The Null Device
Posts matching tags 'mink engine'
2004/8/6
Last night, I went to see Mink Engine. They were pretty good; two people with laptops doing music and visuals. The music seemed to be largely prerecorded, though the visuals made the whole thing: there were definite Japanese influences there (bizarre anthropomorphised foodstuffs, cartoonish graphics, and photographs of teenage fashion victims in Harajuku or someplace like that, with amusing speech balloons superimposed over them), as well as a bit of early-80s-style high-tech lettering and some video of the two members of the group in action. What was the music like? Probably somewhere between Daft Punk and Felix Da Housecat; a very 80s-synthpop-referencing electrohouse sort of thing. It was all mixed in one mix, meaning that people could have danced to it had they not been transfixed and watching the visuals.
Afterward, Casionova played. This time he had visuals (on a VCD player; could these be the new MiniDisc backing tracks?). However, his show was beset with technical glitches; devices weren't plugged in properly or didn't work, and sometimes he spent a minute or two fiddling with gear. By the time the show got back on track, the video had run one song ahead of the show, and he seemed to have lost his confidence, and to be trying too conspicuously hard to please his audience (perhaps lest they start throwing cocktail limes at him or something), and cracking self-deprecating jokes about not having a girlfriend and risqué puns on "knob". The stage presence he had at Kent St. last week seemed to have largely evaporated. Though the visuals were good (in a geeky sort of way); had the rest of the show gone better, it would have been impressive.
