Star Slinger, Mux Mool
House of Blues' Cambridge Room
October 13, 2011
Better than: yesterday's Rangers game.
Perhaps you've heard of Star Slinger by now. His smooth, sexy and sample-heavy hip-hop beats have earned him accolades from nearly every music publication and caught the attention of artists and labels the world around. To date, he's worked on a masive number of remixes for everyone from The Morning Benders to Nicki Minaj. And he doesn't show signs of slowing down soon.
After a planned tour with Braids and Baths fell through last year due to visa issues (which included a 24-hour detainment of Star Slinger in the Atlanta airport), he sorted his paperwork and has now embarked upon a huge U.S. tour with shows in over 30 cities.
His show in Dallas came hot off the heels of a slew of sold-out West Coast dates, including an L.A. show where even the infamous Paris Hilton was in attendance. On Wednesday night, he played in Austin to a packed house, where the zealous crowd even bumrushed the stage halfway through the set.
But this is Dallas.
The show started promptly at 9:30, and not a quarter of the room was filled by
10 o'clock. Hopes pinned on the "fashionably late" concert crowd,
Brooklyn's Mux Mool took the stage, blasting out a genre-defying albeit
somewhat spastic set. While his music was genre-bridging, which
deserves some respect, it fell flat in that it was too frenetic for
dancing. As a warm up act, though, he did his job, leaving the audience wanting
for more.
At 11:15 sharp, Star Slinger took the stage with a short
introduction: "I'm going to play some beats for you," he said.
And what beats they
were.
Eschewing turntables in exchange for a live setup of computer-generated
stems hooked to a sampler pad and a mixer, Star Slinger breathed new
life into his vast catalogue of songs. He opened with his new and first
"official" single, "Dumbin," which, despite being released a mere two
weeks ago, has already received support from such heavy-hitters as Annie
Mac on BBC1, and Dallas-favorite Diplo.
The live version of the track
featured considerable modulation, as was the case with all the songs in
his set. While on record his songs are often hazy and looping, his live
mixing, which included exaggerated syncopation and the frequent edition
of rapid staccato claps, lent a unique energy and danceability to the
songs.
Indeed, Star Slinger repeatedly urged the audience to dance, and though
the room never came even close to filling, he threw down hard for those
that were there and willing, delighting the loyal fans that had made it
out.
Though the night started with the crowd merely swaying politely in
time with the rises and falls of the warm, deep bass,
everyone had warmed up by the night's end. In fact, one guy even busted out some full on
staying-alive style disco dancing. Everyone cheered graciously when a
favorite song came on -- namely any of his works from Star Slinger's Volume 1 mixtape.
He ended the set by asking the audience what they wanted to hear -- a
good move considering the intimate nature of the night. As such, "Punch Drunk
Love" was the closer, the last fading hint of reverb marking the close
of something pretty special.
Critic's Notebook
Personal Bias: I own every Star Slinger remix. And there's a ton of them.
Random Note: Shout out to the token black guy reeking like a combo of
weed and maple syrup and jamming his ass off the whole time. You go, dude.
That's what this is all about.
By The Way: You all totally missed out.
