Giraffage, Pomo at The Hoxton

Photographs by Dakota Arsenault.

The floor shaking, bass-fueled sweatbox that is often the scene at The Hoxton, was host to a more relaxed sound on Friday, and it was an excellent change of pace. The evening featured Giraffage’s No Reason Tour With Spazzkid and Pomo. Giraffage, the DJ headlining the tour, is an electronic producer out of San Francisco. This was their 14th stop on the tour that began in Georgia and wraps up in L.A.   

Pomo opened for Giraffage with a pleasing set. The music was easy on the ears and the crowd was tame. He dropped some great tunes and had a certain carefree charisma up in the booth that cant be taught. He was keeping a mellow tone, sticking with some deep, funky house and transitioning well into a cool mix of Kylie Minogue’s Can’t Get You Out of My Head. At the end of the song he paused it and had the crowd finish it off with a chorus of “La la la’s”. With great crowd participation and a well-executed ending to a song, he transitioned abruptly into a remix of Bruh by Sam Gellaitry.

The venue started to fill up as Giraffage hit the stage a little bit behind schedule at 1am. I was impressed to see he was making some beats on the spot with his controller pad live on stage, which is always a thrill. He kicked off his set with a remix of his own release Close To Me. I am still trying to identify this song for my own music collection; it was beautiful remix on an already solid track. The lounge/trap style music coming from the booth created a comfortable environment to sway in and out and move to the beat. He would transition from the mellow style electronic into a big trap song to give you that “oh shit” moment that gets your heart rate up. He finished off his set with the CLASSIC, well known trance-techno song Sandstorm. I never thought I would hear that old school track in the Hoxton. I would also like to give a shout out to the guys from Embrace who, once again hosted a terrific night.  

Thanks to Embrace Presents for media access.