Sepomana to Bring Eclectic Lineup

In an interview with Vans, Montreal DJ extraordinaire Lunice proclaimed about his own music, “what I’m trying to really build up this year is to really make it very involved, in a sense where it doesn’t need to be turned up, but it definitely needs to be cool,” a statement that could very well double as WRMC’s organizing principle for this year’s Sepomana, the station’s annual spring festival/dance party/blowout end-of-year celebration occurring on Saturday, May 2 at 9:30 p.m. in Wilson Hall.

Lunice holds down this year’s lineup as headliner, with opening sets coming from experimental New York hip-hop trio Ratking, psychedelic guitar masters Yonatan Gat and Middlebury’s own folksy favorite Iron Eyes Cody. Hot off the heels of last year’s show, the highest attended concert ever in Wilson Hall and a display of kaleidoscopic magnificence from Dan Deacon and BadBadNotGood, this Sepomana promises to be a wild, genre-spanning explosion of energy.

Lunice may best be known as one half of pioneering maximalist trap duo TNGHT (along with Hudson Mohawke), a rare group whose popularity reaches all the way from Atwater to the Mill. His music finds firm rooting in his hometown of Montreal — synths rise, fall and reverberate, bleeps and bloops drop in and out and hip-hop-inspired beats keep the whole enterprise moving forward. His varied catalog can sound like anything from the most hype hip-hop track to slinky electronic weirdness like Shlomo.

His live show, featuring constant dancing and interaction with the crowd, is frequently touted as one of the most engaging in all of electronic music, with commenters on reddit heaping on praise such as,  “he honestly reminded me of Kanye when he was spinning, I loved it.” His sets, consisting of original songs and mixes as well as music from cutting edge scenes like jersey club, are all composed with the intent of the most involved live performance.

“The reason is then to write music for the performances rather than make music for music, it’s making music, almost soundtracking for a film,” Lunice told Fact Magazine.

Lunice’s pan-genre dabbling and focus on high-octane performances resonate with his immediate opener, one of the hottest and most dynamic current hip-hop acts, Ratking. Ratking translates all the energy and vibrancy of New York City’s hip-hop heyday into an electric and eclectic sound, taking influences everywhere from Detroit techno to Latin grooves, mixing woozy brass samples with voices pitched up out of recognition and synths that pop like lights on the city skyline. Street poetics rain down in distinctively off-kilter vocals, all over wavy reverbs. Their live performances mix genres as much as their music.

“Punk sounds great live but it can often come up short on record. Rap sounds great but is not the dopest thing to see live. We’re a rap group but we want to be part of the culture of punk,” rapper Wiki explained to the Guardian.

Ratking’s sure-to-be raucous set will be preceded by equally wild antics. New York by way of São Paulo by way of Tel Aviv freewheeling psychedelic rock group Yonatan Gat has built up a reputation for insanity, eschewing the stage for improvisation-filled performances situated on the ground in the middle of the crowd. They’ve collected praise from Vice, the New York Times, the Village Voice’s (Best Guitarist of 2013), Spin Magazine (top acts of South By Southwest 2015) and more. Their guitar shredding is reminiscent of an internationally influenced Delicate Steve, and if there were not such constant rock-n-roll riffage the entire time one might be convinced they were a jazz band, given how much the band shifts grooves so effortlessly throughout songs.

Though it will venture from Israel to New York to Montreal, the night begins firmly anchored in Vermont with the folksy fun of Iron Eyes Cody, kicking off the night with their signature foot-stomping tunes. Tickets are $5 if purchased prior to the show, either at the Box Office or go/sepomtix, and $8 at the door. Travelling through a dynamic mix of sounds and genres, Sepomana 2015 is set to defend its title as the year’s wildest party.