CMJ Report: Wednesday [Ryan Schreiber]

Professor Murder [Pianos; 10:00 p.m.]

Lit from the fading embers of dancepunk, Professor Murder's set at Pianos proved everything their Pitchfork-recommended debut EP, Professor Murder Rides the Subway, suggested: You can't bury the genre that's not dead. Drawing as much from dub's legendary forefathers as from Solid Gold-era Gang of Four, Professor Murder's mellotron-drenched, echoplex-informed art-funk packed the room. But how does a band with just a five-song EP (one of which is a 22-second segue) handle a full set? Easy: Start late, and preview plenty of new material. If the evening's performance was any indication, their forthcoming debut could be a cold-blooded killer.

Figurines [Mercury Lounge; 1:00 a.m.]

So this was the sixth time I've seen Denmark-based rockers the Figurines...since March. It's not that I go out of my way to catch them whenever they're in town (alright, I sorta do); they're just that hard-working. Their latest album, Skeleton, finally saw North American release this year after having been available in their homeland since February 2005, establishing them, in my mind, as one of this year's most underrecognized indie bands. Their shows are always competent, if not necessarily revelatory-- but last night, as on the recent Chicago stop of their just-completed U.S. tour, they were tight beyond belief, easily winning over a crowd that had mostly turned out to see...

Girl Talk [Mercury Lounge; 2:00 a.m.]

I was sure after seeing the Knife's set at Webster Hall just two hours earlier that I'd already witnessed the quintessential CMJ performance of 2006. But for all the mind-blowing spectacle that went into the Sweden electronic duo's psilocybic special effects, Girl Talk's DJ/not-DJ set at Mercury Lounge was way more fun. Blowing up the show we saw at Chicago's Empty Bottle in September for a stage nearly twice the size, GT mastermind Gregg Gillis wasn't 10 minutes into his set before he'd invited up more than 50 people to dance (and eventually strip him to his underwear).

Girl Talk records give the impression of slaved-over mash-ups, meticulously stretched and pitchshifted to sync flawlessly, but last night's set list was worlds apart from the one I'd seen just over a month earlier, suggesting he may work faster than anyone realizes. In addition to completely reworking popular moments from the awesome Night Ripper, he also made room for brand new cuts (including Kelis' "Bossy" and Nelly Furtado's "Maneater"), spontaneously connecting one track to the next. Playing well beyond his usual 45 minutes, he finished out the set by announcing, "I promised I wouldn't pull out this Nirvana shit tonight, but...", ending an already massive set with his notoriously PA-shattering cover of "Scentless Apprentice". By the time it was all over, at 3:00 in the morning, the crowd was half-naked, drenched in beer, sweat, and a little blood from that one poor stagediver-- and ready to get back up at noon the next day and start all over again.