Gel Set

So on Wednesday     December off I went to Empty Bottle to go see Laura Callier of https://soundcloud.com/gel-set Gel Set. Actually what got me there was Magic Key and I just stayed for Gel Set. I did not get there in time to see the other two performers that night. So Gel Set was there to promote her new cassette.....yeah I said cassette. It's called Microsoftcore XXXCell.The crowd was large at the Bottle, and I can tell that when parking the car. This was my first time seeing GS and the room made me feel like I was the only one that can say that. It's a different experience seeing others enjoy it, while I'm barely discovering it. This is not a complaint on my part, just a recognition that I need to catch up. I can see people dancing in the front. They knew what they were dancing to, and so that helped to get me into it. Esta Fiesta Apesta  I recall hearing live and dancing myself. I couldn't just take pictures dispassionately. Yet this is Empty Bottle. They do things differently there, including what we dance to. So if your definition of "dance music" does not stray far from house music perhaps you may be disappointed. All the common trappings of electronic dance music are evident here, a part of it at least and apparently repurposed for the darkened fog. Just listen to the spark, the first ten, twenty seconds of a Gel Set song, and the urge to dance is roused. We usually don't question the purpose of dance music, right?  The movements just come.  But this is not just straight up dance candy. That draws you in first, then comes the mysterious to surround you. But still like a kid doing some serious urban exploration in some abandoned building like in Ghost Adventures.  There is mystery here, perhaps something dangerous, but your childlike wonder can't help it.  So in you go, past the threshold of what is familiar. That warm exciting, electronic spark that got you dancing turns cold and minimal. The gritty beats that got you there drift into the background. There is lots of space between all instruments used, voice, synths, beats. Hmm, like a haunted house, not much needs to happen for it to make you believe it  to happen. My sister when she was a kid randomly woke up one time in the middle of the night and saw one of her creepy dolls wink at her. So you don't need lyrics to make sense for them to feel significant, just listen to Perfect Place To Dump A Body. Just a few phrases repeated and thats all you really need. Everything that normally is out in front, especially the dance music element (for lack of a better way of putting it) hovers in the background, or is not over used. She keeps the most vicious dogs on a tight metal chain, but she does have them and we know it. OK, no real dogs were harmed in the use of this metaphor, and I don't believe that Ms Laura would harm any real dogs either.

Zig