CMJ: Sounds of Solitude

Karsten Moran for The New York Times Holy Other performed at Villain in Brooklyn on Friday night.

If factories could mourn, they'd sound like the electronica of Holy Other, who brought his samplers and mixers to Pitchfork's unofficial CMJ showcase on Friday night at Villain in Brooklyn. In a realm where booming dance beats are the makings of big-time careers, Holy Other - who is from Manchester, England, and does not reveal his name - prefers dirges and throbs. Instead of standard drum tones, he often uses a deep, edgeless thud or nothing at all, and he dwells on minor chords and misty open spaces. He turns electronica back toward introspection and solitude - after all, it's u sually one-man music - and trades the communal pleasures of clubland for loneliness and longing. Instead of snappy vocal-hook samples, he often uses isolated syllables, separated even from language.

Tolling, funereal bell tones appeared as his set began; the tempos were slow and somber, as likely to be paced by slow, distant crashes as by an overt beat. The bass notes themselves seemed to breathe, heaving into earshot and dying away, more like smoke signals than a computerized metronome. That didn't stop audience members from swaying and dancing, as the subwoofers gave their visceral push. The set had an arc, with the tempo picking up from glacial to trudging, and at the end - with Holy Other's track “Touch” - there were words: “I've been looking for a touch.” Looking for, not finding.