Baths @ Club Deville RECAP & Cerulean

I'm often a cynical fuck. It's true. Perhaps partly because of this, I enjoy a fair number of artists with a similarly dim outlook. It's easy for people to relate to each other through shared negativity, because it is easy to say something is stupid, and hard to boldly say something is good. This is because it hurts when people say what you think is good is, in fact, bad. So Baths has a new album out titled Cerulean, and this pale blue plastic disc has been making me happy since I got it. It's good. I've laughed out loud several times while playing this album and I like it. The debut album of Will Weisenfeld's newest moniker has got me singing along with samples of grade school cheerleaders, and little kids offering valuable information about animals ("We're elephants, we LOVE giraffes!"). Cerulean's beats stomp at times and race at others, but all carry a pop-minded lean and a general happiness and optimism. Amidst all this, all but his most relaxed tracks hit HARD. Live, Baths performs his vocals while manipulating his beats in a stage show that translates the giddy energy of his songs into a seamless live set that invites both head-nodders, and any dance move you can think of. VJ David Wexler aka Dr. Strangeloop was in attendance at Deville to provide his video interpretation against the club's limestone backdrop, romancing the crowd's retinas as well as their eardrums. My shitty camera cannot do his visual performance justice, but you can see his work here. The next day Strangeloop played his own headlining audiovisual set at Deville, which was a twitching lunatic next to Baths' bounding youth, drilling the crowd with feverish compositions that brought to mind Venetian Snares. My taste for dark music was more than appeased. Even so, I thank Baths for making the music he does. Cerulean's going to keep spinning over here, I'm not yet ready to be pissed off again. I... I want to sing about giraffes for a while longer.

4.5 / 5 stars