Mountain Oasis Electronic Summit: Recap Part 3

The third and final night of the Mountain Oasis Electronic Music Summit featured a host of names with which I was largely unfamiliar. So I took the opportunity to pop into several shows in hopes of finding something that struck my fancy. I was intermittently successful.

Darkside
Seemingly having ingested a steady diet of Wish You Were Here-era Pink Floyd – specifically, “Shine On you Crazy Diamond” Parts 1 and 2, the aptly-named Darkside created a vibe more than they did actually play songs. True both men operated instruments: the Guy on The Right staffed some analog synthesizers and a bank of effects and sequencers, while the Guy on The Left actually played some very subtle (in terms of its volume) electric guitar. Washes of sound with – as the set progressed – more and more bass bombs, Darkside’s set got a more enthusiastic response form the Sunday night crowd than might have been expected.

Alan Howarth
Howarth would be the big Mountain Oasis surprise for me. A composer who does most of his work at home and/or in studios, Howarth is responsible for the evocative, scene-setting music used in a long list of John Carpenter films (among others). It’s his work you hear when you watch Friday the 13^th, Halloween, They Live, Big Trouble in Little China and a host of others. Howarth spent most of his set at a keyboard, laying down spooky, fully-formed arrangements of songs that are hooky in their own way. Other than a quick occasional right-hand wave to acknowledge the rapturous applause he earned, Howarth did take time at the beginning and end of his set to speak to the audience. The visuals were some custom-edited, stuttery captures from the films he’s scored; they were fascinating and repetitive and actually complimented his music, which is the opposite way that things usually work for Howarth’s compositions. Howarth did leave the keyboard once or twice to play some electric guitar (while the keys laid out a sequence or three). Fascinating stuff that might lead attendees back to some overlooked soundtracks.

The Orb
In the world of techno/ambient/rave/whatever, there is an outfit called The Orb, and another called Orbital. In the past, when I even thought about them, I often confused the two. No more: because now I know that Orbital is easily the more interesting of the two. How do I know this? Because I saw and heard The Orb. A total snoozefest, The Orb is two middle aged English blokes standing at a table in near total darkness. One of then has headphones around his neck and a file folder packed with CDs; he takes one of discs these out every few seconds and pops another into a machine. The other bloke did something that was even less worthy of visual attention. And the formless sounds they created (well, did they create or merely present them? You decide.) left nary an impression on my mind as I exited The Orange Peel.

Summary
As the supposed successor to Moogfest (which, as reported previously, will continue in 2014) Mountain Oasis pretty much got it right. A well-run festival with a wide variety of acts, it succeeded at what it set out to achieve. Attendance seemed healthy, yet not jam-packed; of course that’s good for the individual concertgoer, but less so for the organizers. Although few of the acts fall into my must-see category, on the whole it was easily worth the time and expense, and I hope to attend again in 2014.