This past Saturday, hometown hero Cities Aviv, in tandem with the chic chick rap duo Dark Sister, set up an appealing off-kilter hip hop show. The evening acted as a launch platform for Cities to explode into SXSW, as well as gave Dark Sister a voice for their ironic rap.
Their sets were fantastic and successfully crowd pleasing, but the building blocks to the night’s highest point were stacked on the shoulders of openers Persona La Ave and Rimar, with their respective takes on modern-day beats with throwback inspiration.
Hosted at everyone’s favorite show spot, The HiTone Cafe, the night hit an early stride on strong legs. Persona La Ave opened up the evening by literally working out of a suitcase that housed his equipment. Persona has a huge leaning towards dance trends circa the late 1980s-90s, and it showed with his drum and synthesizer tones.
Swelling chord progressions swirled around bouncy beats that evaded swing timings in lieu of clinging close to gridwork. That isn’t to say the music lacked a loose vibe—funky synth stabs fueling stanky chord progressions gave plenty of soul to the arrangements.
Distancing himself from the expected hands-off electronic musician role, Persona constantly threw time-based effects on the mix. This perpetual influx of slow-down, speed up, cut/chop, and screw took out the robotic element so often distastefully associated with live ventures of electronic music.
“Soul Sex” was the standout track—the bass punches relentless grooves of psuedo-cheesy tones that you remember from being a kid, and, I promise, would love to hear again in this beat-heavy light. The way its harsh tones poked out of the rest of Persona’s synthy texture-heavy set was a perfect segue to the upcoming act’s low-end material.
Up next was New York beatmaker Rimar. Helping make referencing ’80s beats the evening’s trend, Rimar drew heavily from producers of yesteryear to add reminiscent flairs to his modern beats. At the apex of his set, his snares took over and were gigantic synthetic- or sample-based monsters straight out of the ’80s, recalling similar hits as tracks like ZZ Tops’ “Rough Boy” or Berlin’s “Take my Breathe Away.”
At times, the snare work would have been over the top, but the modern hi-hat/kick work kept things close to ground and the groove heavy. Rimar didn’t rely on said tones all night; songs like “I Still Feel a Certain Way About You” provided plenty of contrast with pitchtwisting vocal samples that held hands with the kit’s rhythm and provided ample reason to bob ya head.
Swampy like Avey Tare and as heavy as any Low End Theory act, Rimar’s ’80s flare beats seemed delightfully approachable and indifferently dissonant; this “too cool for school” attitude was entirely too addicting and only gave incentive for us to become more familiar with the New York native.
After Rimar left a thick rim of stank in the HiTone’s already notoriously dank atmosphere, the night still had plenty of energy. As always, Cities Aviv played his audience like an MPC and went through crowd favorites like “fuckeverybodyhere” and “Coastin” with loads of loving feedback from those in attendance.
Dark Sister closed with sinister beats and overt sex-referencing lyricism spotlighted when they performed “Red Velvet.” The hip hop that ended the night was fantastic, but seeing new forms of beat production is like Christmas in March, and other than the local love for Cities, the crowd would likely agree the night belonged to Rimar and Persona La Ave.
A fantastic reminder to always keep your eyes on the horizon for new music from distant places, Saturday was an enormously successful swagged-out par-tay. Keep your eyes peeled for Cities Aviv’s showcases at SXSW (1/2) and his recently released “Flex Your Gold” and “Wet Dream.” You can find out about Dark Sister and their four-song release Hag Swag on Bandcamp. Don’t forget to show some love to Persona La Ave’s SoundCloud by dropping some comments and then Rimar’s BandCamp by dropping a few bucks for his album Closer—you will not be disappointed!
Photos by Stephanie Wallace
