian superstar Amon Tobin wasn't in the mood for advanced-jazz deconstructions. Instead, he slathered on the tropics-kissed dream & bass à la his Supermodified disc, and the precision beat-surgeon had us registering every 1/36-tick of snare no matter how balmy things got. You'd think the money shot would be the kaleidoscopic scratch-scattin' "Verbal," from his looser-funner new release Out From Out Where (and it was dope), but the real thrills were these vertiginous bass-drops that dangled teasingly on a precipice before the bottom opened under them. Fact is, Tobin's sets don't climax so much as plateau long and luxuriously, and toward the finish, the darkly handsome dead-earnest jock cracked a smile or two and dragged on a butt as he mixed lethally sexed-up boom-bap. What's a DJ to do if he's unhappy with his highbrow image? Bury it — one lowdown groove at a time. (Andrew Lentz)
THE RESIDENTS at House of Blues, October 30
High time for hooey as the Residents play the majority of the songs from their latest, Demons Dance Alone. The octet wields double-malleted xylophone tunes as a trumpet- playing demon-baby is suckled by a triangular-bazonked chanteuse lowing "Life Would Be Wonderful." Animation projects behind as shrouded agents of sinister strangeness employ the strum and scree of trad sqronk guitar. On "From the Plains to Mexico," the fanged demon-baby trains twin spotlights on a crooner in a camouflage leisure suit.
The now-spotlit chanteuse gyrates the hippy-hippy shake on a chair, demon-baby also swiveling gyrally as free-improv fusion meets a carnival of contortions. At "Greener Postures," the demon-baby trains his spotlights across the wavering dust trails of the ever-sonorous bass. "The Beekeeper's Daughter" sees an accordionist now in the spotlights, prosthetic snoot waggling beneath the helmet from a world war to end all wars.
On "Honey Bear," the crooner's songs of nostalgia and remorse resound amid the tinkling of bells and thudding of drums, holding aloft the glowing red ball of the heart. A story is told about James Brown meeting some Residents while the demon-baby cradles an unveiled top-hatted eyeball to hoots and cheers, as "Neediness" leads to the piano-fed encore of "Demons Dance Alone" (seemingly an in/version of Gloria Gaynor's "I Will Survive"). They clap and circle onstage as concussive synths and heavy drumming lead to a victorious exit despite the strains of melancholy tears . . . (David Cotner)
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