Skip to main content

Bicep review – muscular, head-rushing tech house

Roundhouse, London
The Northern Irish dance duo showcase their skill for ping-ponging melody and beautifully tooled drum programming, paired with magnificent visuals

Bicep cut a relatively rare shape in today’s live music scene – no longer mere DJs, they’re one of the few dance artists (alongside Eric Prydz and a handful more) to have built up a strong live show from their own work. The duo stand fairly statically behind hardware and a laptop as their symbol emerges behind them – a trefoil of three clenched biceps – and it is an apt one, hinting at the macho homosexuality of disco, the Celtic roots of their native Northern Ireland, and the sheer elemental punch of a kick drum.

The crowd is predominantly young twentysomethings from the “sesh” generation, all in Champion tees, with Ketflix and Pills on their phones and a propensity to get on each other’s shoulders. They cheer in recognition as familiar licks eke their way into the flowing mix, turning to festival pandemonium as the Indian vocal sample of Rain kicks in, an anthem for yoga-loving Ibizans. The exceptional visuals by Black Box Echo build to fill the stage like psychedelic Lego and, for Opal, Matisse-like colour blocking.

Continue reading...

from Culture | The Guardian https://ift.tt/2HGI3FC

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Tracey Emin decorates Regent's Park and a celebration of Islamic creativity – the week in art

Emin and others survey the state of sculpture, Glenn Brown takes his decadent imagination to Newcastle and artists offer northern exposure – all in your weekly dispatch Frieze Sculpture Park Tracey Emin, Barry Flanagan and John Baldessari are among the artists decorating Regent’s Park with a free survey of the state of sculpture. • Regent’s Park, London , 4 July until 7 October. Continue reading... from Culture | The Guardian https://ift.tt/2IDCpPV

When Brooklyn was queer: telling the story of the borough's LGBTQ past

In a new book, Hugh Ryan explores the untold history of queer life in Brooklyn from the 1850s forward, revealing some unlikely truths For five years Hugh Ryan has been hunting queer ghosts through the streets of Brooklyn, amid the racks of New York’s public libraries, among its court records and yellow newspaper clippings to build a picture of their lost world. The result is When Brooklyn Was Queer, a funny, tender and disturbing history of LGBTQ life that starts in an era, the 1850s, when those letters meant nothing and ends before the Stonewall riots started the modern era of gay politics. Continue reading... from Culture | The Guardian https://ift.tt/2H9Zexs