Live Concert Photography: Body Language with Ian Chang and Violet Sands at Brooklyn Bazaar 4/21/17
If you’ve been frequenting this site over the past handful of years, you’ve likely come across several posts featuring the Brooklyn-based indie dance pop/neo-disco act Body Language. Currently comprised of founding duo Matthew Young and Grant Wheeler, vocalist Angela Bees and drummer Ian Chang, the critically applauded Brooklyn-based act can trace its origins to when Young and Wheeler began creating their own mixes and remixes at a weekly party they curated and DJ’d while they were both living in Hartford, CT. Shortly after they had started their weeks party party, Young and Wheeler met and then recruited Angelica Bees to join their project — and the newly constituted trio began writing original material, with most of it comprising their act’s debut record, Speaks.
As the story goes, as the trio of Young Wheeler and Bees begun working on their sophomore EP Social Studies, they also collaborated with Theophilus London — and during those recording sessions, they met Ian Chang, the band’s newest member. Chang contributes drums on their latest effort, last year’s Mythos and from album singles “Addicted,” and , “Free,” the newly constituted quartet. the album finds the band gently expanding upon their sound, as they incorporate elements of New Jack Swing an classic house. And while being warmly familiar to those who may have grown up in the 80s, the quartet’s latest effort may arguably be the most sensual and radio and dance floor-friendly material they’ve released to date.
Body Language headlined a night of electro pop and synth pop at the new Brooklyn Bazaar location on Greenpoint Avenue last week, and the show included a solo set from their drummer Ian Chang and an opening set from Violet Sands, a relatively new electro pop project featuring members of Savoir Adore, French Horn Rebellion and Love Like Delorans among others. Check out photos from the show below.
Ian Chang is a Hong Kong-born, Brooklyn-based drummer and electronic music artist. Although he was influenced by Hong Kong’s diversity and vibrance, he relocated to Brooklyn in 2007 to seriously pursue music, and within a relatively short period of time, Chang quickly gained a reputation s being one of the city’s most talented drummers — or as NPR referred to him, a “gigantically talented drummer.” Unsurprisingly, Chang has also become a go-to drummer, as he’s collaborated with an incredibly diverse and varied list of artists including Joan As Policewoman, Matthew Dear, Dave Douglas, Rafiq Bhatia, Moses Sumney, Woodkid, Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, Rubblebucket, Vacationer, Niki and the Dove, Com Truise and others, as well as his role as a member of Body Language.
Adding to his reputation as a go-to drummer and as a prolific artist, Chang along with Rafiq Bhatia teamed up with Ryan Lott in Son Lux, expanding the former solo project into a full-fledged trio, and since then the trio have released a critically applauded full-length effort together Bones and played more than 300 shows across North America, Europe and Asia. Chang is also been busy as a founding member of pop-leaning rock act Landlady, which open for renowned act Okkervil River during their 2016 tour and recently released their third, full-length effort.
As a solo artist, Chang began beta testing Sunhouse’s Sensory Percussion, a new technology that translates and manipulates the nuances and mechanics of drumming into a variety of samples and electronic bloops, bleeps and blips, redefining both drumming and electronic music while being deeply rhythmic and carefully designed.
The trio opened a night of dance pop and electro pop, playing material off 2016’s Strange Attractor and their forthcoming debut effort, Hotel, which is slated for a June 2017 release through YouTooCanWoo Records, the new label arm of their long-term Brooklyn-based studio and artistic community,
For these photos and more, check out the Flickr set here: https://flic.kr/s/aHskTKYhed
