Impulse Music & Arts Festival went out with a bang due to energetic sets from Eliot Lipp, The Polish Ambassador, Nasty Nasty, and Michael Travis & Jason Hann’s EOTO Lotus extravaganza. However it wasn’t just the well-known artists that shined on Sunday.
While many attendees chose to leave the festival before all of this madness popped off, the ones who spent their father’s day on the Durhamtown ranch were glad they did so. A solid handful of artists I had never heard of had a remarkable chance to shine on the sound system I’ve boasted about on the other two recaps. Octopus Nebula, This is ART and Erothyme all showed me why it is important to check out new musicians at festivals. And I’d like to share them with you!
Octopus Nebula: for fans of Thievery Corporation, Zoogma, Lotus. Free downloads available on their website.
This is ART: for fans of Pretty Lights, STS9, RJD2. Free downloads available on their website.
Erothyme: for fans of the Aphex Twin, Shpongle. Free downloads available on the Soundcloud.
The Polish Ambassador took the stage in a space jumpsuit as the sun began to set. His funky hip-hop oriented dance beats and acapellas from Jay-Z, Michael Jackson and Outkast kept everyone interested from start to finish. You can check out his music and download it all for free by visiting his website.
Eliot Lipp, Pretty Lights Label’s newest signee, is a soft spoken man who loves a smooth tune. Does that mean he can’t break it down? Hell no! By playing heat from his new PLM debut “Shark Wolf Rabbit Snake” along with some old favorites and hip hop mashes of Nicki Minaj’s”Bees in the Trap” and Drake’s “The Motto”. The crowd was small and intimate, but Lipp addressed us accordingly. I’m positive if anyone hadn’t heard his unique blend of sample-stapled beats before, they are downloading it as soon as they get home.
If you aren’t familiar with EOTO, let me give you the downlow. The String Cheese Incident’s Michael Travis and Jason Hann play experimental and improvisational electronic music inside of an epic, 3D mapped lotus flower. The duo busts out glitch hop, electro, house, dubstep, drumstep and every hybrid in between. Travis uses everything from a guitar to a Kaoss Pad to do on-the-fly looping. Hann absolutely annihilates the drum kit and kicks rhymes from Public Enemy to Ludacris to keep everyone into it. The chemistry makes the duo so enjoyable to watch and the music speaks for itself too. After a fantastic encore that saw both members pounding on bongos, the crowd was still screaming for more.
The main stage was closed, but the party was far from over. NastyNasty’s ill old school dubstep / trap set kept the party pumpin’ and Erothyme’s chill out style brought it all down. What an amazing weekend at the Impulse Music & Arts Festival.