I Just Read About That…

[ATTENDED: October 26, 2025] Mark Broom

I have one Autechre album and I don’t really listen to it.  But when they announced this American tour (their first time playing here in ten years), I asked my friend Lar, who had seen them if I should go.  He told me an amusing story about how he liked the show but he took his significant other to the show and she almost broke up with him because of it.

But when I dove a little more deeply into the show it sounded like a unique experience that I’d like to try.

The opening act for the tour was Mark Broom. We also ha William Fields.  Fields was on the left side of the stage with his laptop and when he was done (after 30 minutes), Mark Broom who was on the right side of the stage with a laptop, started immediately (I appreciated the lack of pause).

I assumed that it would be more of the same because Autechre are also glitchy and noisy, but Broom had a different vibe.  His music was a bit more musical and a bit more dancey.  In the most basic way, it was more “enjoyable.”

I have no idea what he was doing up there (the lighting was very dim).  He had a laptop I know but he had some other gear too.  I could see him twisting knobs from time to time.  So I don’t know if he was making up the sounds on the fly or if they were existing songs that he was mixing around with.  As I said, it’s not my genre, but I found myself really getting into his stuff.

Broom has been DJing (and producing others) for a long time.  He is a veteran of the techno scene and evidently specializes in hardgroove with heavy percussion and tribal beats.

I assumed that he would get a 45 minute set, but he actually played for an hour.  Since I was planning to kick back and enjoy the night, I didn’t have a problem with him playing for an hour.  I felt like he mixed the tempos up and added interesting sounds and beats to make the hour pretty enjoyable.