Review: Telepath, Eliot Lipp and Joe Nice

Joe Nice is a DJ from Dub War NYC, a collective of musicians that brought dubstep to New York. I saw Joe Nice perform at last year’s Camp Bisco and he was having a blast with the enthusiastic new crowd. I got to see him put on another enthusiastic show, with meditative, half time tempo. One of the originators of Dub War NYC, Dave Q. was friends with some of the Disco Biscuits when they were still a bar band at UPENN which is where the connection stems from.

Eliot Lipp is a Producer out of Brooklyn, the epicenter of the current artistic gold rush. What sets him apart is that he takes his creative electronic music to different audiences. He toured with STS9 early in his career which helped turn on people who otherwise would not listen to “techno.” Lipp’s music is a combination of funk, psy trance and glitch hop. You can hear the glitch influences of Prefuse 73, one of his earliest mentors. I could see myself listening to his music for hours on end. He was wearing a Mishka T-shirt, my favorite streetwear designs worn by a lot of urban DJs and rappers, not usually something that appeals to your average Birkenstock-wearing trustafarian. I talked to him after the show about why he played so many festivals, he said it was mainly due to touring with STS9 early on, that he’ll go wherever they like him most. Festivals pay well and it also doesn’t hurt that they are held on luxury cruise ships and mountain resorts. Lipp will be performing with members of Pnuma Trio this summer as part of his project Lipp Service.

The crowd at the show was mostly of college age and looked like some sort of mutation formed from the remnants of the raver generation. Telepath is one of the bands on the horizon with a bright future. They have taken their momentum from their standout performances at Camp Bisco in 2007 and 2008, and are bringing live electronica to the new generation. Their album Contact is perhaps one of the best albums I have heard all year and incorporates world sounds from India, afrobeat horn lines and elements of Jamaican dub, hence the common ground with Joe Nice. Telepath played songs off Contact and their first album Fire One.
They also played some new songs that made their debut this tour including the brand new tune Critical Mass.

Telepath played their songs true to the original album, though they did leave some room for improvisation. It was interesting to see how they made the music after hearing it on my mp3 player for so long. They created exotic sounds and samples through laptops and looping, while playing instruments at the same time. The keyboard player and principal songwriter Michael Christie did most of the sampling and looping. Between the keys and working his laptop, Christie was also playing an exotic instrument called the melodica. The melodica is used in Jamaican dub as well as other world music; there is a long hose attached to one end which the musician blows into, then there are keys or buttons that can be pressed to change the pitch, the sound is very relaxing. The bass player Curt Heiny, is a classically trained musician, his bass lines are very original, they are ambient, yet melodic with overtones of some of the best roots reggae bassists.

The neon, minty crisp Nikes and blinking LEDS were shaking all night until 4 am, the band then had to stop due to a legal curfew limit. It was great to see so many different acts in one night. This allowed Telepath to deliver one of their famous late night performances. Telepath is at their best playing late night, something about their mystical nature goes well with the ambiance of a performance into a morning sunrise.

Set List

(r)evoltuion
Cinema Verite
Maka
Alive Now
On the Trail of Giants
Subterfuge
Fela Through
Critical Mass
Another Hero
Jadhi
All Fruits Ripe
Global Rights
Black Box
India House
Chaos Theory
No encore due to curfew.

Some Taoist Quote

…But people are very obstinate.
When the courts are very tidy
But the fields are very weedy
And the granaries very empty
To wear bright colorful clothing
And carry sharp swords
To eat to satiation
And posses excess wealth
Is called the arrogance of thieves…
the arrogance of thieves sounds like some cool new hipster band…