Schlomo
Saturday night was bound to be a dirty banger of a night, with three standouts from the Los Angeles electronic collective Wedidit Crew putting on a sideshow from their appearance at Splendour. Schlomo (Henry Laufer) was joined by D33J (Djauan Santos), and Nick Melons to bring their heavy beats to a sold out show at Adelaide’s home of hazy good times, Rocket Bar.
As usual, the young crowd never rush to these gigs, just as the artists never rush to take to the stage on time. The first half of the night was spent listening to some pretty low-key hip-hop tunes, Gin in hand, on the rooftop of Rocket. When the clock strikes eleven things usually pick up, and right on queue, the trancy sounds were drifting throughout the smoky bar which was slowly filling up.
The crowd had a nice collective sway going on to the deep thumping baseline, overlaid with ironically sunny sounding lyrics. On closer attention the words being sung were “drifting on a boat to Hades”. Being new to the Wedidit crew’s repertoire, I had no idea that by the end of the night I was going to be feeling like I was actually heading to Hell!
My friend aptly described Nick Melons and D33J’s tunes as ‘get your ghoul on and have sex in a graveyard’. The haunted house, terrifying feels provided by the depressing, but sexy beats really confused the life out of me. Much like a horror movie, where you are attracted to the psychopath. Yep. Welcome to Wedidits dark side!
Schlomo taking to the stage was like a slap in the face to pull us out of the trance. What started sounding like a bit of a deep slow burner suddenly went from zero up to blow your brains out of your cranium, reverberating through your whole body, cranking bass in what seemed a matter of seconds.
From tombstones to four in the morning festival tent, I have no idea where I am anymore as I get lost in Schlomo’s hypnotic beats. Glancing around, I realise I’m not the only one drugged up on the dark magic beats.
Though stripped back, the clever layering of a deep baseline with a melodic but repetitive keyboard slam session creates an intense sound. Combined with the smokey haze, the heavy trance-like tunes call the faithful into hypnosis on the dancefloor. Like zombies, they slowly inch forward, enchanted by the call of their leader.
The dedication of the followers is rewarded as Schlomo pumps it up a notch with a dark grooving melody underlaid by heart pumping base to awaken even the deadest of corpses.
The graveyard magic continues late into the night. I step outside to try to break the spell, before deciding to flee, before getting sucked into the underworld. As I run through the pounding rain on a stormy winters night, I can’t stop checking over my shoulder to see if any ghouls are following me.
Reviewed by Stephanie de Vries
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