archGFX

Cut Chemistry

I think my favorite show of all time just changed. I say 'i think', because i'm still not really sure what hit me. I used to be into Jurassic 5 a little bit, but i lost the CD when one of my hard drives crashed. I liked the bits and pieces of the cut chemist CD that showed up on the mp3 blogs earlier this year. So when ryan messaged me saying he had an extra ticket, i was happy to tag along.

unlike last time, i was completely unprepared for the show that awaited me. Cut Chemist apparently travels with a video artist, who hangs out at one end of the table of turntables, with his laptop. There are two projectors, showing video on the wall behind them. the video is being editted, rewound, chopped up and synced LIVE.
My previous number 1 show was nine inch nails' fragility 2.0 tour, where bill viola's gorgeous video sequence played on 3 story screens behind trent. while that was completely amazing, it was a very calculated performance, where the band was playing exactly to the recorded version of the songs, so that the sync with the video was maintained.

Cut Chemist's video artist was on stage, mixing video live, occasionally pulling directly from the 'digital turntable' thing that Cut Chemist was using to 'scratch' his digital stuff. (i think). I really have no idea how things were working, or how much of the video was prepared in advance. it was all spot on, so most of it had to be live, since the DJ set was definately spontaneous and improvisational.

The video of Cut Chemist's table was probably the most intense. I learned piano when i was a kid, but watching tori amos, or amanda palmer play doesn't amaze me on that level. i get how you go from plinking out simple stuff to doing what they do. i could never reach that skill level, but i have an idea of what it's like. My (extremely) limited turntable experience, however, is completely other to what cut chemist was doing. i can see his hands moving, i know what most of the knobs and faders do, but there's no way i could make them make music that way. absolutely phenomenal.

UPDATE:

ryan found this video that gives you an idea of what the show was like: