Toronto's Death From Above 1979 is a polymorphous act, musically speaking, with a complex knot of influences at its core. The Toronto-based bass-and-drum duo is astoundingly chic right now, though its trumpeted connection to the '80s is imaginary. DFA '79 sounds as millennial as it comes, especially in contrast to Controller.Controller, another Toronto-grown sensation that currently has the U.K. music press in a froth. Both bands were here for a two-day blowout that began at the Red Room, a modest venue for a fashion show of this magnitude. The five-piece Controller.Controller bumbled onto the miniature stage for a convincing run through British-sounding dance punk, touching from a distance on ideas that haven't been rolled out since Ian Curtis died. Sadly, the Red Room is probably capable of housing a three-piece at best, and although Controller.Controller continued gamely if claustrophobically, a piss-poor sound mix killed it by the end. Anybody would be hard-pressed to recall hearing a drum at any point in the set. This can really fuck with your dance moves.

When Death From Above 1979's Jesse F. Keeler later delivered a set of bass hammer-ons, an exercise conventionally held to be quite disreputable by modern-day hipsters, the entire room crackled with a sense of liberation. Such is the band's rousing iconoclasm. The two-piece played a short, violent set that didn't disappoint, and the first of many crowd surfers was spotted a full 30 seconds into the opening number. Others merely lost control of themselves, eventually prompting drummer-vocalist Sebastien Grainger to scold his adoring audience, starting with one girl who insistently pawed at him. "You want me to touch your titties?" he snapped, before realizing how bad that would look in print. The question was subsequently retracted.

With so much hyperbole at its back, who knows if DFA '79 will make it all the way to its next album. On the other hand, who cares? The duo came in like champs tonight, unleashing a surly, chaotic set. They're hugely physical players, but Keeler is the uglier of the two, in a swoony, street-brawler way, and his brutish amp-humping gave the show the buzz of rough sex. His "Blame Rap Music" T-shirt pointed toward today's de rigueur embrace of hip-hop, but he and Grainger are just dirty white punks making music as libidinous as a furtive bathroom wank. To that end, an informal survey conducted at the end of the gig revealed two things: the show was a crowd-pleaser for sure, and at least one guy actually did beat it in the bar's toilet after song number three. He announced this with a certain woozy satisfaction and not a little pride.

Interestingly, the closest thing to funk that DFA '79 could drum up was the four-on-the-floor sizzler "Black History Month", which was full of heavy-lidded, meaningful exchanges between Keeler and Grainger. The theatrically sexual diversion seemed to have a soothing effect on the musicians. Tuning the crowd out, the Torontonians stopped beating the shit out of their instruments and settled into a warm but tense groove. Confusion reigns, children!

Georgia Straight, April 2005