Live Concert Photography: Negative Gemini with CIFIKA, Fee Lion, and Annie Klang at Mercury Lounge 3/30/18
Lindsey French is a Brooklyn-based singer/songwriter, electronic music producer and electronic music artist, best known for her solo recording project Negative Gemini, which has received attention for a genre-blending sound that possessed elements of 90s Chicago and Detroit house music with a bit of Brooklyn. And unlike many of her contemporaries, French conveys her personality and experiences through vocals, lyrics and incredibly tight and contemporary, dance floor friendly production. Now, as you may recall things in my world have been extremely busy over the past few months as I’ve been balancing the responsibilities of my day job with this site, and as a result I’m still desperately trying to catch up on so many things. But such is the life of a busy blogger and professional, right?
In any case, back in March I caught Negative Gemini headline a late night show at Mercury Lounge that featured up-and-coming South Korean singer/songwriter electronic music producer, electronic music artist CIFIKA, who at the time was in the middle of the longest Stateside tour of any Korean pop artist ever; the Chicago, IL-based singer/songwriter, electronic music producer, electronic music artist Fee Lion; and the Los Gatos, CA-born, New York-based electronic music producer and DJ Annie Klang. Check out some photos from the show below.
Yousun Cho is a 27 year-old South Korean-born and-based singer/songwriter, electronic music producer and electronic music artist, whose solo recording project CIFIKA derives its name from Pacifica Street, a street she used to frequently passed when she lived in Northern California for the better part of a decade before relocating to her native South Korea in 2016. Since her return to South Korean, Cho has quickly become one of the world’s hottest, up-and-coming electronic music artists and producers, receiving praise from major, internationally known media outlets like Vice, Hypebeast and Dazed for a sound that’s centered around her sultry falsetto, ethereal electronics and deep, thumping beats meant to evoke an otherworldly and futuristic sound. Adding to a growing international profile within electronic music circles, Cho has played sets at number of major festivals including Reeperbahn.
Cho’s latest CIFIKA EP Prism finds her further experimenting with her sound, as well as pushing the boundaries of pop and electronic music — with an innovative live show, centered around incredibly detailed costumes and lighting. As I mentioned, the South Korean-born and -based producer embarked on the longest North American tour by a Korean artist with stops at the Lower East Side’s Mercury Lounge, Los Angeles, Chicago, Boston, Philadelphia, Atlanta, SXSW, as well as smaller cities like Kansas City, Grand Rapids and Cincinnati among others.
Justine Kairyte is a Chicago, IL-based singer/songwriter, electronic music producer and electronic music artist, who has received attention with her New Wave and electronic dance music-inspired solo recording project FEE LION. Sonically, Kairyte’s work meshes haunting melodies with gritty dance floor rhythms and sultry and soaring hooks. Sonically speaking, the Chicago-based singer/songwriter, electronic music producer and electronic music artist fuses haunting melodies, gritty, dance floor friendly rhythms and sultry and entrancing vocal hooks with a deliberate attention to detail — and that attention to detail filters through her live set, which is frequently filled with fog, handmade vinyl apparel and an array of performance art experiences. Her Mercury Lounge set was a bit more straightforward but featured strobe lights and a projection screen behind her. While continuing to tour, Kairyte is the middle of conceptualizing and writing an interactive multi-media visual album experience.
Born Annie Kissiah, Annie Klang is a Los Gatos, CA-born, Berlin-based experimental, electronic music producer, DJ and visual artist, whose fast-paced, genre-bending dance tracks, centered around avant-garde sound design, hammering drums and bursts of demonic and distorted samples from around the globe have been released through a number of renowned electronic music labels including Infinite Machine and Knightwerk, who released her 2017 debut EP Worst of All Time. Since the release of her debut effort, Kissiah relocated to Berlin, where she has been working on a number of remixes, singles and a full-length album, which will further cement her growing reputation for crafting music meant to invigorate, innovate and shake things up in the growing subgenre of experimental club music. Klang opened the night with a thumping and aggressively swaggering DJ set.
For these photos and more, check out the Flickr set here: https://flic.kr/s/aHsmjxCRuU
