BIIG PIIG AT CRSSD FESTIVAL
What’s 25-year-old Irish dance-pop artist Jessica Smyth — stage name: Biig Piig — doing in the lineup for this weekend’s CRSSD Festival, the two-day marathon that pointedly eschews EDM in favor of deep-house, techno, neo-disco, tropicalhouse and other dance-friendly electronic music styles? The twice-yearly festival — which debuted at San Diego’s Waterfront Park in 2015 — has periodically featured singer-songwriters, most notably the then-little-known Billie Eilish in 2017. But CRSSD’s musical bread and butter continues to be laptop-tweaking, knob-turning DJs — male and female — not wispy-voiced singersongwriters. Smyth, who usually performs with a guitarist and a keyboardist, does use pre-recorded beats and electronic backing tracks. But her music, which features lyrics in English and Spanish, draws more from hip-hop, lo-fi, indie-rock and late-’90s R&B than any au courant electronic-music styles. After releasing several largely below-the-radar EPs, Smyth is now signed to Columbia Records, which in January released “Bubblegum,” a seven-song collection that is being billed as her “debut mixtape.” Her 2 p.m. Saturday set comes at least seven hours before the headlining sets begin by French DJ/producer Kavinsky, Slovenian DJ/producer Umek and the French duo Polo & Pan. Noon to 11 p.m. Saturday; noon to 10 p.m. Sunday. San Diego Waterfront Park, 1600 Pacific Highway, downtown. Sold out, but two-day $299 general admission passes are available for the 21-and-up event through the festival’s ticket exchange: crssdpresents.lyte.com/3706526.