EOTO’s Jason Hann knows that nothing shakes up an electro show like a bongo.
EOTO (prounounced “e-oh-toe”) means “good sound” in Japanese—a meaning that Hann and Michael Travis were unaware of until Asian fans pointed out that the acronym for their ambiguously named new project, “End of Time Observatory,” had a more significant musical significance. EOTO knows how to produce solid electro; they’ve done multiple demos for Apple Inc. to show their live production techniques. On Friday night, EOTO proved to New Orleans that an electro show doesn’t have to be all pre-recorded loops and lights. Both Hann and Travis have played percussion in the String Cheese Incident and worked with acts ranging from Dr. Dre to Isaac Hayes. They partnered in 2006, debuting EOTO at Colorado’s Sonic Bloom festival, and have put out three albums (Elephants Only Talk Occasionally in 2006, Razed in 2008, and Fire the Lazers in 2009).
EOTO jams with whatever gels with their percussionist sound, which is everything from Ableton software to a bongo. Occasionally Friday night, Michael Travis strummed a red and white guitar between adjusting rhythms on his Mac laptops. Hann played on Pearl drums and incorporated gadgets like a Lemur Touch Pad and a synth voice pedal. Towards the end of their set, Hann stepped away from his drumkit and pulled out a bongo. He slapped the bongo head with a furious rhythm, his hands blurring with the set’s lights. The crowd erupted into frenzied dancing. A young woman, her eyelids covered in silver-blue glitter, drunkenly shouted, “Bongoriffic!”
EOTO understands the value of live music to audiences. It engages the musicians with the crowd, as well as each other. Hann and Travis exchange meaningful glances or small gestures while they jam, communicating while the rainbow light rays reduce their figures to silhouettes. Hann waves an arm in the air like a demented bear paw. It’s unclear whether he’s signaling to Travis or indicating the crowd to copy his gesture. Travis moves constantly, nodding his white-haired head or thumping around his laptops.
The pair mixes the spontaneous elements of jamming with electro-house sound and software. It’s impossible to predict the next rhythm. There is none of that repetitive, pre-recorded beat characteristic of some electro shows. The crowd is less of a whomping human cabal (Bassnectar, we’re looking at you) and more of a jumbled, dancing hodgepodge. Some people were bouncing to the most basic beat and others trying to follow the more complex rhythms producing on Hann’s drum kit and other live instruments, some more successfully than others. When Hann unleashed the bongo, ankles flew and hands shook in the air. This is what the Dancing Plague of 1518 looks like in 2010, sandwiched inside Tipitina’s and decked out in glitter and glow-sticks.
