Minus Zero: The Music

In my last post I covered all the juicy details of my first time at Minus Zero, so now it’s time to get down to the real business – the music.

Marvel Years I always refer to Marvel Years as “Pretty Lights junior” because their sounds are pretty similar. And since Pretty Lights doesn’t appear to be touring at all in 2018, MY is the closest I’m going to get. Thankfully, he crushes it every single time. Love me some electro-soul vibes.

Bleep Bloop Bleep Bloop was okay but I got kind of bored and wandered away to check out the barn for a little bit during this set. Bleep Bloop is solidly in camp “weird bass music,” which I think I just have to be in the right mood for. My main takeaway from having Bleep Bloop on the lineup was having a good 10 minute laugh over the realization of just how many electronic artists’ performer names are a bunch of random syllables. In fact, the only other time I’ve seen Bleep Bloop was at Farm Fest in 2016, and the only comment I wrote about it was, “Bleep Bloop hahah.”

Tipper Tipper is one of those legendary artists who I have never, and may never, listen(ed) to at home. I cannot name a single Tipper song or album, I’ve only heard his music out and about in the scene, and prior to Minus Zero I had only seen him live once before (Camp Bisco 2015). This was the set I was most excited for, and it was definitely great, but not as great as the Bisco set from 3 years ago. As I was dancing to this set I thought to myself, “This music sounds like outer space.” Take a listen and tell me I’m wrong. I dare you. This also started off a great trend for the weekend of saying, “_____ is the music of ______.”

Jai Wolf If Tipper is the music of outer space, Jai Wolf is the music of the universe.  This was heightened by the visuals during his set that depicted the outline of a person floating off amongst the stars. I’m sure you remember (just kidding, I know you don’t) that a couple got engaged on stage during Jai Wolf’s Electric Forest set last year (video in that link!). That’s how happy his music is. Not an overwhelming, upbeat kind of joy, but a peaceful contentedness. The video below really captures the #universe quality of Jai Wolf’s sound.

Odesza Odesza is the music of eternal springtime. They are just so good that I’ve more or less run out of words for how great they are after writing them about so much on this blog. One of my favorite parts of this set was right when it ended, and the whole crowd kept yelling, “ONE MORE SONG! ONE MORE SONG!” desperate for an encore. Suddenly, recorded music started pumping through the crowd, the #2 sign that a set has ended and there will be no further music (the #1 sign is, of course, when the lights go on in a dark venue). The song blasting through the night was Three 6 Mafia’s, “Ass and Titties.”

Everyone booed, sad that Odesza wouldn’t be returning to the stage. And then my friend yelled, “What?!? Y’all don’t know that new Odesza track ‘Ass and Titties’?!?” The story is probably not that funny in the retelling, but in the moment, particularly considering that “Ass and Titties” is basically the opposite of the kind of music Odesza plays, it cracked me up. The next night, after Zeds Dead was finished and everyone was yelling for an encore, I laughed about it all over again. While the video below from the set closer doesn’t include “Ass and Titties” (how many times can I say that in one blog post? 4? Amazing.), it DOES include some excellent end-of-set pyrotechnics.

Rezz To be honest, all of day 3 was the music of darkness. Every single artist was heavy and trappy and loud yet, as I mentioned in my last post, the crowd radiated sheer joy. “Ass and Titties” friend (5!) and I saw Rezz around a year and a half ago, except a 2+ hour long line outside Webster Hall meant we missed around 60 minutes of her 75 minute set. So I was pretty pumped to have my first proper Rezz experience. She has absolutely exploded over the last few years and I imagine she has inspired so many women to get into music production (yay!). Rezz won best set of Minus Zero, hands down. The one Minus Zero video I found of her wasn’t great so I’m using a Coachella video instead, but it’s worth noting that the Minus Zero video, which is of her set opener, has someone saying very clearly in the background, “She’s gonna kill it. She’s literally gonna kill me,” as her first track started. Rezz killed us all that night.

Zeds Dead I did not expect to love this set as much as I did. Half of Zeds Dead couldn’t make it due to a flight problem but the other guy absolutely crushed it. At one point, he turned “Eleanor Rigby” into an absolute dubstep banger, and I was speechless.  In all my years of going to shows and festivals I don’t think I’ve ever heard anyone even try to touch The Beatles. Because, I mean, they’re The Beatles. But he went there. Right after the drop in this video (just after the 1:00 mark), someone yells, “OH SHIT!” and that basically sums up how I felt, too.

After Zeds Dead was the absolute longest end-of-festival fireworks display I’ve ever seen. Even after so many hours of angry music, it was really something beautiful. What an incredible way to end the weekend.

In just a few short weeks I’m heading to 2 days of Jazz Fest in New Orleans! I don’t know if I’ll do a full recap but either way I’m super pumped to keep festival season going strong.