- Living in New York will eat up all your earnings, but at least there's always something to do on a weeknight. For fans of innovative electronic music, Wednesday presented the double-bill of Steve Hauschildt and v1984 at Brooklyn's Sunnyvale. The venue, which opened last year on an unassuming block in East Williamsburg, has an all-purpose feel that works for punk bands and dance parties alike.
The show was all-ages, but it was a distinctly over-21, dark-clothed crowd that gradually drifted in for v1984. Standing intently onstage behind the CDJs, the producer opened with "Aria Of Dawn" from his upcoming EP, Pansori. The track's collision of menacing rumbles and bright melody set the tone for the hour, which featured his productions alongside music that inspired Pansori.
The set represented v1984's myriad influences, including classical and choral music, hip-hop, and anime soundtracks, without feeling overworked. There were spectral broken beats, vocals that sounded submerged underwater, dark washes of bass, and finally part of Eric Serra's film score for The Fifth Element. With a short burst of applause from the floor, v1984 left the stage as modestly as he had arrived.
In contrast to v1984's moments of spiky tension, Steve Hauschildt's live performance was almost meditative. There were fewer than 100 people in the room, but the audience stood absorbed by his ripples of sound. He towered over his compact live setup with steely focus, only turning to play sections on the keys. Unobtrusive colours and shapes washed over him and the screen behind. Although the atmosphere was no match for Hauschildt's Ambient Church set in Brooklyn last year, it was still enough to create some reverie.
The enveloping feel of the show mirrored Hauschildt's most recent album, Strands, which is so steady and calming you barely notice the seams between the songs. Running to a neat hour, the set foregrounded his shimmering synths, with the more insistent passages still cushioned in dreamy warmth. "Ketracel," a hypnotic standout on Strands, was about as dark and pulsing as the set got. Before playing his last track, Hauschildt called out a shy "thank you" to the crowd. With no mic to hand, it felt like we'd dropped in on an intimate studio performance.
The night was best summed up by what happened right after the music stopped. Within seconds of coming off stage, Hauschildt was standing behind a trestle table near the exit to sell his music and talk to fans. That was the spirit of the show: DIY, mild-mannered and entirely pretension-free.