Yet another installment of the Converse Rubber Tracks series hit The Sinclair on Tuesday night, this time featuring a stellar lineup of big names in sample based electronic music scene. The night featured names plucked directly from the Majestic Casual scene, such as Giraffage and Ryan Hemsworth.

Sydney, Australia’s Thomas Purcell, better known as Wave Racer, came out behind a table full of mixers, samplers, knobs, buttons, and of course the macbook everyone has come to expect with a 21st century DJ.
The music started, heavy with 80s synthesizers and tasty pads and samples. Purcell was dancing casually, hitting a button, twisting a knob here and there to warp the samples (all of which were pitch-shifted up and unrecognizable to me), and just generally in his own place. For Purcell, everything was about the art of the build and release, the beat drop, if you will. A song couldn’t get very far before building to a climax, pulling back, and delivering the same chords with in a more simplistic dubstep or chopped-and-screwed beat. This would happen several times per song, which felt a bit excessive–it was a sort of electro-hedonism where the payoff comes too frequently, dividing one song into several energy peaks and valleys. Well, that’s my dissertation on beat-dropping. Having said all that, it was a damn good show and I was pretty sure it wasn’t going to be topped.

Then Giraffage came out. I was in the entryway area, when I could’ve sworn Wave Racer took to the stage again. It was definitely one of his songs that was playing, so I went out and saw a different guy behind the same exact setup (except his macbook was on the opposite end of the table).

Charlie Yin definitely draws more from the Girl Talk end of the spectrum rather than Deadmau5, and after a couple of minutes his style became apparent. His samples were much more recognizable and used a lot more of the source material, rather than a vocal line mangled and repeated. Samples include, but were not limited to: Bieber, Alice Deejay, Soulja Boy, Miley Cyrus. And they were used well, the way a remix should–taking the hook and giving it completely different but equally catchy context. There were climaxes and comedowns, but they were rare and you wanted them by the time they hit.

Visually, there were plenty of pixel-art, GIRAFFAGE written in strange fonts, and adorable animal videos projected behind him which kind of sealed the deal that he was not to be overlooked.
— Nick Canton

Headliner Ryan Hemsworth was all smiles upon entering the stage, to which the crowd dissolved into groupie like shrieks at seeing the ridiculously handsome dj / producer’s face; some fans actually made signs and brought gifts for Hemsworth, such as candy and a stuffed Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle. Hemsworth was a much more relaxed and engaging dj than his predecessors, he was extremely comfortable being on stage, unafraid and uninhibited in dancing along to his infectious beats, exhibiting refreshing body movements beyond the standard DJ stance of a fist bump and accompanying twirl of the turntables. It was clear that he was having a lot of had fun with his set, which translated into an extra fun time for the audience.
Hemsworth’s producing style and capacity is noteworthy in how impressively refined it is. His signature style is that of an echoing and ethereal pulse and swirl of synthesizers, similar to that of Clams Casino and Shlohmo. But what’s unique and key about Hemsworth, and quite rare in electronic music, is that he can take his style as an underlying foundation for the rest of his songs and maintain it, while still managing to successfully twist, manipulate, and warp it. This was particularly evident in his live set, as he left the solemn and pensively reflective ambient tones of his LP ‘Guilt Trips’ behind and delivered an animated party and club heavy set, filled with standard stimulating trap hi-hats, and up tempo high beats dropping into low bass.
Hemsworth opened with a playful voicemail message of a woman going, “Hello, this is Ryan’s mother. And I’d like you to turn up for my son.” The turn up was indeed real that night, as Hemsworth played to his hip hop producer side with sampling a deliciously wide array of rap, exciting the crowd with gritty and dirty trap classics such as ‘Dump Dump’ by A$AP Ferg to ending with his smoother than molasses rework of ‘Thinking of You’ by Frank Ocean. Of course he also ventured outside of the hip hop genre, with an intriguingly beautiful slowed down remix of ‘Latch’ by Disclosure and a crowd pleasing girlishly upbeat remix of ‘Ribs’ by Lorde. Hemsworth’s natural performer attitude is not only evident in his demeanor, but in his confidence in jumping from genre to genre (both live and in his work – he has remixed artists ranging from Cat Power to Lil B). His ability and versatility to unify genres of music through his electronic production truly makes him a producer that stands out against the rest, and definitely one to look out for.
— Helen Chen