Two electronic duos descended upon The Parish Friday: Digitalism their lively mix of electro-punk, and Data Romance with a darker, seductive feel. One of the top indie dance acts in the world, Digitalism brought their well-practiced live show to a sold-out crowd.

Data Romance was the lone act opening for Digitalism, and although they consider themselves somewhat new to touring, there was no evidence of that during their stellar performance. Hailing from Vancouver, Data Romance includes Amy Kirkpatrick on vocals and Ajay Bhattacharyya on keyboard, percussion and midi controllers.

Since Data Romance started promptly at 9 p.m. the crowd was still creeping in, but by the end of their 45 minute set the venue was already reaching capacity. Data Romance’s dark, powerful electronic tracks provided the perfect buildup to Digitalism’s high energy set.

While Data Romance’s music pulled from several influences, their sound was refreshingly unique. Kirkpatrick’s vocals had similarities to Saddle Creek Record’s Azure Ray, but with more gusto. Kirkpatrick’s vocal delivery also made us draw comparisons to Emily Haines of Metric and Imogen Heap, as well. Her voice was soothing, yet powerful enough to rise over the loudest of synths. While The Parish’s great acoustics certainly helped, it was great to go to a concert and not have to strain one’s ears to understand the vocals.

The music behind Data Romance was delicately woven by Bhattacharyya. The synths never overwhelmed the vocals, yet their importance was always felt. In electronic music the backing synths and drums often take importance over vocals, but with Data Romance the music rode a careful balance with neither side overpowering the other.

For a relatively new group to the electronic scene, Data Romance definitely had their share of fans. On tracks like “Bullets” and “Spark” there were head bobbing teens galore, and phones recording video were abundant. After the holidays the group will continue work on their next full length album scheduled to come out in 2012.

As soon as Data Romance finished their set the crowd front of the stage instantly grew dense in anticipation for the headlining act. Thankfully, digitalism did not keep their fans waiting for very long.

The back of the stage was adorned with a large screen for visuals shaped like the hearts from the cover of their latest album, I Love You, Dude. Over a dozen LED towers dotted the stage, brightly springing to life before as the group walked on stage. A long table dotted with midi controllers, percussion and laptops contained a majority of their setup, and a full drum set was tucked away in the back of the stage.

Digitalism’s performance had the feel of a DJ set, yet the stage presence of a live band. Each song seamlessly blended into the next, with not a single pause until the encore. A lot of the songs were slightly different from their album counterparts, with new parts added and other sections extended or removed. This gave it a B-sides feel, but not so dissimilar from the originals that the audience didn’t know what was going on.

The crowd did not hold back at all. Sometimes the stereotypical hipster audience that listens to indie dance such as Digitalism might not be known to give off the most enthusiastic vibe on the dance floor, but this night was far from that. Encouraged by Digitalism’s Ismail Tufekci, it was more common than not to see the entire crowd jumping in unison with arms flailing out towards the stage. Flashing lights and strobes gave the ambiance of a club, but without the usual pretense.

There were plenty of tracks from Digitalism’s new album, and classics from Idealism as well. The crowd enthusiastically sang with Jens Moelle to “Pogo” as he belted out the lyrics at the front of the stage. Others tracks such as “Digitalism in Cairo” had fans attempting to spell out the words to the song, with a more garbled result. Digitalism actually covered part of The Cure’s “Fire in Cairo” before launching into their take on the classic. “Home Zone”, which has the memorable lyrics composed only of, “I had the weakest party ever, we had the weakest party ever”, brought the crowd to a feverish state with girls jumping on shoulders and audience members quickly being booted off stage.

A lot of Digitalism’s heavier tracks from their We Love You, Dude were played as well, including “Reeperbahn” with its screaming, distorted vocals, and the speedy “Antibiotics” with its grinding electro. We Love You, Dude was composed of more vocal laden tracks than previous endeavors, and a majority of those tracks such as “Circles, “Forest Gump”, and “Two Hearts” were belted out by Moelle and the eager crowd.

