Evan McGrath
On the eve of the release of their first album Eject Pt. 1, Swedish duo Cazzette dropped by Midtown Manhattan hotspot Lavo for an unconventional and entertaining performance. The young producers Alexander Bjorklund and Sebastian Furrer make music that is hard to fit into any one sub-genre of electronic music. While the same might be said of a number of artists; Cazzette has managed to create a signature sound while making music at a range of BPM’s that cover Dubstep, to Electro to Hip Hop. Adding to their recognizability are their trademark cassette-tape helmets (almost conspicuously absent in Lavo’s small DJ booth) and their habit of featuring an acronym for manager Ash Purnouri’s first name in most of their remixes. Their musical selection on Friday made sure it was hard to forget them with or without their headgear.
Cazzette played all kinds of different tracks but one that sticks out is “Beam Me Up”, the lead single off their album. The song features powerful pop-y lyrics about a love that is out of this world and a big room house anthem sound. With a drop that features the shrieks and whines of furious machinery manipulated into a perfect complement to the ethereal vocals, this a song the fast track to every DJ’s party playlist. As their show progressed, it proved that rather than their production skills, it is their mixing is one of the biggest reasons to see them live.
Through their act they kept the people in Lavo moving as much as any DJ can get people in Lavo to move. Abrupt, though not awkward transitions between genres and rhythms, Cazzette dropped track after track that kept the audience, especially those up close to the booth, on edge wondering what they would hear next. Exemplifying this was their ending, which featured them playing their epic banger “The Rat” but slowing it down, mixing in some hip hop beats, speeding it back up, and then moving into the RL Grime and Salva remix of “Mercy”. It certainly was an interesting finale. If you can make your way past the velvet ropes and down the stairs, you’ll find Lavo to be a place where major DJ’s come to have fun, and they never leave the crowd behind.