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Music

See North Carolina Right: An Autumn Weekend at Mountain Oasis Electronic Music Summit

Watch the leaves fall on Asheville's newest music festival.

Photos via Tina Haver Currin

You've probably heard bad things about North Carolina this year: See, last November, our political system ceded its prolonged crawl toward progress to right-wing hacks and a governor blessed with the spine of a jellyfish and conviction controlled by those with fiscal wherewithal and dreadful ideals.

In the months since his lavish inaugural ball, where hushpuppies were stuffed with barbeque and held tiny plastic syringes loaded with viscous barbeque sauce, we've passed laws requiring voters to present IDs at polls, stripped schools of funding, and fucked with women, minorities, and environmentalists with hard-ons filled with hate and greed and ignorance and the rest of the awful things folks continue to associate with my native neck of the woods. The Daily Show and The Colbert Report have had their steady way with us Tar Heels this year, as has The New York Times, in a rightfully punishing editorial called "The Decline of North Carolina."

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So, of course, why would you want to come here, especially right now?

But maybe you've heard about North Carolina's silver linings, too, or how we're not all out to get everyone who doesn't act like us. Perhaps you've heard about the Moral Monday protests that have presented a strong front of solidarity to the conservative storm, or the state's perseverant food and creative loci, all things also praised (sometimes to a grating extent, mind you) by The Gray Lady, too? Or maybe you like NASCAR or basketball or barbeque, area pastimes that no governor has the capacity to corrupt?

And you might've even listened to some records made in North Carolina or at least by North Carolinians this year, whether that's the Billboard-climbing stuff of J. Cole and The Avett Brothers, the recent legacy revitalizations of Polvo and Superchunk, or new tunes from any number of young local bands that thrive here—Whatever Brains, Sylvan Esso, Spider Bags, Floating Action, Zack Mexico, Loamlands… the list could continue for the rest of this piece.

In the last eight months, three major music festivals have played out within the state's 53,000 square miles to general applause. The Hopscotch Music Festival brought 175 bands to the doorsteps of the governor (Note: I've helped run this for the last four years), while the sprawling World of Bluegrass brought the old rustic music back to the state where Earl Scruggs and Doc Watson were born. And for the first time, last weekend in the western city of Asheville, the Mountain Oasis Electronic Music Summit plugged in.

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Mountain Oasis—or MOEMS, as it is called in written correspondence and on directional signs throughout the downtown Asheville area—is not exactly new. It is the rechristened update of Moogfest, a beat-driven festival that loaded the city's rooms with acts from Jónsi and Richie Hawtin to Umphrey's McGee and Suicide on the weekend before Halloween every year since 2010. Not long after last year's festival, though, AC Entertainment, the company that produced it, and Moog Music, the company that makes synthesizers, parted ways and launched their own respective events. Moogfest will return to Asheville for four days in April 2014; with Mountain Oasis, AC Entertainment got the first shot in last weekend.

Even without the Moog name attached, Mountain Oasis depended largely upon a wide gyre of electronic music. There was the blustery bro business of Pretty Lights and Bassnectar and template-shaping legacy acts, including The Orb and Gary Numan. Experimentalists such as William Basinski and Raime played a dimly lit theater, while Animal Collective and (somehow) Neutral Milk Hotel played a cavernous space named for the author of Look Homeward, Angel, Thomas Wolfe, born a block or so away more than a century ago.

For those who don't live in Asheville but live within a few hours' drive, Mountain Oasis, like Moogfest before it, serves as an added enticement for visiting one of the South's most resplendent areas at one of its best moments of the year. The Blue Ridge Parkway stretches for nearly 500 miles between the ranges of North Carolina and Virginia. In its final 100 clicks, it cuts just over Asheville, winding past a peak that was once part of the Biltmore Estate and along the sides of the wonderfully porpoise-like Looking Glass Rock. If you like driving through mountains (I do), it is a dream. If you like views that seem to stretch for days, it is nirvana.

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Parts of the Parkway begin to close as October ends, or as dropping temperatures and the first tips of frost and snow start to turn the mountain-side roads into suicide slides. But as October ends, the leaves of the trees that line the roads and load the valleys are also brilliant bursts of color—oranges and pinks and browns popping off of every branch. Bunches of red berries burst from mountain ash trees, and early icicles hang from cliffs and cuts, winter at last showing its literal teeth. For three of the last four years, my wife and I have climbed into the Parkway by car on this weekend, drawn to Asheville by Moogfest but directed uphill by the need for a rest. We set up a tent in a campground during its last open weekend of the year and spend the days exploring the woods by foot before heading down the mountain to hear the music below. It has become, for me, the defining moment of autumn in North Carolina.

This year, we decided to miss the first night of the festival entirely, grabbing our wristbands from a check-in station downtown before checking out entirely to set up camp near the foot of Mount Pisgah. After all, given the changed name and the new festival's ingenious logo, which re-imagines sound waves as rocky peaks, it seemed irresponsible to visit the area without really enjoying the surroundings. There was, as best we could tell, no reason to miss the mountains in order to see Jeff Mangum continue his milk money parade or hear Bassnectar rattle the town. Instead, we built a fire, cooked eggs in a skillet and stayed up late listening to the sounds of verdant pine needles bursting and burning in the flames. They make a noise that suggests tiny, cartoon missiles firing, or a squeaky turntable starting to spin and then stopping.

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We slept in and found that the leaves had turned into little cupolas of snow and sleet, the area's first ice of the season. It mostly melted quickly, and we spent most of Saturday hiking toward a fire lookout tower more than 5,000 feet above sea level. We arrived only after an accidental detour that sent us deep into a private hunting reserve and through the brambles and thorns growing beneath the power lines that scale the side of the mountain on their own ascent to the watchtower. Those 24 hours alone were reason for the trip to Asheville, and we still had music to hear.

