Moderat are back to mesmerizing their fans again following an extended hiatus as they demonstrate at The Wiltern

September 27, 2022 by 1 Comment

ModeratBy Josh Herwitt //

Moderat //
The Wiltern – Los Angeles
September 23rd, 2022 //

With the music industry still recovering from the COVID-19 pandemic over the last two and a half years, it’s not hard to find a concert worth catching in LA at the moment. Artists and bands across every scene have been trying to make up for lost time, and those more specifically in the world of dance music have been no different.

But it’s not every day that you get to see a top-notch electronic act perform live inside one of the city’s most historic music venues on a Friday night.

And in the case of Moderat, it took the German supergroup consisting of Sascha Ring (aka Apparat) and Modeselektor members Gernot Bronsert and Sebastian Szary more than six years to release their fourth studio album More D4ta as the follow-up to 2016’s phenomenal III. While that remains Moderat’s largest gap between full-length efforts, they haven’t forgotten how to captivate their audiences after going on an extended hiatus.

The Berlin-based three-piece was greeted by a strong turnout at The Wiltern for its first LA show since 2017 when Ring, Bronsert and Szary played The Mayan (read our show review here) in between what many fans have considered to be two career-defining performances at Coachella — and we truly can’t disagree with that assessment from what we saw during Weekend 1 (read our festival review here).

After all, there aren’t a whole lot of electronic-leaning acts out there who are doing anything like what Moderat does when it comes to their approach and sound as they fuse electronic beats and textures behind live vocals — led by Ring with Bronsert and Szary assisting — and instrumentation.

Moderat

Caribou would be another one that comes to mind after witnessing the Grammy nominee’s gig at LA’s Greek Theatre last November (read our show review here), but unlike Moderat, Dan Snaith has had a knack for mixing 70’s funk and soul as well as 90’s hip-hop and R&B into his music over the years.

While you won’t hear any of those genres on More D4ta that Moderat put out in May via Modeselektor’s own Monkeytown Records, there are some similarly hypnotic moments throughout the 10-track LP. Just take new singles “Fast Land” and “Easy Prey” for instance, the latter of which surprisingly wasn’t on the group’s LA setlist despite being performed in Oakland the evening prior along with its 2014 remix of Jon Hopkins’ “Abandon Window” (yeah, I guess you could say we’re jealous about that).

Regardless of whatever songs we didn’t to get hear before Ring, Bronsert and Szary headed south to CRSSD Festival, there was plenty to enjoy. From the opening lines of “Reminder” to the mesmerizing audio-visual experience of “Bad Kingdom” that entrances us every time, Moderat had a packed crowd hanging on every word that Ring delivered by the time they ran through an encore that concluded with “Les Grandes Marches” and “No. 22” off their 2009 self-titled debut from what feels like ages ago.

There also aren’t many acts, electronic or not, that will come back out for a second encore. Moderat are built a little bit differently in that way though, and based on the applause they were showered with at The Wiltern, it wasn’t completely shocking to watch them return to the stage one last time and drop “Intruder” for those screaming “one more song!” at the top of their lungs.

Because after waiting five-plus years to tour the world again, can you really blame them?

Setlist:
Reminder
More Love
Animal Trails
Undo Redo
Doom Hype
Rusty Nails
Eating Hooks
Running
Neon Rats
Bad Kingdom
Ghostmother
A New Error

Encore #1:
Fast Land
Les Grandes Marches
No. 22

Encore #2:
Intruder

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After more than two years, Telefon Tel Aviv finally gets the chance to entrance fans at Lodge Room before taking a break from performing

August 2, 2022 by 1 Comment

Telefon Tel AvivBy Josh Herwitt //

Telefon Tel Aviv with Chasms //
Lodge Room – Los Angeles
July 29th, 2022 //

More than a decade has passed since Joshua Eustis tragically lost the other half of Telefon Tel Aviv.

Forming the band with his high school friend Charles Cooper in 1999, the two would go on to release an EP, three LPs and a number of remixes together while carving out their own space in the glitch and IDM scenes alongside Leftfield, The Future Sound of London and Boards of Canada to name a few. But just two days after unveiling their third full length Immolate Yourself, Cooper was found dead.

Cooper’s accidental death marked a major turning point for Eustis. Had the time come for him to shut it down for good or should he continue to make music under the TTA moniker in honor of his bandmate?

Over the next four years, Eustis would find himself working with other bands. He co-produced Puscifer’s Conditions of My Parole in 2011 and then toured with Nine Inch Nails, manning any instrument that was requested of him whether it was guitar, bass, keyboards, saxophone or even the erhu.

