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Sean Cusick 02.22.2002 by Damon Fonooni Photos by Lei Vishnu
Venue: Eleven50 The thought of an evening overflowing with mental experiments in dance music somehow managed to keep me from freezing in the temperatures outside. I didn't know what to expect from a Sean Cusick who had just stepped off the plane following a night in New York City. Then again, I wouldn't know what to expect from a fully rested Sean Cusick on any given night of the week. But he would be playing at Eleven50 after a mere thirty minutes of sleep, and believe it or not, with a crick in his neck. As I walked in, with the master volume at about fifty percent, the sound of a very experienced Gene Carbonell had my head nodding. Gene always knows how to please me musically, and that night was no exception. With his white labels and promos no doubt from Balance Promote Group and his friend Barry Gilbey, half of the group Mara and owner of Choo Choo records, he had the crowd moving to a sound that is the future in progressive music. It was that sound that almost square, mechanical yet still percussive sound. That sound that relies on the minimal, techy rhythms and basslines that forces the people to move. I can't explain that sound, but I can sure as hell enjoy it.
As Gene brought the volume levels up, the sound grew louder and the beats began to swell. The crowd
responded with a unanimous cheer after all, they were there to absorb the pounding rhythms with their
swaying hips. From the upper floor, the sound was somewhat muffled from reflecting off so many walls
And what a step it was. Gene had warmed up the crowd to the perfect level, and as Sean began to take over, I watched the DJ booth for signs of a mix. Of course I couldn't hear one, which was the one thing I could expect from the native Floridian DJ who, along with his friend Jimmy van Malleghem, was the first to bring Sasha and John Digweed to the United States for what would be known as their Northern Exposure tour. Sean Cusick started off playing minimal, dark and techy with hints of male vocals thrown in, including the Lexicon Avenue track, "Whu U R Here," on Satoshi Tomiie's SAW label. He also dropped the [correction] 3AM remix of John Creamer and Stephane K's "I Wish You Were Here" (out this week). After a few songs into his set, Sean started having some fun with his mixing and cut one song into another, picking up the tempo as he went. He even dipped back into his box to play "Your Lovin'" by Electric Tease released on Automatic Records about a year ago. Cusick experimented with some minimal, dark, tribal tracks with sounds that continued to bulge and expand. He progressed into Groove Juice's "Back to Africa" (the Little Green Men remix of course), and ventured into harder, tech-trance areas. He wasn't playing as the Sean Cusick I knew from his opening sets, most recently with Sasha, blowing my mind with songs that I hadn't heard or could even grasp; he was playing as the headliner Sean Cusick, throwing in the familiar track now and then and hitting the crowd with a hard sound. What a pleasant surprise to be, well, surprised by a DJ who doesn't just play what everyone expects him to. Ah, refreshing, isn't it? Although it wasn't as mentally provoking as I had hoped, that night was a success in my books, and I'm sure in the books of most of those who attended. The crowd, neither massive nor scarce, was up for it and so was I. I enjoyed Sean Cusick and Gene Carbonell, Eleven50, the sound system brought out by Liquified and watching another night in the progression of our music in Atlanta unfold.
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