Last Saturday I had the pleasure of attending one of my very favorite annual festivals, the Pix Bastille Day Block Party in North Portland. The whole thing was a blast: Pigeons played a nice loud set of operatic indie rock; Cloudy October and his collaborator Remember Always introduced themselves with gusto; Guidance Counselor played an energetic set that got people hyped for Cool Nutz and Bosko, who played as the sun set and really did an amazing job of getting the party whipped into a frenzy. And as Cool Nutz finished his last song, I couldn't help thinking that maybe booking Deelay Ceelay as the closing act had been a miscalculation.
At that point I noticed two things:
1. Deelay Ceelay, even after staying under the radar for the past year, still has a very dedicated following in Portland.
2. These guys are absolute party killers. It would be doing a disservice to Cool Nutz to make him play after Deelay Ceelay.
The secret is that Deelay Ceelay—which, you may remember, came in third in the 2010 WW Best New Band poll—isn't really a band in the traditional sense. Chris Lael Larson and Delaney Kelly write, perform and record all their own music, of course—they even create all their own elaborate accompanying visuals, which may explain the slow release schedule (some of those videos look like they were an incredible pain in the ass to put together)—but in concert they just play the drums. I mean, I shouldn't say "just," because staying in sync and complementing one another and exerting as much energy as these guys do is hardly an afterthought. But they are there not so much for what they bring to the table sonically (recorded live drums can sound just as crisp as in-person live drums), but to work their asses off and get people moving.
It rubs some people the wrong way that pre-recorded tracks create the bulk of Deelay Ceelay's live sound. But that's where one's perception should really change. Don't think of Deelay Ceelay as a live band—think of it as an incredibly moving art project or as the best afterparty DJ that ever roamed the Earth. That's what Deelay Ceelay is in concert: A two-bodied DJ from Greek Mythology that bangs drums with all of its tentacles instead of twisting knobs.
Anyway, the crowd on Saturday night didn't need to define Deelay Ceelay to enjoy it. The sun went down, the band started, and the trippy visuals were tripped. Event organizers threw bags of confetti into the street and the audience was happy to participate in this whole spectacle not just by throwing little bits of paper, but by screaming when the beats dropped and by flailing around in any number of ways. It was a memorable scene, one that reminded me why Deelay Ceelay was on the tip of everyone's tongue a year ago, and why the band will again be at the forefront of the Portland music scene when it drops new disc Sunset Drumsets (I'll always think of the Pix show when I hear that title) on August 6 at the Doug Fir with Atole and Marius Libman (a new project from the Copy godhead under his own name).
The track featured here, "Feather Lightning," is one that stands out from the great weekend show. Spacey and layered with squeaks and scribbles, there's a cartoonish quality to this tune's sound. Though Deelay Ceelay is a high-art project, this is a song that has way too much fun for its own good. Overdubs from humans and robots alike sprinkle the track, and those scale-descending walls of synth travel so much ground that the listener actually feels as if he or she is getting somewhere, and getting there with the windows down. Whereas oft-referenced contemporary Starfucker is all about the destination with its sugary hooks, Deelay Ceelay takes pleasure in stringing the journey out to make a four-minute electropop song sound like something much larger and more substantial.
You have to see it live, though. Because you are in Deelay Ceelay—you just don't know it yet.