Eustis, though, wasn’t ready to give up on a solo career quite yet so he returned to the studio in 2014 after NIN’s “Tension Tour” to focus on a different project named Sons of Magdalene before turning his attention to recording the first TTA album without Cooper.

Telefon Tel Aviv

The end result, almost five years later, would be 2019’s Dreams Are Not Enough. The nine-track effort on Ghostly International officially put TTA back on the map as it garnered high praise from music critics, including Pitchfork (if you can believe that), and offered him the chance to take the stage again.

So when Eustis announced in early 2020 that he would be playing a TTA show in his current hometown, it was an opportunity to cross another 90’s electronic act off my bucket list. Of course, the performance would end up being rescheduled twice due to the COVID-19 pandemic, but it finally came to fruition last Friday at LA’s Lodge Room inside the same historic, three-story building that the Highland Park Masonic Temple once called home.

To make things all the more special, Eustis had previously said on social media in advance that Lodge Room and Grey Area in San Francisco would serve as TTA’s final two dates in support of Dreams Are Not Enough and the last ones he’ll perform live (“like, not DJing” in his words) stateside for a while.

That might not be what TTA fans outside of California wanted to hear after waiting patiently for live music to come back safely, yet given the fact that Eustis has produced Apparat, Drab Majesty, Tropic of Cancer and Vatican Shadow among others and spent a few years in synthwave trio The Black Queen with Greg Puciato and Steven Alexander of The Dillinger Escape Plan, it’s not hard to understand why he’s taking a break now.

And while no one knows how “long” it will be except for maybe Eustis, if this was the only night I ever got to see TTA in the flesh, it will certainly not go lost on me.

Setlist:
Intro
The Means Whereby Lovers Are Waylaid
A Younger Version of Myself
Standing at the Bottom of the Ocean
Mouth Agape
What It Is Without the Hand That Wields It
Introductory Nomenclature
Something Akin to Lust
Not Breathing
Arms Aloft
Mean Friend (Telefon Tel Aviv Remix)

Encore:
I Dream of It Often
The Birds

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Modeselektor return to U.S. soil & pound our ears with their new material at a sold-out Echoplex

April 11, 2019 by Leave a Comment

ModeselektorBy Josh Herwitt //

Modeselektor //
Echoplex – Los Angeles
April 4th, 2019 //

As electronic music continues to evolve in 2019, it appears as if the EDM craze that once was has started to fade. Sure, dance-centric festivals such as Ultra, EDC and Electric Zoo continue to thrive, but the amount has slowly tapered off over the last few years with hip-hop and R&B grabbing more of the mainstream spotlight lately.

So, where does a veteran electronic act like Modeselektor fit into the equation these days?

We’re not quite sure to be honest, but after making music together for more than two decades, Gernot Bronsert and Sebastian Szary are still selling out clubs with their dark, pulsating beats and brash, in-your-face sounds.

The Berlin IDM (short for “Intelligent Dance Music”) duo is a favorite of Radiohead frontman Thom Yorke’s believe it or not and yet, has only released four studio albums to go along with a handful of EPs since forming in 1996. Although to be completely fair, their side project with fellow German electronic musician Apparat (born Sascha Ring) under the name Moderat has also been quite the success in recent years as we have witnessed on more than one occasion, including the 2016 edition of Lightning in a Bottle (read our festival review here) and a stellar performance at The Mayan (read our show review here) in 2017 after playing Coachella’s first weekend (read our review here).

Modeselektor

One of those four LPs is Who Else, the eight-track release after a nearly eight-year layoff that dropped in February on Modeselektor’s own Monkeytown Records as the follow-up to 2011’s Monkeytown, which earned them a closing set in the Mojave Tent at Coachella a few months later where Yorke surprisingly joined them onstage for “Shipwreck” during Weekend 2.

At LA’s Echoplex last Thursday, we didn’t have the fortune of getting another surprise cameo from Yorke, but it was intriguing to see a sold-out crowd welcome Bronsert and Szary back to the City of Angels under the Modeselektor moniker for the first time in a long time (and on a school night no less). And considering they were only stopping through two U.S. cities — LA and NYC the night before at Elsewhere in Brooklyn — on this tour, the show felt a little extra special for those of us in attendance due to the circumstances.

