Concert Review: Henrik Schwarz at Electric Pickle, Friday, May 7

The turnout for Henrik Schwarz's long-awaited performance on Friday night was phenomenal, and yet another epic EDM experience at the Electric Pickle. By the account of many die-hard regulars, this was one of the best sets Miami has seen in recent years, and one which won't soon be forgotten.

The action kicked off in the downstairs lounge area, where Aquabooty

resident DJ Tomas laid out some rare groove, disco and funk goodies the

likes of "Strawberry Letter 23" by the Brothers Johnson, a personal

favorite. Next behind the decks was PL0T resident Basti, who is now

moonlighting in a more hybrid indie dance style on some nights, in

addition to the usual deep tech he makes his focus during PL0T's

sessions.

The upstairs room got totally jam-packed during the

opening sets by resident DJ Will Renuart and special guests DHM, who

warmed up the crowd with a gratifying deep house and nu-disco

selection. Henrik Schwarz got on around 2 a.m., armed with laptop and

hardware controllers, and wasted no time in hitting a sustained peak of

energy that put those voluptuous Dynacord stacks through the best

workout they've had since Mathew Jonson's live set last year, probably.

Between the jacking 125+ BPM, massive throbbing bass, and the

wall-to-wall sea of bodies, it felt like the room was one, giant,

bouncing beast, and Schwarz played to the crowd by feeding off our

energy and doing his own fair share of boogieing from behind the decks.

Anyone

who follows Schwarz knows that his production work and compilation

mixes tend to lean towards gentler easy-listening

compositions--see his avant-garde electronic jazz duets with pianist

Bugge Wesseltoft. But on Friday night he pumped out a continuous string

of jacked-up tech-house bangers, punctuated by his signature melodic

jazz sensibility but equally unafraid of the populist and

unpretentiously funky, like when he dropped a jacking uptempo rework of

Michael Jackson's "Wanna Be Startin' Somethin.'" While many of us

expected a mellower lounge-house set, Schwarz demonstrated he is more

than capable of rising to the challenge of keeping a roomful of sweaty

Miamians bouncing all night.&

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