I mention this little detail because it seems to sum up his entire stage persona.

Philip Rabalais, you see, seems entirely one of us when he first steps on stage, just another skinny 20-something guy in horn-rimmed glasses and a size-too-large flannel shirt, someone you could easily imagine passing by on a Monday morning as you head to class.

This is unsurprising, considering that he’s no touring musician but an Iowa City local, a grad student in the University of Iowa’s Cinematic Arts program.

His introverted stage presence was not helped by the frankly sedate atmosphere that filled the Mill at the time he came on stage, leading me to have low expectations for the show ahead.

From the moment he hooked up his laptop to the Mill’s omnipresent audio system, however, Rabalais became something entirely different. Seemingly out of nowhere, the kid who had sheepishly mumbled “hello, I’m Philip” into the microphone flooded the Mill with bass and beats so infectious that half of the audience instantly fled their tables for the dance floor.

Phillip Rabalais had become a DJ, with all the low-brow, beat-heavy, Saturday night sensation-seeking sensuality that the term rightfully implies. With that baggy hipster flannel off of his back and thrown to the floor, the transformation was complete.

Setlists are useless when describing the flow of Rabalais’ performance. His songs had no distinct beginning or end; rather, melodic elements dropped in and out of the mix as the beat shifted up and down tempo according to Rabalais’ whims.

At times, I felt that he was composing new tracks on the fly, stitching new beats together from the wealth of samples presumably stored on the Macbook he that had hauled on stage.

His sound itself was heavily dominated by looped vocal samples. Rabalais wove a tapestry of male and female voices that were so heavily distorted that it was hard to tell if they were human or if they had been computer generated.

At other times, flutes, synths and sax entered the mix, hinting at the forms of more conventional dance genres but never quite conforming to them. The inhuman distortions of Blank Banshee and similar vaporwave artists are perhaps the most obvious mainstream touchstone for his sound.

The key difference between these artists and Rabalais, of course, is that all the ironic trappings of the internet faded away as he performed live and in person.

With all of the tables trembling and the dance floor full, the kid on the stage and the surreal, warped and modified sounds coming out of his laptop had somehow captured the schism between reality and possibility that gets crossed after a few drinks on a weekend night.

And as the show finally drew to a close, it was clear that Philip Rabalais himself – the shy grad student turned explosive club DJ – embodied that possibility better than anyone else in the room.

The post Witching Hour: Philip Rabalais @ The Mill 10/21/2017 appeared first on KRUI Radio.

Trouble Lights is an electronic pop duo from Fairfield, IA. Adrien Daller and Philip Rabalais (both of whom contribute their respective talents to a myriad of other groups) have been working together for quite awhile, but “The Endless Prom” is their first proper release as a pair.

Philip Rabalais is most well known for his beat-making work in the electro-punk band Utopia Park. Yet he’s also working on a project with Darla Murphy called Animal, and his work has appeared on albums by Little Ruckus and Zoe Boekbinder.

Adrien Daller is perhaps one of the most well-trained singers in the state — having worked in musical theater in England and even singing “God Save the Queen” for the Queen of England.

That these two creative forces have found each other is proof of Iowa’s growing cultural clout, but let’s move on to the record itself.

First and foremost, the track sequencing is tremendously important. Although any “concept” is more or less absent, this is still clearly an album, with a purposeful ordering. There’s no narrative, but the tracks are sequenced in such a way as to allow for the listener to imagine their own contexts.

It’s that very balance between the audience and the artist that reveals one of “The Endless Prom” central questions — that is, the question of mass appeal versus personal connection.

The topic, which runs underneath the whole album, is particularly noticeable on stand-out track “Fire Night.” The song is addressed to an unnamed “you,” to whom Adrien sings, “You watch yourself become someone else,” instantly blurring the line between her and the listener. This conflation of “singer” and “audience” is at the heart of the record (and perhaps at the heart of all pop music, but that’s a conversation for another day).

On “Safe With Me,” by far the best song on altogether fine album, moves away from the “you and I” language of most of the rest of the album. Instead, the lyrics address a “little boy” and a “little girl,” promising to keep them safe. That the lead single exists in the world of children is indicative of another theme of the album — regression. Pop music is inherently regressive, of course, but the genius of Trouble Lights’ music is how it uses regression as a shifting framework, letting the artist appear to regress and therefore allowing the audience to simply enjoy the music.

Regression is also central to the creation of the album. In a recent interview with Iowa Music Buzz, Philip alludes to this, saying, “I want to forever be this 13 year old nerd kid, making beats on my computer. Adrien is always this anxious, emotional teenage girl singing her heart out.”

But the great thing is, this is not regressive music at all. Adrien’s performances are clearly informed by her extensive vocal training. Phil’s production is clean, but never sterile; inventive, yet always accessible. But the duo are still chiefly concerned with the universality of pop music, what it means to make and listen to popular music, all the while creating personal connections with ever-growing crowds.

“The Endless Prom” is available for pre-order now at Maximum Ames Records and will be released on September 25, 2012.

The post Album Review: “The Endless Prom” by Trouble Lights appeared first on KRUI Radio.