Show Review: Jon Hopkins at The Crocodile

July 28, 2014 Dan Tice Jon Hopkins, The Crocodile

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Wednesday July 23rd, Jon Hopkins came through to Seattle’s Crocodile Cafe to play a stellar set along with openers Nordic Soul, and Teebs.

Nordic Soul

The show started off with Seattle’s own Nordic Soul. Quiet strings panned lightly with spots of percussion intermittently pecking throughout the opening track. Once people started pouring into the venue the tempo would increase and the sound became louder and more aggressive. A wonderful remixed version of Radiohead’s, “Climbing Up the Walls” played halfway through the set, which featured female vocals and great down tempo instrumentation. By the end of the set the sound became sporadic, glitchy, and somewhat abrasive while still maintaining the sounds being played with in the beginning.

Teebs

Teebs came on with a BANG. Sharp percussion and naturalistic sound effects littered with heavy bass made the whole crowd dance almost immediately. Much of the material gave a strong vibe of something that maybe Flying Lotus would have played after dropping 1983. Which makes sense as an influence considering Teebs is associated with Brainfeeder and even had a hand in some production on the Captain Murphy release Duality. At a certain point in the set Teebs played off a small sample and improvised an amazing 10+ minute track off the one idea, it was fun to watch and you could tell he was digging every minute of the performance.

Jon Hopkins

After hearing a fair amount of Jon Hopkins’ recorded material before coming to the show I had anticipated a quiet, trance-like electronic set. This would not be the case. The set started out loud and ended the same way, and it was glorious from start to finish. A lot of the material I recognized from his most recent album Immunity, but with more knocking bass, more urgency, and overall just more dance suited tracks. With a small encore after the main set, everything throughout the performance felt so connected. He did an amazing job of playing to the audience and creating a live show that felt different from his recordings, but similar enough to be recognized by fans.

If you are ever given the opportunity, go and see these acts. You will not be disappointed.