Northwest Arkansas Democrat-Gazette
Layers Of Progress
Band searches for cohesion with variety
From the very beginning, part of ODESZA’s musical M.O. has been continuous improvement, constantly tweaking little details here and there as they build their shows from the ground up.
“Our visual team and our lighting and program team, we all basically work together every day; we’re in the same studio building,” shares Clayton Knight, one half of the electronic duo. “So when we go to design a show, we’re working together side-by-side, whereas most bands, they give their production [maybe] some audio, and they build a show around that. We’re working symbiotically, continuously, through the process as we design the audio, the production, and vice versa.”
All that collaboration has brought the duo to the sweet spot they’ve been aiming for since they got their start only six short years ago — a show and album that’s a full cohesive experience. Their latest album, “A Moment Apart,” came to embody a subconscious narrative about handling changing perspectives, Knight explains. Keeping that in mind, the show was built around that concept as well.
“We’ve learned a lot about electronic music and how it fits in a live setting. Some of our favorite shows have this whole dynamic range,” he says. “We think it needs to ebb and flow — it needs its down parts, it needs its dance-y parts, it needs its cinematic moments.
“It feels like the whole set’s kind of growing throughout” the show, he continues. “So as we move through the set and those moments happen, it feels like the set’s evolving, things are getting bigger, and bigger, and bigger, and that’s a really important arc that we try to focus on a lot, as well as continuing the narrative.”
And though ODESZA could technically be called an electronic band, as their show has developed, so has the music. While maintaining that cohesion through the thematic arc, Knight notes their music is all over the place genre-wise. Hip-hop, dance, ambient and trap music all peek through the electronica, just as influences of Motown and ’60s surf music shimmer beneath the surface.
“It’s really grabbing people’s attention at the right time and not let anything go on too long. You got to keep things interesting and always ebbing and flowing.”