tears rise in the stands like water in a glass

"The music sounds like helicopters taking off in a kitchen on Mars, where the plants on the windowsill have dog heads and howl for a midday water drip, and the toaster spits cookies from its mouth at will. Beautiful and bizarre, narcotizing, sending visitors to a little place inside their heads generally reserved for hallucinatory effects and self-realization."
- losanjealous.com


Gang Gang Dance encompass music, noise, dance, performance art, theater, DJing, film, and visual art into one curious, visceral amalgam. They're a band who is just as likely to play in a museum or gallery as they are a nightclub (such as Rochester's Bug Jar in August of '09). The key is their unique style of music, incorporating beats and melodies from every continent played through a series of synthesizers and computers, looped into entrancing, intricately layered rhythms. On top, several drums and guitars are played and vocalist Lizzi Bougatsos echoes (sings, chants, screams, howls, whatever you'd like) her dreamy poetry:

Prisms have kissed my lids //// Sea salt has rubbed on my hips

In 2007, the band released a 30 minute sound and video collaboration titled Rettina Riddim, which documented their history and career. The film pieces live recordings, field recordings, and practice tapes alongside shots of friends, fans, and found footage, creating a work that is smooth and mystic while building into a "pleasant state of sensory overload" (Georg Gatsas, via Whitney Museum of American Art). Above all, the film is raw and demanding, stressing the band's main (and apparent) position on music: it is both its own form of art and an integral part of other mediums.

In 2008, Gang Gang Dance played at the Whitney Museum's Biennial as part of a performance/installation piece. The band built a wall of mirrors facing the audience, behind which they filmed themselves playing. The film was then projected as a live feed onto the mirror wall but did not immediately show up (because that's what happens when one projects onto mirrors). Band members dressed up in elaborate masks and costumes drawn from the eclectic cultures that their music references. Throughout the set, one band member painted white paint along the mirror so that the feed slowly began to show, literally painting the band into sight.

You can watch some of the Whitney performance and the band's thoughts about the piece below.

photo & video credit:
quote and photo courtesy losanjealous.com, http://www.losanjealous.com/2009/02/09/gang-gang-dance-and-ariel-pinks-haunted-graffiti-the-smell-february-2-2009/
Live performance video courtesy of youtube, taken from http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sam1Ybm-cRE
Whitney video courtesy of artreview.com, taken from http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1dJd55sJgWg&feature=related