Vegyn Comes Alive at Webster Hall
Vegyn – Webster Hall – December 6, 2023
A first-time listener to Vegyn, the British producer and DJ (born Joe Thornalley), may be at once daunted and puzzled encountering his music. He’s the wunderkind who helped make Frank Ocean’s Blonde (2016) — the No. 1-rated album of the 2010s, according to Pitchfork — well, Blonde. In 2021, he released a 71-track album titled Text While Driving if You Want to Meet God!, essentially a scratchpad of bits and bops whose song titles read like file names. And this year, he put out a record under the alias Headache and in the vein of, perhaps generously, the Streets or Sleaford Mods: spoken word over atmospheric sounds and drums.
That’s hardly close to a full accounting of Vegyn’s work, but he gave the people of NYC a nice slice of it on Wednesday night at Webster Hall. He opened with “I See You Sometimes,” off the six-track EP Like a Good Old Friend (2021). The song, featuring the rapper Jeshi, whose voice moves in and out of distortion, was a pleasant entry point to the night. It starts spare and slow and blossoms into a danceable break-heavy hit. But Vegyn isn’t interested in sountracking your club night. “I never wanted to go out,” he said in a 2019 interview with Billboard for his debut full-length, Only Diamonds Cut Diamonds. “I’m much more of a homebody. This music speaks to that.” On “Debold,” as in much of his music, Vegyn’s concern is lo-fi production and melody, something he’s said he finds lacking in modern electronic music. He is gifted at nipping and tucking his genre-bending tastes into something truly new.
That tendency made for beautiful listening on Wednesday. His tracks my not be ripped through with 3D wub and dub, but that doesn’t make them any less rich or transportive. The Headache track he played — “The Party That Never Ends,” off The Head Hurts but the Heart Knows the Truth (2023) — seems to suggest he’s leaning even further away from the floor. Piano lilts and ripples over dreamlike wooziness: “I’ve been running for a long, long time / For years,” an AI masc. British voice says. “I know I can’t find what I’m looking for / And I’ve wasted so much time / But I don’t regret a thing.” The music pauses, then the percussion kicks in, guitars, and we’re riding. Is this rock? “So what?” in the song’s own words.
Vegyn ended with “Makeshift Tourniquet” — the B-side of the single “Halo Flip,” released last month. Bringing to mind Daphni’s “Clavicle,” the song is a sonic lasso that expands and contracts. It was a glimmery sendoff to an exciting set. —Rachel Brody | @RachelCBrody
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hi there sleepi bb, how are u doing! it's been so long since we last talked <3
IM DOING GREAT I JUST WENT OUT FOR GROCERIES
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2023.05.22
i am smitten but in a very good way
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Kam-BU - In The Wind feat. Jeshi
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wanted to show you a pic of my brunches over the past 2 weeks 😵💫 if you ever visit Bali I’m taking you out for food everyday
YOOOO!!
Whatever pasta dish that is, it looks BANGIN!! I’m a slut for pasta anything. Could actually really go for sage & butternut squash ravioli rn. Ugh, so good
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