A Dopplereffekt performance carries more weight and baggage than almost any other in underground electronic music circles, with the enigmatic electro duo returning to Dublin for the first time in eight years.
Dopplereffekt is the most prominent alias of Detroit electro kingpin Gerald Donald, whose Drexciya partner James Stinson died in 2002, leaving behind one of the most revered and fetishised back catalogues in all electronic music.
While Drexciya was based on a fully-realised Afrofuturist creation myth of an underwater realm populated by unborn children of pregnant African women thrown off slave ships, Dopplereffekt’s themes are space science, mathematical theorems, materialism and quantum physics. Odd then, that Donald and his partner To Nhan are taking part in the Ocean After Nature exhibition at the Hugh Lane – a lofty project tailor-made for Drexciya’s aquatic techno voyages.
It’s the first Dopplereffekt performance in Dublin since 2009, and the last one at the Sugar Club was an austere, vaporous abstraction, infinite degrees of separation from their earlier, playful analogue electro with monotone vocals and detached Vocoder commands.
Latest album Cellular Automata has a more direct mood than previous records Calabi Yau Space and Linear Accelerator, with its mathematical themes mapped out on beatless sci-fi synth wisps and epic melancholy chord progressions, wrung of all humanity. Who knows the direction the pair will take in this special performance, but it’ll be a step closer to infinity, and you’ll never want to solve the equation.
- Dopplereffekt perform as part of The Ocean After Nature at Hugh Lane Gallery on Saturday, November 25 (SOLD OUT)
Moo Kid 