Overall, the show was a happy one. Weird, I know. That’s not a typical adjective often heard after a show. Perhaps fun, awesome, or intense are more common. Happy seems to make the most sense though. The attitude exhibited by the crowd and musicians is hard to explain any other way. Tuefekci, in particular, had a goofy grin on his face when he was playing most of the time. It was hard to not be happy when you see musicians who love their music and the crowd that absolutely adores them. Digitalism left everyone looking a lot sweatier, and perhaps there was a bit more pep in their step as they walked out into the mayhem on Dirty Sixth.

Interview

SWAAGER: If someone was about to your music for the first time how would you tell them to listen to it?
AMY KIRKPATRICK: Well, they would be wearing headphones for sure.
AJAY BHATTAVHARYYA: And it would be a dark place, no light, nothing else around so there would be no distractions.

SWAAGER: Was the music video for Spark as fun to shoot as it looked like it was?
AMY KIRKPATRICK: Yeah, it was fun, but it actually went by really quick.

SWAAGER: Are those real hearts?
AMY KIRKPATRICK: They were mostly goat hearts, and I some cow ones as well. We actually had two girls that were our on blood team who were in charge of the hearts.
AJAY BHATTAVHARYYA: It was an interesting situation we hadn’t dealt with before because anytime we touched the hearts we couldn’t touch anything else after that. Things like touching your face or other things you just don’t think about.
AMY KIRKPATRICK: Lots of Disinfecting.

SWAAGER: You guys are working on a new album at the moment; do you know when we can expect it?
AMY KIRKPATRICK: We’ve learned not to give a precise date on things like that, but we did some work on the album before we started touring, and once we get back home after the tour and spend Christmas with our families we’ll start work on it again.
AJAY BHATTAVHARYYA: So no definite date, but we’ll be working on it soon.

SWAAGER: What artists are influencing you the most right now?
AMY KIRKPATRICK: I’ve been listening to a lot of the new Bjork and Florence and the Machine lately. Also Nina Simone. I like to listen to some of the older stuff to draw inspiration. Ajay on the other hand is always looking for new music not much old stuff.
AJAY BHATTAVHARYYA: I’ve been listening to a lot of the new James Blake recently. We also shared a bus with Modeselektor one time, and I got into a lot of the groups on his record label. It’s really dark, techno sounding.

SWAAGER: Tell me a bit about your creative process. Do you write lyrics around the music or vice versa?
AJAY BHATTAVHARYYA: It used to be we would do bit of both, sometimes writing lyrics first and then making the music that fits it. Other times we found something we really liked musically and then worked with that. When we first started we weren’t in the same area so we actually would send recordings back and forth.
AMY KIRKPATRICK: A lot of times I’ll go to Ajay with some lyrics I’ve been working on, and we’ll work together on music from there. There really isn’t a set way we go about doing things it’s really whatever seems to work best at the time.

SWAAGER: Do your lyrics tend to focus on any certain topics or emotions?
AMY KIRKPATRICK: When I first started writing lyrics what I wrote was very personal, and it was based on real things that happened in my life. I still write about things that are personal to me, but at the same time I’d like to think I’m going in different directions now. I’m not so worried about what someone might think if the lyrics are related to me either, I’m more comfortable with it.

SWAAGER: A lot of electronica acts are doing DJ sets on the side, is that something you would ever consider doing?
AJAY BHATTAVHARYYA: It’s something I’ve thought about but nothing that is realistic at this time. Right now I’m focusing on recording and touring, and in order to DJ that would detract from my music I’m working on right now.
AMY KIRKPATRICK: I definitely have no interest.
AJAY BHATTAVHARYYA: We’ve been asked before but nothing ever happened with it. I think even if I did DJ the songs I played would be so up my own ass it probably wouldn’t be that much fun for anyone else.

SWAAGER: I noticed both of you have backgrounds related to visuals, is that incorporated into your live shows at all?
AMY KIRKPATRICK: Not at this point in time, we have a pretty small instrument setup right now, and barely have enough room on the stage. In the future it would be nice to do though.
AJAY BHATTAVHARYYA: We wouldn’t want to do visuals just to do them though, it was have to be something that actually adds to the music. A lot of acts out there have visuals more as a gimmick, and that’s not what we’d want to do.

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