Moby – Issue Project DJ Set (Review)

Moby (Ambient Electronic DJ Set) on Friday April 24^th 2009 @ Issue Project Room (Brooklyn)

On Friday and Saturday evenings at the Hayden Planetarium, within the American Museum of Natural History in New York, one can experience music from artists like David Bowie, Radiohead, U2, Goldfrapp and the Flaming Lips in a very unique way. Moby has curated the soundtrack to a musical journey called Sonicvision where trippy visual effects playing out above your head. As futuristic and psychedelic lights pulse and thumping beats throb across the floor, you sit in your seat feeling the sensation of movement while encompassed by the gigantic dome overhead like an IMAX film. Through the swirls of lights flashing and twisting around above your head, the motion occasionally halts as you reach a destination, perhaps some other worldly planet, and the images change. Never before have I watched giant projections of robots dance.

In contrast, Moby’s DJ set within the minimalist art warehouse space for the Issue Project Room’s fundraiser in Brooklyn was a more low-key expression of his own artistry than the music selection at Sonicvision. Within the performance space itself, chairs were placed in front of the DJ booth and projection screen while beer from kegs was served in plastic cups on folding tables off to the side. Moby DJed ambient/electronic tracks from his expansive catalog and from his upcoming album Wait for Me as synchronized visuals played along.

After walking into the venue, where the latent fragrance of paint still lingers in the halls, Moby’s nearly two hour performance began with some quiet calming music. The initial impressions was like being inside the fishbowl in the dentist’s waiting room and hearing the background music or like drifting through space with star-like visuals playing out across the walls. But when the song “God moving over the face of the Waters” came on, the sweeping grandeur of sounds crashed throughout the room. The following song had more provocative visuals depicting the “evolution” of man with repetitive scenes of Homo-sapiens warlike nature as clashes from various epochs, caveman to modern, appeared.

Moby spun old songs like “Guitar Flute and String” as well as new tracks like his latest single “Shot in the back of the Head” to a mostly sedentary respectful audience while he hunkered over his turntables mostly out of sight. But for his final song, the very humble Moby dropped his breakthrough Twin Peaks sampling song “Go” while proudly standing aloft. The audience in turn gave him resounding applause. As Moby has created music for nearly three decades, his first “seated electronic / ambient show” was a new unique experience for all in attendance and perhaps one he can perform again for his global fanbase. But for now, only us lucky New Yorkers will have these moments.

~ by arakias on June 3, 2009.