I've just got back from seeing Shlomo and DJ Yoda at the QEH. Very, very good. But what completely fascinated me was Shlomo's hands. Or hand really, because he's normally got a mic in the other. To start with you think he's just air scratching, miming the DJ sounds he's making. And he is doing some of that. And occasionally doing a bass guitar mime or trumpet or little fader tweak or something. But then you realise he's also dance/miming something for sounds which make sense visually, but don't correspond to any real or virtual instrument. We can understand why the action fits the sound but there's no underlying idea of an actual real world instrument. It's like he's tapped into how instruments should intuitively work, if you didn't have to worry about acoustics or physics. It'd be fantastic to try and build the instrument his hands imply.
That was pretty aweseome!!!
Posted by: Nick Schmidt | February 23, 2008 at 01:56 AM
Some of his hand movements look like he's working on an Akai MPC-1000 [ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V-OjMk0yxgE ] — the foundation for a lot of the hip-hop that's been produced over the years.
Posted by: Kyle | February 23, 2008 at 07:14 AM
Amazing!
I could get a sore throat just watching him.
Posted by: Mark McGuinness | February 23, 2008 at 10:27 AM
I thought he might be conducting himself.
Posted by: smithylad | February 26, 2008 at 07:31 PM