Economic travails and fashion week diminished the projected turnout of Metro Area’s debut of their monthly residency at Le Poisson Rouge, but that was arguably for the better. Judging from the crowd, everyone seemed to enjoy the comfortable distance. More room to boogie.
Metro Area’s greatest contribution to electronic music in this decade is their adept hybridization of disco and techno to date, mashing techno’s minimal structure and aggressive impact with disco’s sonic fetishes and opulent mien. In the late 90s, when most electronic music was based on instrumental hip-hop, deep house, jungle and big beat, Morgan Geist and Darshan Jesrani were tailoring their DJ sets with threads of disco, R&B and primordial versions of house and techno. Yet as these styles once again returned to the vogue settings of downtown nightclubs, Metro Area concentrated on their own music, which used the then-emerging styles of minimal techno and glitch.
Metro Area relentlessly sculpts two elemental components: amplifying the drums to make them harder and spikier; and pumping the bass with equal parts blood and steel. Because of these details, the effect of a newly introduced instrument such as a guitar line or horn can be greater than they would be in a more cluttered context, producing a distinctly twitchy and immediate kind of skeletal maximalism.
The flyers stated that Metro Area were to begin at 11, but they didn’t mention that other events were happening in various rooms scattered throughout the venue. Due to LPR’s room arrangement, reaching the main hall required passing through these other spaces, unnecessarily occupied by lesser DJs, confusing attendants trying to figure out where, in fact, were Metro Area. Therefore, the first hour-and-a-half or so found the duo spinning to a massive, nearly empty room. But the few people who were there shimmied to nimble bass lines and turtle-paced drums while copping a buzz. By the time initial attendants were pleasantly inebriated, the room was half-filled, and with fluid transitions Geist and Jesrani were suddenly picking up the tempo and making keyboards zigzag through different channels.
As evidenced on their recent contribution to London nightclub Fabric’s impressive mix series, Metro Area’s DJ sets mirror their recorded output. Most of the night’s selections, including Discotheque’s “Disco Special” (prominently featured on Geist’s Italo-disco mix, Unclassics) and Junior Brown’s “Dance to the Music,” emphasized rhythmic aspects instead of ornamental ones, but crucially treated the rhythms with the same fussiness typically bestowed upon decoration. But all that really mattered, as the music billowed out of the soundsystem, was that the people were dancing — which they were. Happily, so it seemed.
