Daniel Shoemaker Photos
Just how far can a groove take you? To the depths of space, to stretches of desert punctuated by towns nestled among the dunes? On Saturday at Cafe Nine, Dilemastronauta and Imarhan gave a masterclass in those kinds of grooves, courtesy of promoter Shaki Presents (Rick Omante).
A packed house of record heads and music lovers converged for the opening set of Dilemastronauta, bookended by the whirling tropicalia grooves that DJ Shaki has become synonymous with, vinyl only, of course.
Dilemastronauta — the musical project of Combo Chimbita drummer Andres Jimenez — took raved-up cumbia beats and tropical grooves, undergirded by syncopated blasts of percussion, and shot them straight into space on lysergic swirls of twinkling electronics.
The cumbia sensibilities Jimenez delivered on the drum set bubbled up as an infectious primordial soup, carried over through synth, guitar, and melodica, with punctuating electronic sounds matching the set. Jimenez himself wore LED wraparound shades reminiscent of Star Trek’s Geordi La Forge, had the character decided to leave the Federation and explore inner space instead. Video visuals provided a perpetual reel of pixelated shifting color mirroring the beats swirling from the band. The audience swayed and bopped, hypnotized and locked together on the cosmic journey. Reminiscent of early Animal Collective, Dilemastronauta was intentionally and adamantly psychedelic.
Imarhan, some members clad in traditional Tuareg clothing of brilliant white, took the stage and played as if the groove had been waiting for them. The group — from Tamanrasset, in southern Algeria — immediately transported the even-more-packed room to the sprawling desert, with long bass notes and rhythm guitar creating a stretching sonic landscape as endless as the desert seems to a traveler, while frontman and lead guitarist Iyad Moussa Ben Abderahmane (also known as Sadam) played over, around, and through the beat with the characteristic tone of music from that region. Trotting calabash percussion mimicked the undulating cadence that one might feel riding a walking camel. After the strong visual background of Dilemastronauta, Imarhan, basking in that signature magenta light of Cafe Nine, lent access to the audience’s own internal mirages, sounds shimmering like the air in heat.
The show’s real power, though, came from the band’s almost uncanny ability to pivot from slow, telescopic sonic landscapes to a propulsive, hand-clapping celebration, catapulting to double time with impeccable percussion on a calabash or, on occasion, djembe that galloped forward and drove the audience to clap in unison. Hands started swaying above the room within two songs. People closed their eyes and rocked to the rhythms, transported into this groovy mixture of West African and traditional Tuareg beats. Imarhan sings about the intersection of identities — the Tuareg are economically disenfranchised in Algeria and bear relations with Mali, and Sadam himself is a cousin to a member of Tinariwen, the first modern Tuareg group to break onto the international music scene. The crossroads of cultures in Imarhan’s music bore out in the sheer variety of rhythms, grooves, and styles of songs, from call and response to meditative crooning over the steady, folkloric beat. Electric guitar met acoustic, drum set met calabash, and they all found harmony together.
As the set continued, slower grooves shifted to ecstatic bopping; this reporter’s measure of a good show is a minimum of one audience member appearing to have a religious experience in the front row, and this show easily met it. Some fell into otherworldly dancing, fully transported by the beat, eyes closed with that half smile that reflects total musical trance. Hips swayed, people led with shoulders, and necks wobbled in unison, a mass worship of the collective power of music to align heart and mind.
Stepping out into the almost-chilly night on Crown Street, the harsh angles of concrete felt particularly foreign after exploring such an organic fabric of sound for a few hours. The afterglow of Tuareg harmonies and calabash linger in the ears, the warmth of the guitar carrying over until you get home, still smiling and bopping to the beat. From South America to the Sahara, New York City to Tamanrasset, the impeccable groove managed to travel and abide for a while at the corner of Crown and State.