HE BLINDED ME WITH SCIENCE
U.K. Act PURE SCIENCE Graces Consortium
By Lionel Zivan S. Valdellon

published in PHILMUSIC.com : Aug 8, 99

Pure Science is not a band, neither is he a DJ, rather, he is a British bloke named Phil Sebastian who uses his samplers, sequencers and modules to produce house music that's live and direct. And he played here last July 24 at the roving party called Consortium, organized by local party group Groove Nation.

According to the May '98 issue of Muzik magazine: "What you're hearing is probably the closest thing to DJing ever been achieved through a live P.A…Pure Science is more like pure art."(Muzik -May'98) In fact, the respect he's garnered through working the dance floors has led Muzik to name him Best New Live Act in their 1998 magazine awards.

That's well and good if you like reading hype. But what was it really like?

THE PARTY

The Consortium party last July 24 at the Star City fairground complex in Pasay City started out with Toti Dalmacion (of Groove Nation) on turntables, spinning his usual magic 4/4 beats. As early as 9:30 PM, people were already getting crazy to the music. Meanwhile Solia projected their zany graphics on the humongous wall, morphing together images gleaned from computer animation, and cartoons.

Official opening act was Rubber Inc., our own local electronic duo, dishing out their manic breakbeats from their own rack of keyboards and samplers. Unfortunately, their set was not as strong that night as there seemed to be an innumerable number of glitches with their machines, forcing too many instrumental breakdowns and unwanted tone change commands (making piano sounds play the drum patterns for example). An informal chat with Rubber Inc.'s Malek Lopez revealed that their new sequencer/sampler machine was being broken in that night. Of course Lopez joked with us about the errors, "No… Actually, sinadya namin lahat yon! Ikaw lang naman nakapansin!" (Actually that was all intentional… You were the only one who noticed!)

Finally Pure Science took the stage after a brief interlude where Dalmacion filled in the sonic space left by Rubber Inc.'s last tune. The first thing that strikes you about Pure Science is that he has a minimal amount of gear. He mans one keyboard rack that holds his four-track recorder/mixer, a souped-up Ensoniq ASR-X Pro sampler (outfitted with a Zip Drive), and an array of analog sliders which apparently control his effects. Closeby him is a Korg 808 emulator, a MIDI-to-CV converter which allows the analog sliders to control MIDI effects in real time. That's it. He doesn't spin records, neither does he play keyboards onstage. Just tweaks his knobs and sliders and keeps the crowd going with his spartan beats.

And spartan it is. House music is generally any music grounded by a 4-on-the-floor kick drum pattern. Add a bass line on top and you have as little as it takes to produce a house track. Add little shimmers of sound on the side and you have an idea of how Pure Science works with the basics and hardly sways from the path. In that sense, you can call him a purist.

Unfortunately minimalistic house tracks is an acquired taste. I personally enjoyed Rubber Inc.'s beat-chaos over the extended, languorous diversions that Pure Science whipped together. Don't get me wrong here. There was change and movement in his music, just don't ask me to name what type of house he was playing (I leave that to the experts). The problem was, the changes were too minute and the alterations too subtle for my tastes. I like things hard and fast, or at least eclectic. Ah well. Didn't deter the majority of the Consortium-goers ---- who will never walk away from experimental sounds. And who lined up that night in the rain to get in. Still and all, the mere fact that Pure Science was producing the music live was pretty amazing.

CONSORTIUM FOR BEGINNERS

In case you're wondering, the Consortium is not a regular event, with a fixed venue. Rather it is Groove Nation's progressive roving dance club where cutting-edge foreign guest DJs and performers are invited to play, and electronic music is showcased.

In the past, such luminaries as Ken Ishii, Alec Empire, Juan Atkins, Derrick May and Laurent Garnier have played for Consortium. The venues have changed too, from malls, to production studios, to warehouses and now the Star City complex. What's remained the same is the attitude.

Groove Nation has been quite vocal about Consortium's objective since its inception in 1993: to expose and educate musical tastes, and party hard while they're at it. And it looks like it's working.

* * *

The next Consortium will be sometime in September with guest DJ Stacey Pullen. Watch out for it.

Groove Nation's official website:
http://www.vasia.com/groovenation/

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