Flume has been pushing the envelope in live electronic performance. His focus on stepping away from the CDJ has created a sub culture of artists who truly believe that electronic music can be the new stage show, and not just a club DJ. Flume’s live setup has constantly evolved and I have been paying close attention to it! What really caught my eye was when he came into the ABC (my main hustle) to do a cover of the song ‘My Boo’, was his new rig. You can watch it here:
So what you can see is that he is running no DJ decks! Most of his sounds are played out of the launchpad through ableton. He also has a drum pad, a drum machine and a synth. To most people this isn’t that amazing, but to me this is game changing. Flume uses instruments and integrates them seamlessly into electronic music.
There are several videos of Flume performing in this manner but the day that really caught my eye was when I saw him live at ‘Laneways’ in Sydney, Australia. The group Hermitude played just before him, but I will have a post about that later on! I think it is amazing to find people like me who are stepping away from the DJ decks and actually approaching their music as if they are part of a band. We have seen Skrillex do this more with his vocals over tracks, with his super group Jack U too!
Most people when they hear electronic music performance either immediately think “DJ” or “Experimental” but I am here to tell you fuck yes, there is such a thing! We are a small growing culture that is showing the true potential of the one man band, and how great it can be live! The industry is changing and so are we.
Back to Flume (sorry)! What amazes me about his performance is how much I can pull out of it and learn. I watch how he exaggerates beats and leads with his instruments adding human performance into the mix. One of the most important things I have picked up with this craft is “pick the most expressive parts of a song, and play that!” This means playing leads, drum hits, bass growls and vocals, anything that really stands out. The human ear can only really focus on one or two things at once so you need to be playing those elements to please the eye of the audience.
The main parts of making your performance not a DJ set is:
- Play the main parts of every song, Leads etc.
- Don’t DJ mix all your songs, Stop and show that these are songs of yours!
- Audience interaction and participation, Talk to the audience and show them what you do for Christ sake!
- Convincing visuals are essential, don’t just trigger scene! What you do should be what is heard!
- You FX need to stand out, they need to have a visual effect of an arm swing and the sound needs to change drastically!
- Hide your laptop. (Just a personal preference of mine.)
- Always think bigger and act better!
