PREVIEW In his recent profile of Steven Ellison, better known as Flying Lotus, The New Yorker music critic Sasha Frere-Jones goes out of his way to avoid dropping the "lazer bass" bomb. Which makes sense: it’s a term he jokingly and publicly coined on his blog to describe a geographically dispersed "affinity group" whose music seems to have both everything and nothing to do with hip-hop circa 2008, and he’s gotten some shit for it. Here’s where we rely on Daly City’s Mochipet — David Y. Wang, if you’re feeling friendly — to clarify things. Whether looking back over his six-year discography or just dealing with the songs on his MySpace profile, it’s easy to imagine traces of any major electronic production style of the last decade — from ADD-afflicted IDM to Baltimore’s stuttering club thump or early-aughts mash-ups — but there isn’t much settled or comfortably historical about the MIDI controller-ized way the genres and references are seamlessly slurred together and stretched taut over heavy syncopation.
As that joke genre passes from lark to an articulated set of formal rules, it may turn out that Mochipet is not part of the clique that includes folks like Ellison, Hudson Mohawke, and SF’s future blappers Lazer Sword. In songs like "Sharp Drest" from this year’s Microphonepet (Daly City), however, Mochipet is indisputably one in intention with these artists, producing tracks that bang so hard they cause involuntary dancing, and bass blurps that seem to filter through your sternum before reaching your eardrums. Pretty tuff stuff for a guy named after squishy stuff, especially since he so often performs in an infantilizing purple dinosaur suit.
MOCHIPET With Return to Mono, the Flying Skulls, and Anon Day. Wed/10, 8 p..m., $5–$8. Red Devil Lounge, 1695 Polk, SF. (415) 921-1695, www.reddevillounge.com