What do you get when you mix electronic dance, hip-hop, deep house, funktronica, video game-synth sound, and the raw talent of seven musicians? You get Digital Tape Machine. On December 12th, the group took the stage at Chicago’s Concord Music Hall, with Austin-based DJ, Thibault, as their special guest.
Digital Tape Machine’s (DTM) Chicago roots spread far and wide, performing at music festivals such as Electric Forest Music Festival (Rothbury, MI) and Summer Camp Music Festival (Chillicothe, IL), as well as hundreds of sold out shows. The group is comprised of musicians who hail from a number of well-established Chicago groups, including: Umphrey’s McGee, Strange Arrangement, Liquid Soul, Land of Atlantis, and the Hue.
While their musical backgrounds share bits of funk, hip-hop, electronica, and rock, each band member brings their own stylistic flair and character to the mix. The spine-tingling grooves and playful stage presence embodied by this group make their shows a blast to be a part of.
This performance held a particularly special meaning for both Digital Tape Machine fans and the band itself, as they recently announced this as their last show with all seven of the original members. In light of the group’s lineup shift, they brought the gusto and dynamism that screamed “here’s our last show together—let’s give it all we’ve got!”
They featured songs off their recent EP, Omens, such as “Big N Tall” and “Edge of Your Seat” that have you feeling as though you are hop-skip-jumping through a video game while Marcus Rezak’s guitar work courses through your veins like warm electro-liquid gold.
Digital Tape Machine’s makeup of gifted and experienced musicians generates an energy that is purely magnetic. DTM brings a chemistry that has been brewed for years, droplets of a digital-analog fusion, and feeds it back to their crowd. The group, now comprised of the incredibly talented Marcus Rezak, Joe Hettinga, Bryan Doherty and new drummer, Neal Wehman, enthusiastically announced their winter tour, starting in January 2015.
Their upcoming will include close collaboration with Cosby Sweater, as well as a cleverly combined Digital Sweater performance—sure to warm up the crowd with its funky vibes.
The final act of the evening, consisting of the seven-piece band, Digital Tape Machine and Thibault, brought the bass and funk that reverberated throughout the Concord Music Hall. It was a performance that left the audience craving more, and eager to see what the new four piece ensemble has in store for us in the future.