Bronsert and Szary made mention of the jet lag that they were experiencing more than once, and with both now being of a certain age, it’s not quite as easy as it once was for them to get onstage night after night and do their thing. They certainly overcame it, as Szary jumped on top of their DJ booth several times while performing to engage an audience that conveyed its appreciation for his efforts (he even took a cigarette break onstage later on, too).

Who Else runs only 34 minutes long, with “Wealth”, “I Am Your God” and “Who” serving as its three singles, which meant that Modeselektor had time to sprinkle in some of their older material throughout a 17-song gig lasting roughly 90 minutes. One of those tracks was “The Black Block” off their 2007 sophomore full length Happy Birthday!, while even two remixed covers — Shed’s “Dark Planet” and Headhunter’s “Prototype” — were on the setlist. But the finale is what stuck out most, as Modeselektor showed Yorke some more love with an Atoms for Peace cover of “Default” on the supergroup’s lone record Amok that came out more than six years ago. It was a fitting choice given the connection Yorke has had with the outfit, and one that proved Bronsert and Szary, nevertheless, have what it takes to keep us right on our toes after all these years.

Setlist:
Grillwalker
Dark Planet (Modeselektor remix) (Shed cover)
WMF Love Song
Kalif Storch
German Clap
The Black Block
I Am Your God
(Unknown)
Prügelknabe
Wealth
Prototype (Modeselektor’s Broken Handbrake Remix) (Headhunter cover)
One United Power
Who
Wake Me Up When It’s Over
Berlin

Encore:
Blue Clouds
Default (Atoms for Peace cover)

Modeselektor

Modeselektor

Modeselektor

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At LA’s Mayan Theater, Moderat transport their fans to another world

April 27, 2017 by 2 Comments

ModeratBy Josh Herwitt //

Moderat //
Mayan Theater – Los Angeles
April 20th, 2017 //

One of the best performances we saw at Coachella (read our review here) this year was undoubtedly Moderat’s. As nighttime fell on the expansive polo field, the Berlin-based supergroup mesmerized the crowd inside the Mojave Tent with remixes of Jon Hopkins’ “Abandon Window” and “Eating Hooks” off their 2016 critically acclaimed LP III, which ranked as my favorite album of the year. It was one of those scintillating sets that often remind us why we keep returning to the Empire Polo Club in mid-April — and one we’ll remember for a long time.

But when Goldenvoice announced its Coachella sideshows in and around the three-day, two-weekend festival, it was natural to get excited about Moderat’s headlining show on 4/20 at the Mayan Theater in downtown LA. Comprised of Apparat’s Sascha Ring as well as Modeselektor members Gernot Bronsert and Sebastian Szary, the trio combines elements of house, minimal techno and Intelligent Dance Music (aka IDM) into a sound that’s solely their own. Because at a time when DJs have solidified themselves as the industry’s new rock stars for now, Moderat serve as a refreshing departure from the EDM avalanche that’s become so ubiquitous over the past several years.

Moderat

At The Mayan, Ring, Bronsert and Szary tailored the setlist primarily around III cuts such as “Ghostmother”, “Reminder” and “Animal Trails”, but it was older material, specifically “Les Grandes Marches” and “No. 22” from Moderat’s debut studio album, that closed the set and kept even the biggest fans on their toes. In fact, up to that point, they had yet to play a song from their sophomore full length, with the entire set stemming from their other two records. After a brief encore break though, that drought ended as they unleashed back-to-back songs from II, including fan favorite “Bad Kingdom”, which offers one of the coolest audio-visual experiences you’ll find at any concert, electronic or not (see for yourself here).

Moderat subsequently circled back to III, performing “Intruder” before exiting the stage to a rousing applause. Yet, when the house lights didn’t come on right away, the suspense began to build once again. Less than a minute later, the three-piece reemerged, giving the audience more than its money’s worth. Two-encore shows are usually reserved for high-profile groups with extensive catalogs like Radiohead, but Moderat have never played by any rules. Rather, they indulged us with one final song from III, treating our ears to the slow burn of “The Fool” as the clock neared midnight. For almost two hours on this night, Moderat transported us to another world. And for those of us who had just come back from spending three days in the desert, that’s exactly what we needed to cure those post-festival blues.

Setlist:
Ghostmother
A New Error
Running
Running (Shed Remix)
Abandon Window (Moderat remix) (Jon Hopkins cover)
Eating Hooks
Eating Hooks (Siriusmo Remix)
Rusty Nails
Reminder
Animal Trails
Les Grandes Marches
No. 22

Encore #1:
Milk
Bad Kingdom
Intruder

Encore #2:
The Fool

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