It was an intensive week for music’s early adopters this past week in Los Angeles. Hipsterdom centered around events featuring two artists: electro indie rockers Handsome Furs and L.A.’s own beatmaster general Nosaj Thing. This past Thursday, Handsome Furs – a duo side project compression Dan Boeckner of Wolf Parade and his hot wife, Alexei Parry – played a live show at the almighty Echoplex in Echo Park, bringing out all the insidiously attractive Silverlake scenesters. “I’m intimidated to play in Los Angeles because everyone’s so damn good looking,” Boeckner even cracked from the stage. Equally alluring was Handsome Furs’ enthralling live show, which rocked with the sexiness of Crystal Castles without the dystopian evil, or conversely with the energy  of Matt and Kim, but if they weren’t such damn shiny happy people and more into erotic transgression. Indeed, in concert Handsome Furs were all about the get-down sound: “This one’s about having sex,” a very sweaty Parry said introducing a song, but she could’ve said it about the whole set list. Indeed, Handsome Furs isn’t reinventing the wheel: the basic mode captured on their great Sub Pop albums, 2007’s Plague Park and 2009’s Face Control, is a standard guy/girl thing a la the Kills and Raveonettes, mixed in with some Kid 606 glitch naughtiness.  But Boeckner and Parry bring their own unique cathartic, intimate energy to this paradigm: seeing them onstage is how one imagines they are in the bedroom – mad, bad, and dangerous to know.

The other hipster-central place to be last week were the pair of on-the-dl shows performed by Nosaj Thing, aka Jason Chung, celebrating the release of his debut album, Drift. Nosaj has proven to be one of the most innovative beat technicians to come out of the axis of Low End Theory, the amazing club night run by L.A.’s electronic-bass emperor Daddy Kev. Low End Theory has been the axis for the funkiest, yet most adventurous, electronic music around, bringing together dubstep, hip-hop, techno, glitch and IDM under one roof like none other; artists like Flying Lotus were key architects of the Low End Theory movement. Famed UK DJ Mary Anne Hobbs – who largely broke basshead big names like Kode9, Benga, and Burial – even broadcast an episode her BBC radio show from there. Hobbs also spins Nosaj Thing constantly on her show, and he certainly puts his own unique stamp on Low End’s melting pot of sonics: the instant classic Drift rocks the booty bass for sure, but transforms it with inventive glitchery and an ethereally melodic compositional sense that evokes ambient masters like Eno and Aphex Twin.

Nosaj’s record-release party last week at Low End proved he’d indeed arrived: the place was so packed with hundreds of fans, the fire marshal shut down Nosaj’s thing twice! It was too banging for the authorities, for sure; intrepid partygoers who stuck around after the fuzz split, however, got to hear a surprise set from Nosaj homey Flying Lotus jamming and glitching with a jazz quartet! Nosaj continued to celebrate Drift’s release with an incredible party at Silverlake’s outpost of UNDFTD, absolutely one of L.A. greatest spots for incredible, ill, limited-edition kicks. UNDFTD even collaborated on a limited edition t-shirt commemorating Drift, recreating Nosaj’s name in their famous logo font.. Nearly 200 kids crammed in to UNDFTD’s storefront to hear absolutely slamming sets from Nosaj and Low End homey Gaslamp Killer, who proved they are as much rock stars as DJs with their crowd hyping. Seeing the hipsters getting down so shamelessly made it clear that, when it comes to fresh bass, L.A. is the place.