Last Saturday at Marquee, legendary producer BT took the decks to perform one of his ‘laptop symphonies’, mixing between classic trance and modern electro music for one rocking set of music. In recent years, BT seems to have been focused more on his production for other artists – think NSYNC, The Roots, and Britney Spears – rather than the straight EDM productions that made him famous, yet he still had time to get nominated for a Grammy in 2010 for ‘Best Electronic Dance Album’. Recently, these productions have seen a comeback, with new tracks geting play on Armin Van Buuren’s ASOT600 tour, including some appearances from BT himself. All this seems to bode well for a 2013 BT comeback, starting with this show at BT.
Marquee was as crowded as I’ve ever seen for the veteren producer, with the doors on lockdown and the crowd packed. BT seemed to alternate back and forth between those classic trance melodies and a more modern, hard, sound. It worked quite well, creating sort of a ‘build and release’ of tension. The synths would slowly build and build before dropping into some sort of house music banger. It would not be uncommon for the DJ to drop modern trance hits like Tritonal’s ‘Bullet That Saved Me’, before switching to something like Zedd’s Clarity. There were also a slew of mixes and mash ups, like when Ferry Corsten’s latest, ‘Kudawudashuda’ was mixed with the vocal’s from BT’s classic, ‘Dreaming’. The night ended with a mash up of Dada Life’s ‘Kick Out The Epic Motherfucker’ and Porter Robinson’s ‘Language’, the perfect meld of heavy electro beats and trancey synths.
Following BT, local DJ NVM took the energy up a little with an electro-heavy set that kept Marquee rocking. As usual, Marquee is one of the premiere places to catch top level DJs in a posh setting. If you want more of BT, this set was broadcast live on SiriusXM as episode 100 of BT’s ‘Laptop Symphony’ broadcast – try to catch it online.