Concert Review: Estoc 6 hr set @ Barn Radio 7/6

TL;DR: it was lit!

So, I didn't get out until like, 1 am. It had been a rough day for my partner and I, but she was finally asleep and I felt I deserved to party. I didn't have any drugs* and was definitely in a weird mood, but I felt like it was a good opportunity to network. After all, Estoc had done a remix of Tzusing track, and I figured that if I got a chance to schmooze I could name drop that my friend has an EP out on Tzusing's label, and that's all I was focused on: the grind. I knew nothing about Estoc. I'd been following their Bandcamp fan account for some time, and I had just assumed they were just some random “dark” and “industrial” club producer. Probably a man. Something to that effect. 

The first indication that something might be different was the reminder text I got from Barn. “Hard, rolling grooves with political intent” it said, which seemed like a hilarious thing to say about a DJ. Music is already a complex cultural tapestry, layered with meaning and history. How much more political can you get? Is she gonna play Tom McDonald or something??? As the night went on, I started to understand why Barn chose that description, but I still don’t feel like it really captured what Estoc’s set was like. 

See, Estoc is not a “man” that makes “serious” club music. She's a girl, and she has fun. She understands that dancing is fun, and that the clerb is a social space. She plays into that with her selections. Not in an overbearing way, but def a little “extra” at times. That's what it should be, no? I'm at the clerb! I wanna partyyyyyyy! 

So, I got there at like 1, and she had already been playing for 3 hours. When I first entered the place was filled to the brim with smoke. It's like this pretty much every time I go to Barn, and I low-key can't stand it. I deal with it because it seems like everyone else likes it, but yeah, I hate it. It was also PITCH BLACK and I couldn’t see shit. I was actually worried I was gonna fall over and die.¹ Anyway, I made my way to the middle of the floor and started bobbing. I don’t remember exactly what was playing, but when I did hear “Come Out Ye Black and Tans” mashed up with some random trance track I had never heard before, that's when it hit me. “Ahh yes: political intent.” 

See, politics is not an “attribute” or a “property” of something, but rather an emergent behavior of it. The “political” aspects of phenomena are implicit in their relationships to other things, rather than simply being intrinsic qualities “of” phenomena itself. It’s possible for something draped in the aesthetics of “political” language to be quite vapid, and the reverse is equally possible. So in my mind, the most “political” song Estoc played that night was a mashup of Avril 14th and Avril Lavigne. An actual political statement about how the lines that separate various aesthetics are, for the most part, socially constructed. That DJing isn’t about ideological commitments to “scenes” or “vibes” or whatever, but about actually having fun and listening to the crowd. I had fun! I danced! I got really high on weed!

There are lots of ways to make the brain dance with the body, and it was just so satisfying to see a DJ play with culture in real time. It had just been so long since I had felt a set was “clever”, like it was making me actually think about the music that was being played and why. A set where I wasn’t laughing at the DJ but with them. So many DJs just try to play the “most fire” tracks and I think music is capable of so much more. Music isn’t just an aesthetic: it is a text itself. Music can communicate ideas, both explicitly and implicitly. Estoc was the first DJ I had seen in a long time that told me to my face, IN the music, “it’s okay, Theresa. You can have fun.” 

And I did! Not only did I enjoy dancing, but I also got to talk to some friends I hadn’t planned on seeing. That was really nice. I didn’t get to schmooze and I didn’t even care about “the hustle.” I was just enjoying my life. Thinking about music. Wondering where the world can take me and where I was gonna go. As the night ended, I said only one thing to Estoc: “Yo, that edit of ‘The Fray’ was wild. I had so much fun! Thank you!” That was all that felt important.  

1. In fairness to Barn, this period of total darkness only lasted about like 30 seconds and eventually ur eyes adjust but it was def an intense entrance xD