Credit: Photo by Merrick Ales

Credit: Photo by Merrick Ales

Capyac wants to make you dance.

“Dancing can be a really vulnerable experience,” offers guitarist/singer Eric Peana. “There’s some kind of primordial spirituality to dancing that easily lets two people with different points of view share something in common on the dance floor.”

Before packing Empire Control Room, Capyac began at the hands of keyboardist Delwin Campbell in 2012. Meeting locally in high school jazz band, the duo got reacquainted after Peana attended Campbell’s show and they began collaborating in 2014. Last summer’s full-length bow Headlunge cruised a luxurious swim through all the right accents: crisp guitar shuffles, champagne-fizzed synths, and sea breeze vox.

European influences polish Capyac’s new EP Fis with retro-fixations on techno, disco, and house.

“The culture of dancing in Europe is so open and free where you’re on the dance floor for hours at a time,” says Campbell. “Dancing is so well-respected there. I wanted to bring that to Austin.”

While the band builds a sizable following, their place in Austin’s once “terrible dance scene” initially didn’t offer many options besides fist-pumping EDM.

“It wasn’t until I discovered Plush that I saw people dancing,” calculates Campbell. “It’s the coolest club we have.”

“There’s some kind of primordial spirituality to dancing that easily lets two people with different points of view share something in common on the dance floor.” – Eric Peana

Insisting that “America just doesn’t get DJs,” the pair deviate from the laptop format, where footloose crescendos aren’t simply facilitated through a twist of a knob, but rather through a live-generated industrial smear of keyboards and electronics, wheelbarrowed percussion, and wah-wah guitar.

“We’ve definitely cultivated a community in Austin for dancing that takes out the shittier elements of a typical Texas dance floor,” laughs Peana. “Theatricality, vulnerability, and humor are main themes.”

At their live performances, dance club disco balls illuminate their glittering vests and neon face paint, paralleled by alien monikers P. Sugz and Potion. Balloons fly overhead and free condoms litter the dance floor.

“I love mythology and I once made up a whole race of people on Neptune when I was a kid,” recalls Campbell. “It’s just so much more fun to not be boring.”

Capyac

Sat., March 18 @ Iron Bear, 1am

This article appears in March 3 • 2017.

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