There’s a lot to be said about a successful stage dive. An audience is only as buoyant as they’re made to feel. When sampler-extraordinaire Unai Lazcano took to the sweaty flannel-clad masses, he grappled momentarily with the light fixtures of the Mercury Lounge before returning via hands to his keyboard for a few final deep synth splashes.
Fresh off SXSW and a handful of sold-out NYC gigs, the Spanish foursome Delorean rode their momentum into a drizzly and otherwise awful Lower East Side and transformed it into a glorious Mediterranean dance party. A sign on the far wall denoted that any more than 197 people would constitute a fire hazard, which highlighted both the intimate nature of the show and its appropriate South-by-Southwesty feel. The shaggy Spaniards boldly opened the show with the single "Seasun," a blissful pop anthem from last year's EP, though the bulk of the set was comprised of the full-length album, Subiza, which will see its release in June.
I’ve grown a little skeptical of electro-pop performances, because they can easily become too reliant on a pre-recorded backbone (see the preceding act, Lemonade’s fumblings with an iPod to begin most numbers). I was hoping that we’d see a real drummer, and not just a few guys pressing buttons. My expectations were exceeded by the talented back beat of Igor Escudero, who played the minimalist “prove it” kit. That is, the bare necessities of what it takes for a drummer to exhibit his skills: bass drum, snare, hit-hat, and crash cymbal. Prove it he did, beating relatively simple rhythms out of his limited kit, with the augmentation of a small pad of midi-triggers to kick things over the edge when needed.
Fellow sampler and guitarist Guillermos Astrain wore a sling in support of a broken collarbone which he suffered last Saturday. The trooper was thus prevented from strumming strings but not from plunking keys and twisting knobs integral to the organic nature of the synthesized soundscape. It was as though we were watching another Animal Collective who hadn’t suffered the mysterious disappearance of a fourth member, and who had resolved to make music in equal parts more accessible and more likely to be heard in a Portuguese club.
Lazcano, our aforementioned surfer, was reminiscent of AC’s Geologist as his duties included tapping small black pads and bobbing his sweaty, bearded head accordingly. The Collective comparisons continued in Delorean’s layering of drawn out vocal lines drenched in reverb, except that they were mostly in sample form. The live lyrics were spouted energetically from front man Ekhi Lopetegi over the melodic thumps of his bass guitar. All this AC talk is happily inevitable because both groups tout a heavy influence of house music and reliance on ground-shaking atmospheric samples. But there’s nothing experimental about driving verses giving way to hopelessly dancey chorus explosions bent on making you move. Au contraire, the sound was extremely calculated, and the desired reaction achieved throughout the concise set.
Delorean’s 2009 release, Ayrton Senna EP, marked their arrival on the electronic music scene, but the ability to manifest the luminescence of new, more mature tracks suggests that these guys might be around awhile. At the very least, they’ve certainly outgrown the coziness of the Mercury Lounge.