Barry Can’t Swim Crushes Los Angeles With Two Shrine Expo Hall Performances — Bonnaroo Next

A view from the booth at Barry Can’t Swim’s Friday night Shrine throwdown (Photo: Digital Music News)

Searing Scottish DJ Barry Can’t Swim packed The Shrine for two nights in Los Angeles this weekend — with his full band in tow.Ninja Tune phenom Barry Can’t Swim capped his West Coast mini-tour this weekend with a pair of packed gigs at The Shrine — with a Bonnaroo slot next.  The fast-rising Scot is quickly making friends and influencing people, with the first Los Angeles gig oversold and expanded into a second night.

And for those who like to be entertained, Barry Can’t Swim — aka Joshua Spence Mainnie — essentially destroyed it. For starters, The Shrine is a cavernous space, though the sound was properly balanced and full, with a non-stop laser and light show to accompany the music.

Those putting on DJ sets are intimately familiar with how difficult it is to pull off a proper choreography, though team Barry crushed it. The result: Barry Can’t Swim’s adherents were dancing their asses off, with Mainnie deftly threading together tracks in a tightly-woven set.

Barry Can’t Swim definitely has his die-hard fans, and this story is likely to grow.Part of the appeal might be the DJ’s differentiations from the typical solo DJ ensemble. Barry Can’t Swim’s visual display was great, though the real attraction goes beyond backdrop razzle-dazzle.

Instead, this ‘DJ’ is actually a band, with a real drummer, keyboards, and even a full-blown string section trotted out. That fits Mainnie’s orientation, which is more musician than DJ and certainly not constrained to a particular dance sub-genre. Instead, the music of Barry Can’t Swim traverses jazz, house, afrobeat, and even shoegazer, with splices of random recordings peppered throughout.

That said, Barry Can’t Swim is very much a DJ, and his performances are solidly dance events.But it’s surprising how much of a difference the live instruments alter the musical motif, including the energetic drumming. It makes you realize that decades after the advent and widespread acceptance of the drum machine, there’s still something left behind.

Superfans also got a nice preview of some upcoming material at this weekend’s gigs. That includes some tracks from the forthcoming album, Loner, which drops July 11th on the aforementioned Ninja Tune.