Tri-Angle Records Presents: Advanced Party

On Friday I had the pleasure of attending the Tri-Angle Records Showcase in San Francisco. The lineup was packed with ADVANCED's favorites: Shlohmo, Clams Casino and oOoOO (featuring Butterclock),as well as Water Borders, Babe Rainbow and White Ring. This was my first chance to see any of these artists in person, so I was pretty excited and the show did not disappoint.

I had the pleasure of talking to oOoOO, Clams Casino and Shlohmo in person. They are all incredibly nice and humble despite their true success as artists. We discussed their music and and our lives and how they intersect. oOoOO even dropped that he may have some new singles coming out in the fall and a NEW RECORD next year. I'm really excited to see how his music develops. He is far from a one trick pony so I'm psyched to see what he does next with all that talent and innovation. Thanks to oOoOO, Clams Casino and Shlohmo for their music and for being so cool.

The show opened with Water Borders who are not really my cup of tea. They have some awesome bass and cool samples and drums but I'm not so into the post-punk vocals and accents they add to the mix. This is pretty much the first band that Tri-Angle has signed that I'm not crazy about so I'm interested to see how they develop and how my opinion of them does. Babe Rainbow had a pretty cool set with some nice tracks mixing hip-hop with abstract dark soundscapes. White Ring stepped things up with stroboscopic effects and true, dark witch-house. It takes a lot to be darker than Salem and they have achieved it. Not more fucked-up, just darker.

A drastic change occured when Shlohmo hit the stage: things got really FUN. Playing a mix of material from his awesome new LP Bad Vibes and very chopped, stuttered, screwed and spaced out tracks by Lil' Wayne and DJ Khaled he really got the party started. Everyone was dancing but perhaps no one was going harder than Shlohmo himself. I loved it. He understands that the music he makes is dope, and once it's made it's ultimately it's own entity, and he has a great time listening to it too. He also sang on top of a lot of songs including his remix of the Burial classic "Shell of Light" (mp3), giving a really soulful sheen to his performance. I had no idea that the vocals on his album were him. Really good stuff. He closed with an awesome extended version of  "Just Us" from the new LP. Check out the my post on him here with tons of awesome downloads. I am really loving his stuff right now. Check out two of my absolute favorites below.
Shlohmo - Places mp3
Wacka Flocka Flame - Hard in Tha Paint (Shlohmo remix) mp3

Next up was Clams Casino who has been a true favorite of mine ever since I first heard his production on Lil' B's Motivation (mp3). His set was awesome as expected. Not much variation from his sound on record but that's kind of a good thing. Almost every song by him is catchy, nuanced, beautiful and banging. Check out the past mp3 packed  posts on him here and here. And grab his albums here. A highlight was his new track with ASAP Rocky which I have been listening to over and over recently. Grab it below.
ASAP Rocky - Wassup (prod. by Clams Casino) mp3

By the time headliners oOoOO came on it was almost 3 a.m. and quite a few people had left which was their loss because oOoOO along with vocalist (and artist in her own right) Butterclock were awesome. Butterclock provided the sexy, haunting vocals and some work on effects while oOoOO kept the beats cracking. oOoOO's music is bass oriented and features screwed samples that complement the ethereal live singing from Butterclock but doesn't really follow the witch-house formula much beyond that. It incorporates elements of all kinds of  music, evoking Aaliyah, Sade, My Bloody Valentine, The Cocteau Twins, Burial, Portishead, Gucci Mane and Wacka Flocka Flame, sometimes all in one moment. They came off the most organic and varied sounding of all the acts. Check out some tracks from oOoOO's insanely good debut EP. Hearts in particular is a slow jam for the ages.
oOoOO - Hearts mp3
oOoOO - No Shore mp3

And check this sick new Butterclock track that they also played:
Boy- intro by Butterclock

Someone was kind enough to take a video of one of the highlights of the show, oOoOO's awesome track "Burnout Eyes":

oOoOO ...Burnout Eyes San Francisco 8-20-11 from slhimhr on Vimeo.

And a video of a new track they played. This one is from a different show.


Thanks again to oOoOO, Clams Casino, and Shlohmo for taking the time to speak with me. Super cool night. Thanks to Tri-Angle for hooking such a sick lineup and label.