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Four shapes in hooded windbreakers hunch over tables cluttered with computers, samplers, MIDI keyboards, and other electronic gear. A middle-aged drummer launches into a skittering 160bpm pattern as a Peter Garrett lookalike hurls sinewy basslines into the convulsing crowd of hardcore junglists and trustafarian college kids.
And thus begins Roni Size/Reprazent's set at the Roxy in Boston. It is an evening of muscular beats at punishing speeds. "Who Told You," the single off Reprazent's In the Mode album, nearly derails, or at least feels like it is about to, leaving the normally unflappable Dynamite MC gasping, futuristic dance music combining reggae, hip-hop and jazz.
I'm wary of most "electronica"; so much of it sounds like songs I can produce on my home PC using Sonic Foundry's ACID software. At their best, the current purveyors of electronic dance music can make me shake my thang but the bad stuff makes me feel like I'm in a pandering car commercial.
Fortunately, Reprazent is among the best of the good stuff. Their set had me, an avowed non-dancer, jumping up and down for about two hours, a mighty grin plastered to my shvitzing face. The Roxy was packed; the crowd responded as one to the low-frequency thuds and high-pitched alien screams being hurled at them by Mr. Size, Mr. Suv, Mr. Krust, and Mr. Die.
Opening for Reprazent was Boston hip-hop savior Mr. Lif, whose positive-yet-hardcore rhymes are rife with science fiction themes. Since "In the Mode", as has been noted by critics far better at this than I, explores the relationship of American hip-hop to UK jungle/drumnbass, I found the pairing especially appropriate. Mr. Lif's set was followed by about an hour of DJ work by Suv, who scowled down on the crowd from the Roxy's elegant balcony area.