The day before Canada Day, four of us are huddled in a kitchen in Ottawa, Ontario. Three different kinds of Canadian Whiskey are stocked in the freezer, and 2-liter bottles of Canada Dry litter the counter tops. There's Alberta beef on the propane barbecue, and there's already the odd firework going up around us, even though we're still a good 6 hours until Wednesday. In the room, there's somebody from Winnipeg Manitoba, one from Montreal, another from New Brunswick, two clowns from Cape Breton, and this writer, born and raised in the Nation's Capital itself. We could of filled two chesterfields if we needed to.
As the cab convoy pulled up to the venue, we get our first look at LAGO, an uppity-looking bar & grill on the edge of a beautiful waterfront that's been converted to handle throngs of people lookin' to get their dance on. MSTRKRFT have come all the way from Toronto to throw down at the biggest party of the summer not sponsored by the Government of Canada. As we trickled in, DJ Kid SL kept the crowd occupied while the liquor flowed. Many people peaked too early, and we watched on with smiles as their plea's fell on deaf gorilla ears. Two of our own party fell victim to that fate themselves at some point during the night. We're not sure when.
The crowd started chanting for Mas-Ter-Kraft, and the two distinctive heads of Jesse and Al-P pushed through the dry ice and set up shop in front of a bevy of knobs and pads. For the uninitiated, MSTRKFRT and their ilk produce an updated form of electro that goes by a few names, including fidget house and filthy/dirty electro. Music that lives and dies in a live setting by beat drops. The music builds on itself, generally overlaying an increasingly high frequency wave until the beat is filtered out completely. This serves a double purpose, both letting people breathe and to build anticipation for the beat to drop back in. When it does, it's coupled with bowel-moving wobble bass or synth stabs so distorted that they may as well be a bass line.
The crowd behind me pushed in, the bass wobbled, and the lights burst into a neon cavalcade. The masses around me moved to the beat with what room they had, and the floor suddenly became a tribal experience. Almost every song has a similar beginning and end point to facilitate easier mixing. There's something about a heavy 4/4 beat and a gathering of sweaty people that exposes our history as a race.
Eventually, words become irrelevant in describing the experience. Albums and singles shouldn't form an opinion of this updated version of electro -- it needs to be experienced live.