The crowd are all tentatively watching how this conversation with an online virus will pan out. System shutdown. Hard crisp beats that shatter the calm expectation of the room as people start dancing.
We’ve been drawn into Iglooghost’s chaotic computer-generated world, a projected desktop screen with pastel-coloured visuals that appear in time to the sounds that feel drawn from a 1990s games arcade, or the back catalogue of Super Mario Bros. Unlike the calm pre-set “elevator music” or Vaporwave labels, however, which are usually stuck to experimental electronic music influenced by videogame soundtracks, there is aggression in Iglooghost’s beats. It is a difficult, frantic pace to dance to, with most of the set taken from his latest and perhaps most intense EP released in 2018, Steel Mogu. Iglooghost’s visuals are just as energetic – vibrant cartoons with pointed witch hats float and disappear over icy digital landscapes, obscure symbols are drawn up, whilst wires and dials turn into plants and fruit.
More than producing a simple live electronic music show, Iglooghost constructs a whole performance – the storyline of fighting a hacker from his software created a narrative soundscape rather than a set of individual songs. Even the popular ‘Super Ink Burst’ from his 2017 album, Neō Wax Bloom, became part of the plot.
Iglooghost also had support from a variety of electronic producers; the eccentric bouncy sampling of Phrixus kicking off the show. Loyal Hardware’s hypnotic visuals (one of these included a waterslide) and ambient soundscapes were a calming contrast to the largely agitated music from most of the support acts, with soothing washes of synthesised sounds. Us and It offered some punchy vocal sampling and dark bass-driven beats, with an enthusiastic stage presence that got everyone dancing. Crossing the lines between various electronic styles from dubstep to techno, these performances encapsulated the potential for PC music to break strict categories into something more experimental and all the more fun.
Header Image: London in Stereo