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Published on 8/5/08
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Under his own name, Jake Fairley lies on the knock-’em-dead side of the techno divide. The Canadian artist, now based in (where else?) Berlin, has acquired a reputation as something of an electronic-music tough guy—not through fisticuffs or knife play, but via stomping, brawling beats. (A 2004 set at Filter 14 had a definite glam-rock swagger, as if Slade had grown up with sequencers instead of guitars.) But it turns out Fairley is a softie at heart: As Fairmont, he makes emotive and downright poignant techno-pop, driven by delicate melodies and occasionally punctuated by his own breathy vocals, for the Traum and Border Community labels. While some tracks can come off as a bit cottony, they generally retain enough oomph to work a dance floor, which bodes well for his Friday-night live set.
That in itself is enough reason to brave the Meatpacking District on a weekend night, but if you need more inducement to wade your way through bellowing frat boys and teetering stiletto girls, this night provides it in opening spinner DJ Three. The music-playing persona of Christopher Milo, who runs the Hallucination Limited label and was the partner of Sean Cusick in the defunct Second Hand Satellites duo, Three is one of technodom’s semisecret weapons. His sets tend to meander between deep material, minimal-dub excursions, straight-up tech-house and progressive-leaning tunes, the last a likely by-product of his days spinning at Twilo. Both elegant and muscular, his sound is something that many bigger names can only dream of pulling off.
