SHOW REVIEW: Nosaj Thing @ U Street Music Hall

It’s good to get outside of your favorite music genres every now and then. For me, that usually means heading into breaks, d&b, or dubstep, but this time I wandered away from those too. I stumbled across some of Nosaj Thing’s work by accident and happened to find out he was coming to U Street Music Hall, so I thought I’d check him out.

Sami started off the night on a surprisingly slow and funky groove. The early bird dancers liked it — it was especially good if you were there with your SO. He didn’t give us a taste of a heavier beat until 11, and even then he maintained a swath of dreamy chords that kept the tone light.

Nosaj Thing came on earlier than expected. I actually missed it because I stepped out for a cigarette. The entire audience turned out on the dance floor for the heavier beats and rap remixes — I caught a Kanye West track in there — and it was a pleasantly melodic mix but I couldn’t help noticing there wasn’t much movement in the audience. I’ll be the first to admit I don’t know how to dance to rap or hip hop. If a rapper has something to say, I want to hear it and I can’t do that while dancing. There are tracks you dance to and tracks that you sit and listen to, you know?

After half an hour, Nosaj started heading into purer electronica and I did like a lot of those tracks but Shazam had trouble catching them. He got the audience moving with a few tracks that my gut said were IDM, but don’t hold me to that. U Hall was already thinning out at that point, though. After a few tracks, he slowed down the tone again and that felt like the beginning of the end.

Shazam identified a track I particularly liked as “Sizzr” by Okzharp but apparently you can’t find a streamable copy that anywhere online. Here’s a similar track by the same artist:

The night ended early. At 1am I was already thinking about heading out and I wasn’t the only one: groups were leaving and the staff was closing up the front end. I’d be glad to have some mixes by Nosaj Thing in my iTunes but it just wasn’t right for a dark dance club without much in the way of seating options.