Acronyms, ambient and missed ASCII

Leon Day, aka L.D., is a U.K.-based electronic dub DJ who deals in hybrids of jungle beats and Jamaican reggae samples and a capellas. His sound sits on the edge of hyper-tempo, post-D&B dub and the more recent half-tempo 2step sound. There are enough drum beats packed in there to make it sound urgent, but not quite enough to lose the slow reggae groove. He makes his North American debut this Saturday night at Komodo Dubs at the SAT. From what I understand, the SAT has dealt with its noise issues since the Benga fiasco a few weeks back, so the bass should be sufficient for this show.

I should also mention that party producers Neon are celebrating their 11th anniversary at Studio Juste pour rire on Friday, with headlining DJ JFK of MSTRKRFT.

Though I totally let last night’s Ascii.Disko show slip by me for this column last week, there are still four nights of industrial noise festival Kinetik left this weekend. Check out line-ups at festival-kinetik.net.

MUTEK Spotlight #4: Vladislav Delay. The MUTEK festival focuses a great deal of energy on the environment in which music is presented. Because of that, it provides an ideal space for many artists who would be poorly suited to a traditional concert setting. Take Finnish abstract ambient artist Vladislav Delay. He creates hypnotic, multi-textured collections of mechanical clanks, droning synths and quiet, funky bass lines with fleeting rhythms buried in the sound. I love putting him on in the early morning with a coffee or on my iPod on a bicycle in the near-empty late-night city. But MUTEK provides just the kind of weird, immersive setting in which such a subtle creature can thrive and be properly appreciated. Vladislav Delay also plays with the Moritz von Oswald Trio, who will be appearing at the festival. Sweet.

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