Typically, you’ll find me at Great Scott in the mosh pit, eardrums exhausted from the deafening roar of thrashing guitars and pounding drums, and arms and legs sticky from an inadvertent beer shower. However, last Tuesday, I switched it up and calmed it down, and saw my first primarily electronic show at Great Scott, on the bill was Yditmitu, Avoxblue and St. Nothing.
Boston based YDIMITU (Also known on the internet as Early Nineties ) began the night by blaring bass over Great Scott’s surprisingly massive sound system, resulting in a throbbing, quaking and almost painfully pulsating bass accompaniment. YDIMITU’s Adam McGinn managed to temper this bass with glittering synth washes and dulcet RnB vocals, similar to that of Frank Ocean. McGinn’s setup was kept very simple; he performed alone beneath a single isolated spotlight, holding the mic in tightly in his hand with the cord trailing behind him. But despite the minimalism of his surroundings, McGinn’s songs were complex in their emotion and technicality, he paired a slowly swelling and steadily heavier bass with an escalating falsetto to execute a performance brimming with passionate emotion. Perhaps the best part of McGinn’s performance was his completely free and uninhibited way of dancing along to his own music. It was refreshing, something not often witnessed with nervous budding bandcamp based musicians.
Cambridge based AVOXBLUE added a darker and dystopian feel to the night, through his use of lasers and heavily 80s styled electronic influenced melancholia. AVOXBLUE is the solo project of Jimmy Rossi Jr., who used to be apart of a psychedelic shoegaze project called The December Sound. AVOXBLUE is the experimental, shoegaze influenced project of Rossi; his live performance could be described as ‘shoegaze with clarity.’ Rossi employed heavy reverb and some elements of distortion, but juxtaposed this with clear and puncturing, sharp electronic 80s style beats to establish a danceable, and at time almost tribal sounding, rhythm. Rossi’s vocals were often drowned out by his complicated electronic background music, but the sorrow in his voice always pervaded, in one song he drew a note so long and so mournfully until the mic crackled with the static. I admired Avoxblue’s musical capability, and his light show, particularly one bit where the lights burst into tiny dots in a cool cosmic and galactic effect all over the stage. However, toward the end of his set and in mentally recapping the 80s music video I had just witnessed, I realized that his songs had seemed to all blend together, and I had just listened to an entire set without hearing once a fully enunciated word. Still, it was an interesting performance and should be given recognition for being stylistically pretty unique; AVOXBLUE’s sound is unlike the other electronic artists today, who tend to gravitate towards heavy reliance on dreamy synth and bass.
Boston based St. Nothing’s performance debut headlining show was highly anticipated by the audience, many of who knew the trio on a first name basis. But even though familiar faces were in the crowd, St. Nothing’s talent was so apparent, that it did not require a bias in order to be admired.
The trio showed a remarkable attention to detail, from their set design, which included a hand painted arch trimmed with a border of thin blue light, of which a single bouquet of dried roses hung in the center. The stage itself was lined with small Christmas white lights that illuminated a string of pale golden cloth flowers. This precision was also apparent in their sound and performance. St. Nothing does electroacoustic music, and they do it well. Marco Lawrence’s range of electronic beats was excellent, employing everything from skittering high beats to low and slow crashes of synth. His velvety and polished voice was not drowned out by accompanying sounds, but instead rang above it, oscillating to accompany higher and lower registers of songs with professional fluidity and ease. The electronic beats provided a foundation, of which the violin and guitar amplified and accompanied the melody. It was an intriguing and beautiful fusion of new and modern sounds meets old and traditional sounds; Meredith Nero’s viola accompaniment added a delicate and hauntingly romantic dimension, while Sophia Carreras on guitar contributed a rich and full-bodied sound to the beats.
Their set was romantic and slow, and sometimes gut wrenchingly sad, as in a display of musical emotion, Lawrence let out a throaty scream as he curled into the ground at the end of one of their songs. Under the soft violet and coolly colored lights, St. Nothing delivered a closing set reminiscent of a prom night deconstructed: performing the heartbroken ballad of the girl in the pink dress with mascara streaming down her face. St. Nothing’s music showed brilliantly, the elegant grace and transcendent beauty of sadness.
