Electric Zoo Festival Cut Short by Two Deaths

The tone of the festival had already changed on Saturday. My shoulder bag was searched far more thoroughly on the way in than on Friday and through the day Made Events representatives made sober announcements onstage urging people to rest hydrate get help for anyone in trouble and not to overdo alcohol and drugs the last of which drew some laughs. MDMA though it s dangerous in excess like any drug has long been associated with dance music it makes people happy energetic and affectionate and since getting the innocuous name Molly it has been turning up in lyrics which D.J. s often sample and add into mixes.

Last year at the Ultra Music Festival introducing the D.J. producer Avicii (who headlined Electric Zoo on Friday) Madonna whose 2012 album was called MDNA asked the audience How many people in this crowd have seen Molly (She later insisted it wasn t a drug reference.) At Electric Zoo the word was all over T shirts one group of five people had coordinated bright yellow ones with a single letter on each M O L L Y. It s part of the dance music landscape unremarkable until people die.

And that news casts a sorrowful shadow over what was supposed to be a celebration. Electronic dance music is purposefully single mindedly life affirming all about being alive in the moment awash in sensation. Hip hop rock RB and of course the blues are well aware of struggle sadness mortality memory and anticipation as they tell stories and fill their song forms electronic dance music takes place in an eternal present.

There the visceral body shaking impact of deep bass the hypnotic repetitiveness of the beat the pealing purity or larger than life roughness of the electronic sounds the lyrics about joy and letting go and feeling love the dazzling and dizzying lights and the communal energy of a dance floor are all mechanisms for fully experiencing the here and now kinetically and immediately. Mechanisms evolve technology has given them a lot more flash and firepower in the digital era but the aspiration they satisfy may well be hard wired into our bodies. With or without MDMA electronic dance music makes for joyful sociable crowds pumping up the endorphins.

Even though it was cut short Electric Zoo still offered nearly 100 sets over its first two days a sweeping survey of dance music. A small generally underattended tent held die hards of deep house and techno John Digweed Justin Martin vs. Eats Everything Claude VonStroke Cassy Green Velvet Scuba playing seamless incrementally evolving mesmerizing sets. On the big stages it brought back many regulars who headline festivals worldwide Avicii David Guetta Tiesto Benny Benassi Above Beyond Hardwell.

They play the house and trance music whose bouncing marching beats now also pulsate in Top 10 pop. And because they are now in demand as remixers of pop hits they can largely string together their own efforts nearly all moving at the same beats per minute. Hardwell made his set seesaw between earnest vocals and stark stomping beats Tiesto modulated smoothly playing what sounded like one long anthem with a parade of different vocalists. Other house D.J. s less eager for singalongs built different kinds of sets Sander van Doorn with one dramatic intensifying minor key instrumental wavelet after another and Madeon with dozens of quick segues from hook to hook often merely seconds long.

The dominance of house and trance as big room dance music has lately been challenged by dubstep originally an arty murky British style that Americans have turned into a swerving lurching assault switching from full speed to half speed or unleashing a blast of distortion without warning. Over the last year dubstep s most brazen effect the skidding shuddering deep diving trick called the drop has made its way into TV commercials and movie trailers trance and house D.J. s have also learned it and more than a few sets at Electric Zoo interrupted the cheerful steady head bobbing momentum of house with a stretch of dubstep.

But the dubstep D.J. s some of whom also had main stage spots this year strove to stay ahead of formula. Flux Pavilion Datsik Dog Blood UZ and Bassnectar reached toward dubstep s reggae underpinnings drew on hip hop grabbed some of punk rock s momentum and aimed for the unexpected Bassnectar even tried a remix of Nina Simone s Feelin Good. Dubstep is also dealing with an upstart challenge trap music emerging out of hip hop over the last decade. Dubstep is dense and bass loving trap is hollow with sparse bass lines nasal synthesizer riffs and spatters of snare drum.

The crisp sounds of trap turned up during sets of dubstep hip hop and house and they have made a fluent convert of R L Grime the new moniker of a house D.J. called Clockwork. One of Electric Zoo s most head turning sets was by Baauer the trap D.J. whose Harlem Shake became a YouTube phenomenon but who shouldn t be dismissed as a novelty. His set repeatedly leapfrogged across tempos and genres sometimes funny sometimes jolting giving dancers a challenge they were eager to accept. It was the kind of party Electric Zoo was supposed to be one that should have ended with everyone home safely.

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