Worshipping At The Electronic Skychurch
By Aimee Spanier
Oz promised you a rave. You got a rave. The spacious main room of the
Palace, which just a few hours earlier was filled with business-types
deeply involved in industry-talk, is now packed to capacity with young,
energetic ravers. Onstage is Electronic Skychurch, a techo outfit that
is filling what's left of the space in the room with loud, pulsating
music.
Electronic Skychurch's frontwoman, clad in a flowing white sheath, is
leading the crowd through the songs with her deep, rich, smooth voice.
She sings. She dances. She hums. She jumps. She do-do-yeahs. She
twirls. And the audience mimics her, dancing and jumping and twirling
and singing right along with her. She's not, apparently, used to such
an enthusiastic response. "Stop it guys," she says shyly between songs.
"You're going to make me cry." Fazed for just a moment, she leaps right
back into the next song without missing a single, thumping beat.
The trio-singer, percussionist and sampler-are creating sound that
slips in your ears, charges down your spine and takes control of your
limbs, making you spin and leap wantonly. The music comes in short
bursts of repetition, seamlessly looped and endlessly infectious. It's
the kind of music, says one witness, that "fills your head tonight and
clears it in the morning." Exactly. You can't hear. You can't think.
You can't do anything but let the music take you where it will.
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