PragueDJ.com

When one considers the electro music scene in Prague, “innovative” is not the first word that comes to mind. Go into Roxy or Mecca any night of the week and mostly you’ll find

the same ‘ol lineups of DJs spinning yesterday’s house beats like there’s no tomorrow. Now don’t get me wrong, that’s not to say I don’t enjoy a nice smoky strobe tits and acid grind every once in a while, but when compared to our Berlin neighbors, Prague’s club scene seems void of that extra creative energy … the kind of vibe that you find in a rundown graffiti-speckled warehouse rather than posh and polished spots along Dlouha. Prague needs to get with it, and fortunately this Saturday (Feb 28th), Palac Akropolis is waking this city up out of its cold hibernation via the glitch-hop euro-crunk sounds of Berlin duo Gernot Bronsert and Sebastian Szary aka MODESELEKTOR!

So get it together … this is a show worth grabbing the 9 to Lipanska for some seriously innovative grooves the likes of which are rarely heard around here. This is the future. It’s evolution, baby!

Incorporating a wide range of influences, Modeselektor defies typical techno taxonomy with a style that can only be reached in the genre-netherworld where the likes of Spank Rock, Thom Yorke, ODB (R.I.P.) and James Holden hang out, party together, and get crunked out of their minds. Elements of electro, rock, hip-hop, and ambient all congeal in Modeselektor’s multifaceted repertoire that features a number of collaborators from across the musical spectrum. While tracks like “The Dark Side of the Sun” and “Silikon (ft. Sasha Perera)” scratch digitally blenderized vocals into hip-hop synth rhythms , others like “The White Flash (ft. Thom Yorke)” and “Edgar” trail off into the emotive corridors of alien soundscapes where the likes of M83 and DJ Shadow often dwell. Weaving effortlessly in and out of these various “modes,” Bronsert and Szary color their electronic dubstep/hip-hop blend with machine-generated noise that sputters and spits to life with an organic buzz and whir not heard since Yorke’s 2000 millennial masterpiece, Kid A.

As for their performance, Modeselektor shrugs off traditional confines yet again by broadening their electro horizon to reach beyond the discothèques. In a 2007 interview with Beatportal, Szary tells how “with some tracks we wanted to create a club feeling … more dance floor oriented, and then there are tracks that we use to tell a story.” What kind of story, it’s not exactly clear, however from the sound of it, I’m sure it involves robots, lasers and Rick Rubin ala Dan Wilson’s How to Survive a Robot Uprising … just a guess. Regardless, Modeselektor builds a bridge between these two distinct corners, and in doing so, appeals to both vacuous clubscenesters and cerebral musical meditators. If you go, expect to see both on the scene groovin’ in discordant harmony … the music will be goin’ in and out of trip-hop dubstep and hip-hop loop de loops for proper rhythm and accompaniment.