As the sun started to set, we finally dipped down into the city, tired from seven miles of somewhat rough terrain but excited to see some bands at last.

The next two nights were a mix of risks and rewards, appropriate for a festival whose music exists on the edges of both experimental and popular vanguards: Animal Collective's brand of well-choreographed whimsy, for instance, felt like forced fun that lost its hold on the capacity crowd almost instantly after they played "My Girls." How to Dress Well used the word dope like he was addicted to it and name-dropped about his famous acquaintances and nouveau experiences, but watching Tom Krell move among his two microphones to manipulate and bend his voice was a wonder, a lesson in the possibilities of a good instrument and good technology. (Compared to Avey Tare's wearisome bleat, this became a dialectic of sorts.)

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William Basinski's first, long piece was somnolent to a fault, with a loop of piano moving so slowly in space that a spectator behind me audibly and understandably moaned "Oh. My. God." But the second of his two pieces was a quick little dream, as he guided a wonderful melody into a casual swell and then painstakingly into silence. Nine Inch Nails were incredible, turning a space much smaller than I saw them play just days prior into an outright rock club. They dropped some of the props and visuals of their current world tour and stunned mostly with songs and showmanship, Trent Reznor prowling the stage like a vanquished monster. The Orb's dancehall control was sophisticated and cheeky, while the score work of Alan Howarth felt seasonally appropriate (Halloween, anyone?) but anachronistically awkward. Pretty Lights backed his party music for the undecided with horns and drums, adding elements of post-rock and jazz fusion to his boisterous slosh. I mostly found myself staring at Pretty Lights' pretty lights, which made the cozy U.S. Cellular Center feel like a spaceship. Musically, however, it was distant and undefined, more dependent on the special effects than the sound to tell people if, when and how to get crazy.

The biggest disappointment, however, might've been Zola Jesus: Backed by Foetus' JG Thirlwell and a string quartet, Nika Danilova commanded the wide stage, moving from side to side in fits and starts, crouching and climbing and leaning toward the audience removed from her by a chest-high barricade. She was brilliant, but the backdrop wasn't. The string arrangements mostly worked, but the beats behind them felt thin and vacuous, not only lost in the big room but also undercutting the momentum of the music and the voice out front. Thirlwell's "conduction" was pointless and distracting, as he stood behind a laptop, waving his hand in Teutonic four-four time for an ensemble and a singer that simply didn't need him. Danilova's best material depends on bold decisions; paired with Thirlwell, her familiar songs felt abandoned in a listless middle distance.

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A day later, though, Darkside filled the same space perfectly. Nicholas Jaar and Dave Harrington made the smart decision to turn off almost all of the lights in the Wolfe Auditorium, save for a set of wide-angle spotlights cast over their instruments and amplifiers. The setting proved ideal for their mix of classic, cool restraint and sudden, undeniable surges, with expanses of svelte electronica and Gilmour guitar punctuated by bass-heavy bombast. The performance had the net effect of turning the room into a classic sports car, with sharp lines outside and a powerful engine inside. An instant synthesis of the more recondite and immediate sides of festival's lineup, it was the best thing I saw all weekend by far.

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Back when Mountain Oasis called itself Moogfest, its connection to the city was obvious and engrained: The headquarters of Moog Music sits just blocks away from many of the rooms the festival has always used, just next to the city's best coffee shop. From a building-high mural, Moog stares at incoming traffic, his arms forever folded; he is buried in a sylvan Jewish cemetery just a few miles west of the city's proper loop.

The programming of Mountain Oasis still allows for that connection, of course, as a number of bands employed equipment manufactured and marketed just a few miles away. But organizers seemed to put in extra effort to galvanize the local links for this year's event. Banners sporting the iconic Nine Inch Nails rectangle or press photos of Gary Numan and Animal Collective hung on utility poles throughout the city, while grocery stores and co-ops sold tall bottles of beer brewed locally for the festivities. Restaurants offered specials with those sporting the branded fabric wristbands.

But Asheville is a city that's very good at making things, from the wealth of breweries that have fomented next to its rivers during the past decade to the wonderful confections of the exquisite and idealistic French Broad Chocolate Lounge. It's a vegetarian mecca and an artisanal paradise, full of young folks plying their trades and tourists or retirees who've been saving up to buy what they're selling. (The web of luxury homes surrounding the scenery need to be decorated, after all.) Mountain Oasis feels removed from that most appealing aspect of Asheville, an alien species that invades and then recedes in a matter of days. To wit, the festival still shirks much of the area's music scene and is willfully at odds with the abundance of roots acts and open-toed festivals and street fairs that populate the city. How can a futuristic festival like Mountain Oasis engage with the primitive music of the hills around it? It's an intriguing question, but I've never seen the suggestion of an actual answer.

Mountain Oasis organizers at least tried to meet that consistent complaint halfway this year, hosting acts tapped from the region in a number of small clubs downtown. Thing is, though, even if you'd spent a few hundred dollars to see Mountain Oasis, you had to spend five more to see most of those local gigs, occurring concurrently with the festival itself. Embarrassingly, it felt less like a way to showcase the city than to make sure no out-of-towners had to deal with the cornpone locals.

On paper, that's a conceptual flaw, it seems, a missing link in a city as vibrant and interesting as Asheville. But on the ground, surrounding by the burning colors of the leaves and the clouds hugging the sides of the mountains, it is a detail perhaps best dealt with next year. It is absolutely no reason not to enjoy a weekend in or around the North Carolina woods, just before the leaves leave the trees.

Grayson Currin is on Twitter - @currincy