Since 2000, DJ and promoter David Pianka has hosted Making Time, a groovy series of party jams at various Philly venues, gay and straight. Pianka has always hosted the crème of electro-dance newbies on the verge of breaking big. Calling them "fellow intergalactic cosmic adventures," he's featured everyone from the Strokes in 2001 to Girls, Major Lazer, and Dum Dum Girls in 2010, plus many winning acts in between.
While Pianka prepares himself for a 10th-anniversary season (already started on Wednesday) of future-funk, his celebration's ace in the hole comes courtesy the central axis of its galaxy, the NYC-based minimalist funk outfit Liquid Liquid.
"Be prepared for raw, unfiltered, yet informed music played by a group that at times seems like it's going to implode on itself but has a tightness that comes from over 30 years of playing together," says Liquid Liquid singer/percussionist Salvatore Principato.
Liquid Liquid started in 1980. Within three years, the group crafted the blueprint for every alt-disco and post-punk dance cut thereafter. Vocals focused more on pitch and rhythm than words and lyrics. The band stressed the interplay of its percussionists - and how bassist Richard McGuire held his instrument unusually high on his chest to create an intensely insistent pluck.
"We didn't feel a need to live up to the styles of that moment," Principato says of the band's inventiveness. "We allowed the aesthetic to be one that was true to our own peculiarities. Personally, I wasn't trying to be literal or cartoonish. I expressed the complexity of feelings in an impressionistic, emotional way but also to evoke physicality through rhythm."
LL's spare, evocative sound made for throbbing underground hits such as "Bellhead" and "Cavern" back in the day. Now more than ever, the band's influence is heard in LCD Soundsystem, whose leader, James Murphy, refers to Liquid Liquid so often in song ("This is Happening") he surely owes them cash.
"Hell, if that's true," says Principato, "it's gratifying to think there're people who find enough value in our work that they access the vocabulary and approach we adopted way back when and apply it to present musical sensibilities."
Reunited only for too rare, nearly holy occasions, Liquid Liquid hasn't recorded new material in some time, a situation that needs to be remedied so younger audiences can hear the band afresh.
"That'd be the next logical step, wouldn't it?" Principato says. "In a sense we're stronger and more precise than we used to be - like now we finally understand our own material. If we did release another record, it would have to be as honest, relevant, and impactful as anything we've ever done. In a lot of ways, we're still a work in progress."