Ce jeu – Yelle Ce jeu – Yelle (Buy)

Yelle made the NYC stop of their fall tour this past Thursday. Hailing all the way from France, Yelle has been gaining a lot of steam in the United States with the release of their latest EP, La Musique.

The backdrop to the set, an over-sized peace sign, reflected the strobe, laser, and house lighting of the ballroom perfectly. Yelle herself entered the stage sporting a complex camo outfit like the ones you might imagine on a jungle sniper. While I had not seen Yelle perform before, I was immediately appreciative of the theatrics involved in the show. The combination of strange costumes and pulsing lights added to the overall dance spectacle that made their set.

For a band that is so electronically based, Yelle was able to create a visually entertaining set. None of the three band members were glued to a turntable or mac computer. Not only was a full drumset in play, but both backup band mates had comically large bass drums to smash with mallots in the driving parts of their songs.

Though I was impressed by the show visually (with brownie points added for singing in french), the live performance of Yelle didn’t blow me away. Though the drummer played well and commanded the audience’s attention with exaggerated arm swings and movement, I was distracted by how prerecorded drum tracks fortified his playing, and added parts he was not playing at all. Though it was clear the keyboard player was an experienced performer, and faithfully played the lead melodies of every song without a hitch, I couldn’t help but notice the amount of piano and synth chords his mac computer added to the mix. And as much as Yelle herself had a voice with beautiful range and the ability to playfully emote the feelings of each song, I was turned off by the amount of times her recorded voice came through the PA as a double track to strengthen her melodies.

To clarify, no one on that stage was lip synching, nor were the members playing a clever game of air guitar with an iPod playing backstage. What Yelle suffered from is a universal struggle for so many electronic based acts. On the one hand, these acts can create a show that has enough musicians on stage to faithfully recreate the true texture of each song using analog keyboard equipment and midi controlled devices. Alternatively, the performance can be catered to be more visually appealing by simplifying the number of band members necessary on stage and representing just enough of the music to maintain the label of ‘live music performance.’

There are plenty of electronica acts where 90% of what you are watching on stage is pre-recorded, and the knob turning on the DJ’s mixer is for show. Even Daft Punk was rumored to have not been operating their mixers in their early days because the original gloves on their costumes were too bulky. The fact is, a lot of new music is increasingly being composed using millions of keyboard and drum samples available in recording software and online libraries. Now that live performance has taken over as the chief way for a musician to make a living, countless artists are being forced to try to find a way to represent their sample based songs in venues that were conceived to showcase punk, grunge, and metal music.

The solution is out there, and so far a lot of bands are keeping it interesting by touring with a production team that knows how to put on a dazzling light show. But I think Yelle, like many acts in a similar genre are still searching for the best way to convey their music live.