When Tim “Terrorbird” said there’d be new Rainbow Arabia songs and new Hecuba haircuts at this show, I blushed, “Hecuba Haircuts?!!” —Wow, a lot of them hairs was snipped. No bodysuit (Jerry) or wife beater (Tom) on these bods tonight. Instead, closed collar black long-sleeve shirts and matching sweatshop slippers, a lack of facial hair not framing some wide-open blue orbs—the prison camp high fashion twins thing going on can only be a metaphor for the great suffering of love for art. Or art for love. Or sacrifice inverting beauty and dang. No-eyebrow minimalism.

After Hecuba titillated mind, Rainbow Arabia got body shaking. Body hopped around a bonfire howling after keyboard yelps and cowbell rhythms. Body drifted to Caribbean seas and African deserts and colorful nonexistent places both sandy and wet to swing from trees. Are we not all creatures of the world? Rainbow’s manipulating “non-American” sounds into “American” dance structures stems from a nourishing place. What is it about their style that makes body so excited? The search for an answer continues.

Hecuba and Rainbow were meat and veggies in a DJ sandwich—which placed them comfortably in a rarely met (but fitting) context for them, a dance party. Ghosts On Tape and Lazer Sword were brought in by Friends Of Friends to celebrate the label’s ongoing collabo series. (The newest release is a Larytta/Bauchap split.) Ghosts On Tape’s samba-merengue-house beats had four people in the audience wiping the floor on their knees, booties whirling. It made me nostalgic for South Florida’s club scene, except without the thong contest. The bass hitting my limbs was a massage chair set on chill-out. Lazer Sword later capped the night. Tall and shorty tapped and swerved samples as if one mind floated before their eyes dictating the moves of a 4-handed beat monster. They operate heavy machinery like scientists or construction workers carving a shape with every twist and drop. At first I wondered if “lazer sword” was a penis thing, a man thing, but now I think it’s more of a video game thing, and the guys’ controllers grant them 360-3D-holographic manipulation. Racing against the electro clock to save the universe.

—Daiana Feuer (words and photo)

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