One of the events we were sure to check out during last week’s CMJ music festival was the Fool’s Gold Records Showcase at New York’s Hiro Ballroom. DJ A-Trak started the Fool’s Gold label in partnership with New York DJ “Catchdubs” with the goal of releasing music at the crossroads of hip-hop and electro, a sound that is at once sonically fresh and a throwback to the glory days of 1980’s New York hip-hop. The showcase provided a mix of the label’s young talent as well as some genre mashing goodness that spanned everything from techno to hip-hop to 80’s pop.
The night kicked off with an early highlight from Fool’s Gold’s rising stars, The Cool Kids, who have been picking up accolades from music magazines and music bloggers alike. DJ Mehdi took the stage around midnight. Mehdi records for Paris record label Ed Banger, the newest incarnation of the resurgent French House scene and home to labelmates Justice. The French DJ put together a raucous and energetic set, easily flowing from dirty south hip-hop, to 80’s electro classics laden with Roland 808 drum stabs, back to some favorites from their Ed Banger “father-figures” and French House icons, Daft Punk.
A-Trak was up last to end the night on a high note, reiterating the night’s genre-defying theme with a dynamic set packed with Brazilian Baile Funk, more hip-hop and some old 80’s electro classics. Not to be outdone by the evening’s diverse musical themes, the event visuals provided a steady stream of 1980’s nostalgia, projecting fantastical robotic dinosaurs and pixelated Atari-style graphics all-to-familiar to anyone who grew up during the Reagan years. It was a fitting touch for a record label that owes so much stylistically to its 1980’s forbearers.
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