Live dublab Performance
11.16.99
The first (or nearly the first) Languis performance recorded at dublab, this excellent, impressionistic live set from 1999, with gentle guitar figures playing off an electronic soundscape of shifting hues, came after the duo’s first two releases on Simballrec and prior to the release of their milestone third album Unithematic. This early iteration of the group featured now-dublab Executive Director Alejandro Cohen along with his close friend Marcos Chocla, just a hip couple of Argentinian transplants in LA making thoughtful, electronic post-rock in the vein of early Tortoise, Mouse on Mars, To Rococo Rot or even Luke Sutherland’s Music A.M project.
It would be years before their sound took a turn for the shoegazier, psychyier sides of things, so the set comes across as a moment at the end of the ’90s when the curiosity that fueled their pastoral blend of acoustic and electric sounds — within a largely instrumental rock genre — would crystallize before undergoing a transformation. In less than five years, every indie group within earshot of accessibility would release their lushest material yet, Languis included.
FROM THE VAULTS is an ongoing curation project produced by Ben Sinclair, resurfacing rare live performances and DJ sets recorded during dublab’s first ten years.
