Review: GRiZ
Photo and Review by McLane Brown
October 15, 2017
OPIUO started 5 minutes early much to people’s surprise, but wanted to try out a pretty mellow opening before officially kicking off the night with Big Wild and GRiZ. Jamming away on his drum pad, Oscar Darvey-Wraight brought the crowd in with his diverse mix of music based around funk and bass twisted with electronic influences. While maintaining a casual attitude, there was a sense about his music and performance that he was there to introduce people to new sounds and ideas. His self-described genre on Facebook is quite a mouthful ("Broken-frog-stomping-funkadelic-hippo-hop-monkey-crunk-chunky-bouncy-stomach-morphing-bassdolloping-scrumptious-bowl-of-glitchy-bass-love") that gives a sense of the complexity in his music in a playful manner, very similar to how he presented himself on stage.
Following a similar style of wide influences and experiments in music was Jackson Stell going by Big Wild. His setup on stage was unique in that it was wide open, leaving the stage open for him to do whatever he wanted. The lights during his set were pretty wild in color and intensity, but gave a cool vibe to his music with smoke and an LED screen. His setup and skill as a musician really combined well to let him be all over, creating melodies and adding in crashes on the cymbal to his varied styles.
Going along with the open feel that Big Wild brought in, Grant Kwiecinski going as GRiZ came on stage alone with nothing else on stage, making it his with the saxophone before bringing on two LED cubes and Muzzy Bearr, a guitarist on his label All Good Records who often plays with him live. Kwiecinski is great at engaging the audience with jumping around the stage, dancing and somehow still being able to play the sax. He brought some real intimacy into the show partway through his set by setting one of their control LED boxes to the middle of the stage and gathering around a campfire on it while the big screen in the back played meteors flying through the sky over some desert cliffs. The howling saxophone fit right in the scene and it ended up being a pretty cool and unexpected change of pace from the usual loudness and intensity behind GRiZ’s funky electronic music.
OPIUO started 5 minutes early much to people’s surprise, but wanted to try out a pretty mellow opening before officially kicking off the night with Big Wild and GRiZ. Jamming away on his drum pad, Oscar Darvey-Wraight brought the crowd in with his diverse mix of music based around funk and bass twisted with electronic influences. While maintaining a casual attitude, there was a sense about his music and performance that he was there to introduce people to new sounds and ideas. His self-described genre on Facebook is quite a mouthful ("Broken-frog-stomping-funkadelic-hippo-hop-monkey-crunk-chunky-bouncy-stomach-morphing-bassdolloping-scrumptious-bowl-of-glitchy-bass-love") that gives a sense of the complexity in his music in a playful manner, very similar to how he presented himself on stage.
Following a similar style of wide influences and experiments in music was Jackson Stell going by Big Wild. His setup on stage was unique in that it was wide open, leaving the stage open for him to do whatever he wanted. The lights during his set were pretty wild in color and intensity, but gave a cool vibe to his music with smoke and an LED screen. His setup and skill as a musician really combined well to let him be all over, creating melodies and adding in crashes on the cymbal to his varied styles.
Going along with the open feel that Big Wild brought in, Grant Kwiecinski going as GRiZ came on stage alone with nothing else on stage, making it his with the saxophone before bringing on two LED cubes and Muzzy Bearr, a guitarist on his label All Good Records who often plays with him live. Kwiecinski is great at engaging the audience with jumping around the stage, dancing and somehow still being able to play the sax. He brought some real intimacy into the show partway through his set by setting one of their control LED boxes to the middle of the stage and gathering around a campfire on it while the big screen in the back played meteors flying through the sky over some desert cliffs. The howling saxophone fit right in the scene and it ended up being a pretty cool and unexpected change of pace from the usual loudness and intensity behind GRiZ’s funky electronic music.