The Aston Shuffle, who got their foot into the EDM door as hosts for Triple J’s Friday night mix, have been busy smashing out a national tour for their sophomore album, featuring the new single Tear It Down. Happy rarely covers electronic music events, but from what we hear, this show has been different to everything you might have heard from the Canberra duo in the past. Most notably: these dudes are taking their tunes live.
What’s so special about this? Electronic music is great, but not exciting to watch unless you’re a DJ yourself and you’re sitting behind the decks. There’s a performance aspect to live mixing, and I don’t want to discredit the awesomeness of seeing a good DJ spin to a room full of genuine and non-creepy clubgoers, but once you see electronic music performed in a live setting, you’re basically spoiled from there on in. Think Seekae or Shigeto, the former embracing the band ethos, while the latter embracing the solo aspect, acknowledging that much of his work is done once he builds his loops, leaving him to drum it out. In some way, live performance makes dancing optional: there’s something to pretend to look at if you’re too self conscious to dance with that brunette in the maroon top you’ve been eyeing since you walked in.
Live electronic sets are the future of going out and witnessing music performance, especially in the post-‘everyone’s a DJ’ world and in a city where the clubs are getting smaller and smaller. It’s really good to see a group with the scale and influence of Aston Shuffle, who could very well get away with a straight up DJ tour and sold just as many tickets, do something new with their material. Mad props.
Tonight (28th Feb), the duo will be hitting up Canberra’s Academy alongside Sydney’s Thief, who’s been on tour with them for the last month. Lot’s of sweet arps, the odd swear word and some feelgood white people beats. Tomorrow (1st March), the dudes are hitting up Goodgod Small Club and Danceteria alongside this blog’s favourite live dance musicians ISLND, who were recently featured over in the UK by superproducer Diplo and whose Nicole Millar remix has really taken off. Tix in Syd are strictly limited, so get in line at Goodgod and drop your meds pretty early for this one.
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▲ FACEBOOK EVENT ▲ ASTON SHUFFLE ▲ THIEF ▲ ISLND
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