Waves of technicolor beats ricocheted off the walls at Webster Hall when Seattle-born synth-bop Beat Connection and future-focused Django Django infused the night air with ambient indie pop.
Beat Connection—Jordan Koplowitz (music), Reed Juenger (production), vocalist Tom Eddy (vocals), Mark Hunter (bass) and Jarred Katz (drums)—is a sweet mélange of mellow melodies, sinking slow-motion vocals, and a cascade of striking synth. Full-bodied but beachy, the band flew through items off 2012’s The Palace Garden and Further Out as well as their most recent singles—2014’s “Another Go Around” and 2015’s “So Good.”
British foursome Django Django, whose 2012 self-titled LP was nominated for the Mercury Prize, shrouds melancholy philosophy and meditations on a bleak identity under a guise of ghostly harmony and puzzling avant-garde. Synth wizards David Maclean (drummer and producer), Vincent Neff (singer and guitarist), Jimmy Dixon (bassist), and Tommy Grace (synthesizer operator) create a detached sound that runs a wide, if sometimes confusing, range—from spacey and atmospheric to Caribbean-spiced or 50s-flavored. Often offering a distressing critique of this mechanized world and its impersonal humans, Django Django itself is “a maze, a complex sum” that supplies a new vision of our strange reality.
Django Django
Django Django
Django Django
Django Django
Django Django
Django Django
Django Django
Django Django
Django Django
Django Django
Django Django
Django Django
Django Django
Django Django
Django Django
Django Django
Django Django
Django Django
Django Django
Django Django
Django Django
Django Django
Django Django
Article: Heather McAdams
Photos: Nicholas Fallon
