Totally Enormous Extinct Dinosaurs (TEED) is a name, a strange name, you will hear more & more over the coming year. A not-so-secret obsession of mine, I was ecstatic to be on the guest list for his final live show of his debut UK tour, in Brighton at the weekend. Enjoy my review as much as I enjoyed the show:
Venturing out armed with a friend, an iPhone, the promise of a guest list presence, and some alcohol. I arrived at a regular haunt for myself, Brighton’s Digital Night Club, now boasting nothing less than a Mix Mag award (Big up!). Digital is a sparse, grimy, no-frills affair of a club, the kind of place your mum told you to avoid, but it comes with buckets of character, a supreme atmosphere and an indescribably awesome sound-system to match. So, the scene was set, my mind was open, I was ready to party.
I arrived to the sounds of Digital’s semi-resident, conservative Blah Blah Blah DJs, their melodic remixes resonated around the upper level of the club, where I applied my friend with extra drinks to prepare her for the crush-crush-crush of the impending dance floor. The bass-heavy tunes blended together and served their purpose, but it was clear from the crowd’s intermediate movements that they were present to see Orlando himself, the big dinosaur in the little club, TEED!
The music changes, the crowd moves forward, heads turn, cameras flash, the beat, hits… The man himself emerges, in the now infamous dinosaur costume and with a short soft, subtle “Good evening Brighton”, we were underway. From the offset I heard beats, melodies and tunes that, as a TEED fan, have never entered my ear canals before. Every second of it filled my body and made me want to move, jump, bounce, and throw myself agains the people around me. As a vetaran club / gig attendee, I have not felt that intense rush and pure joyous emotion in quite some time.
Orlando’s set was brimming with original content: The entrancing Dream On, ethnically enhanced Waulking Song, the now famous and virally infectious Garden, the disgustingly dirty American Dream (Video above) and his current internet smash; Tapes & Money. Each sound presented itself with not only supreme skill and honest craftsmanship, but also with a genuine understanding that this music has his own heart & soul intertwined between every beat, synth, and haunting vocal, he’s not a DJ spinning records, he’s the curator of his own sound. It seems almost impossible to convey the euphoric feeling that this man inflicted upon his audience, who were hypnotised by every word that left his lips.
Rather than grapple and grasp at my vocabulary attempting to describe the atmosphere and sensations, it maybe best to end with this: Totally Enormous Extinct Dinosaurs is the real deal. He represents everything that Electronic Music is about, a creative soul who refuses to be generalised into one genre or subsection. He is an artist in every sense of the word, his unbounded enthusiasm and ability to hear and create beautiful music is something to be admired. Remember the name, tell a friend kids. This one is something special.
9/10 – Heroic.
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