Trimtab, malady a new series of pop up shows, launched last night featuring glitch-electronic artist {pwsd} making his live debut. Curated by Jacob Rosati (Skinny Bones) and Simon Remiszewski (Kingsley Davis), Trimtab puts a spin on your typical house show. Akin to gallery openings, the night follows a show-and-tell format with an artist talk-back directly following the performance.

The goal of Trimtab is to break down the barriers between artist and audience whether those barriers are physical or psychological and to re-humanize the artist. Electronic acts often have a lot to mask themselves with (e.g.: platform stages, strobe lights, fog, helmets) in a live setting, but last night {pwsd} was right in front of us, level, and close enough that I could recite back to you the model MIDI controller he was using.

Jake Young is a sound designer. He studied music technology at Northeastern before a short film he mixed production sound for, One Step Forward, premiered at Cannes. In 2011, one of his compositions was accepted into 2011’s Electronic Music Midwest Festival. Today he is a freelance composer and the man behind {pwsd}. The moniker (pronounced “posed”) is a spinoff of the term “pwned.” Young says that he spent years producing music that was imitating artists he admired until he began to experiment more and truly come into his own. Young says that he chose the name because it pokes fun at himself and {pwsd} is the product of that mentality shift.

{pwsd}’s first tryng[to]ctchp EP dropped this past December. While Young credits Flying Lotus and Shlohmo as heavy influences, traces of Shigeto and Nosaj Thing are also prevalent. Young has begun to create his own brand of ambient down-tempo electronica by experimenting with field recordings. In his talk-back, Young explained that he is hesitant to reveal too much of himself and uses the field recordings both as textural tools and a layer to hide behind. The snippets of life in them let you glimpse into Young’s past. The recordings warped, looped, and coupled with off-center beats reflect a memory purposefully fractured. Take a listen to the title track off of tryng[to]ctchp below and stay tuned for the next installment of Trimtab.