Hello yes, The Met? I would like to request that the above photo be hung in The Great Hall. Thank you.
If you didn’t catch Gesaffelstein’s wildly disruptive appearance at Coachella over the last couple of weekends, it may be time to learn about it. The French DJ/producer has been teasing a U.S. tour for quite some time now. Mysterious advertisements appeared seemingly overnight last fall in New York City before the French musician premiered a new album, titled Hyperion. Now, after two massive weekends at Coachella, Gesaffelstein has announced a U.S. tour slated for the fall.
Coachella
What made Gesaffelstein’s Coachella performance so—uh, incredible—was its visual element. Few DJ’s have managed to successfully capture a mysterious persona in the same way that Gesaffelstein has, let alone so effortlessly. The producer took the stage—which was adorned floor to ceiling in Vantablack fabric—covered in black metallic paint and clothing that gave the appearance of being made of black liquid. His physical look was reminiscent of Michelangelo‘s “David.” That is, if the “David” were made of titanium and set in the new-age. Juxtaposed with the clear acrylic tables that housed the DJ’ing equipment used throughout the performance, it gave a stunning appearance of Renaissance-era art being reinvented in the age of the electronic composer. The whole thing demonstrated Gesaffelstein’s ability to create a piece of stunning visual art as much as he can construct an album.
Speaking of Vantablack—for the unaware—the substance was created by Surrey NanoSystems out of the UK. It’s special because it’s one of the darkest substances ever created. Blacker than black, the substance has the ability to absorb as much as 99.96% of all visible light. While you were busy making sure that you were stocked on Woolite for blacks, Gesaffelstein was one-upping you with an entire stage made of the darkest shade of black on Earth. And yes, since you were asking—he did invent techno. And art, clearly.
The Tour
Gesaffelstein has announced that the “Against the Night, Across the Time” tour will happen this fall. But the artist has one more festival stop before the summer ends. The next stop for the extreme darkeness stage set up will be at The Governor’s Ball music festival in New York City this May. It’s not the first time the artist has toured the festival circuit, but this is the most we’ve seen of his live performances in years.
Fans aren’t going to get much out of the tour in terms of dates. The thing itself is limited to only 10 stops across the country. But promises “a truth, a sermon, a sacrifice” IN THE NAME OF ART. Hyperion recieved mixed reviews as Gesaffelstein ventured into pop music with collaborations from HAIM, Pharrell Williams, and The Weeknd. It’s far from what fans came to love in Aleph, but it showed a new side to the artist.
The tour, if Coachella was any indication, promises to please fans old and new by returning to the artists roots as one of the leading techno producers in the world. Tickets for the tour don’t go on sale until Friday. But the anticipation for the tour shows that it will probably sell out, fast.
