Introducing: Smoke Room
So here comes Reviler, walking in with our tails between our legs. Apparently Radio K has been playing Smoke Room, a local electronic dance music producer, for months, and here we’ve been listening to Replacements records on repeat. (Okay, so that last part was a joke.) As much of a fan of electronica as I am, this particular musician totally dodged my radar. I hadn’t seen his name playlists or posters until I peeped on the bill for the Waveforms showcase at Honey Lounge tonight. (Check the poster below.)
Smoke Room plays a fuzzy variant of house with both a West Coast swagger and an industrial harshness, a style of electronic that I haven’t heard out of Minnesota yet. Pulling on unexpected strains of instrumental hip hop, glitch, house, and R&B, Smoke Room complements unique and danceable electronica with evocative vocal samples. Although this totally dates me, I’m not too embarrassed to say that there’s something reminiscent of Moby’s Play album in Smoke Room’s sampling: an attuned sense of the human voice as an instrument and a multicultural penchant. Smoke Room uses these samples—from Asian infomercials to grime hip hop remixes—Smoke Room to compliment his spatially complicated beats. Listen to Vol. 2 below.
I’m also excited to see a live performance by Ghostbug, another local producer that has rocked my 2012 playlist. Also playing: America’s Crumbling Infrastructure and Lewis and Burnet. Five dolluhs. Eighteen plus. Whatever.
—Will Wlizlo (@willwlizlo)
