It’s Friday Night and we arrive at Public Assembly shortly after midnight. Breezing past the bouncer out of the cold, windswept waste of N6th and into the musty, cavernous warmth of PA, it felt like a good time to be showing up to a party—especially a Flashing Lights throw-down featuring Mad Decent beat-smith and pan-global party-starter Douster. Straight to the back room, past the gate and through the door and…where the fuck are all the people? Residents Dj Ayres and Nick Catchdubs were at the decks pumping out a mish-mash mix of big name house, hip-hop, a little dubstep—anything and everything to get people warmed up and moving. The only problem being that the room was far from full. Outside of two raver girls pulling cartwheels and break-dance moves straight out of Electric Boogaloo, the dance floor was sedate. Maybe people were home making seven-layer dip for their Oscar parties. Whatever. We were there to party, and the dudes on the tables delivered.
Around 1:30, with the room slightly more full, Douster took the stage and kicked out a mind-blowing, continent-hopping Afro-cumbia set. Hailing from Lyon by way of Buenos Aires, the man’s sound casts a big net. He layered trance synth buildups underneath propulsive Latin and West African percussion. The bass bounced and croaked, and the ravey synths swept in and out and gave way to 8bit bleeps while feverish drums, handclaps and whistles beat time. He pulled tracks from all over the place—new cumbia, kuduro, dancehall. Remixes included a bubbling, two-step workout of Major Lazer’s “Hold the Line”. This is new world order music that would sound just as natural blasting out of tinny speakers in the favela, the massive sound system of an Ibiza mega-club, or here in a dank back-room in Brooklyn. Douster took us on a non-stop journey, pausing with each track to add a new layer—a new flavor to the mix. His transitions were so smooth that they felt nonexistent. The music just flowed from one place to another, hopping borders, styles—hop, bounce, skip, jump, step, and stomp.
The only drawback on the night was the crowd, or lack thereof. Douster’s multi-culti dance party should be shaking rumps and kicking up dust wall-to-wall, country to country, so the spare crowd was a bit of a buzz-kill and also cause for surprise. Step your game up NYC. Flashing Lights is bringing the beats and you need to bring the bodies.
If you want to be in know regarding all things Douster, take a look at his artist page over at Mad Decent and, for a taste of this mad scientist’s mixology, check out this tape he put together for Fader HERE.
The contest is now closed.
