Music: Odesza

Last Thursday, Odesza’s glowing dance tracks shook the Arlington Theatre as 2,000 EDM lovers gathered to see the Seattle duo perform. The show was enchanting. Odesza’s Harrison Mills and Clayton Knight showed off their instrumental skills, each of them playing drum pads and violently beating floor toms to create an ambitious electro-tribal sound. Solo artists Shy Girls and Young Summer performed the vocals on some of the Odesza’s more prominent tracks, which directed the show beyond the scope of a typical EDM party.

Visuals played a key role in the experience Odesza created. For the first half of the set, multicolored psychedelic animations swayed around the screen, sometimes mixed with footage of a hiker in summer. The original Gamera, Godzilla’s rival in the 1960s, stomped around the screen in black and white as the show took a turn toward the trap sound of Isla Vista on a Friday night. There was even a three-piece brass ensemble to give the drop on tracks like this a special live touch. It’s a great example of why people love Odesza so much: They possess a rare ability to fuse genres and create something that appeals to more than one type of crowd.