This past week, the tornado that is Fareveller hit ground in Memphis.
Acts like Ume and Those Darlins lit up stages and faces across a number of venues in midtown Memphis. Local and country-wide representation took turns bludgeoning Memphians with solid performances of great tunes. I had the opportunity to go see Eliot Lipp’s aural assault at Newby’s Memphis this past Friday, and luckily, lived to tell the tale.
Fellow beatmaker Mindelixir opened, playing plenty of what he’s known for—technical American dubstep is the name of his game, with plenty of mid-range wobble and super tight drum work. Mindelixir mixed his potions and dipped into instrumental hip hop by playing Hudson Mohawke’s crazy popular “Cbat,” but stayed above water for the most part with a tendency to only drop everyone’s favorite genre of womp womp.
After Mindelixir made his due, he introduced the main act. Eliot Lipp walked on stage in cool-colored attire and a nondescript half-grin, but within seconds of his first drop, it became overtly apparent—Lipp is a low-key looking gentleman that throws out some incredibly in-your-face heat.
He wasn’t alone, either. Lipp came in tandem with a stage drummer who added acoustic kit work to his electronic beats. The polyrhythm between the computer’s beat and the drum kits fills proved its use beyond a gimmick, being actively involved within the given tune. This especially became clear when Lipp dropped his own remix of the song that doesn’t seem to get played enough at venues: Jay-Z and Kanye West’s “Niggas in Paris.”
Lipp didn’t leave the performance completely up to his friends. Sporting an analog synth, Lipp painted nearly every song with varying patches. His sound design is uncanny, as the sounds that escaped his synthesizer ranged from high-end detuned funk aesthetic to low-end hip hop bass.
These patches spoke to his sound as he bounced from different forms of hip hop and EDM. He strode on, but never fully commited to the dubstep Mindelixir blitzed earlier—which satiated the crowd without oversaturating the overtly popular dance genre. After Lipp played his “set,” the show wasn’t hardly over. Mindelixir and Lipp began trading off on songs giving a varietal mix of one-two punches that ended the evening on a high note.
The evening left me full of new beats to attempt to get out of my head and plenty of reason to dance all the way to my car (and home). Lipp continues with his tour throughout the spring and summer. Be sure to find out more information about Eliot Lipp at his website.
