Yesterday, I was “In the Club” with White Williams. Alfred University’s Knight Club to be exact. After enduring a pretty generic rock band playing pretty generic rock songs and freshmen who had a bit too much energy and a bit too much inclination to mosh to absolutely anything, White Williams arrived. With very few lights on the small Knight Club stage, it was hard to see, but he looked particularly elfish with his button up shirt and rolled up dress pants. He and his two cohorts began what seemed like a sound check at first before launching into a sonic assault of electronic noise and bass explosions. White Williams was armed with what looked like a suitcase with a keyboard, lap top and some mean electronics, while one of his cohorts wielded a guitar with ample effects pedals and the other wielded a high hat, a snare and a sweet looking drum trigger pad.
Whether it was due to the Knight Club’s muddy sound, or the stripped down nature of White William’s live performance, each song off of his debut LP “Smoke”, was transformed into sublime noise rather than sublime electro-pop. His relatively well known singles “New Violence” (The version he played featured samples of Alfred’s Bell Tower) and “Violator” were transformed into throbbing kick drum and snare affairs with a synth loop squiggle here and a guitar lick there. Even though the tight, clear sounding, grooves of his album were pretty indisquishable, the songs were still enjoyable, transformed into noise band type remixes. It wasn’t quite what I expected, but you have to have to commend an artist who surprises his audience, even if it is to mixed results.
