A&E

Burgeoning visionary ZHU doubles up at the Palms

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Zhu plays Apex Social Club on October 20.
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One of the more subtle enhancements at the new Palms is a renewed sense of musical synergy. In the good old days, it wasn’t unusual to spot a Pearl performer hanging at Ghostbar after his or her show. Now the star of the night is moving from the concert stage at the Pearl to the DJ booth at Apex Social Club. First it was Gareth Emery; now it’s Steven Zhu, the enigmatic electronic musician better known as ZHU.

A multi-instrumentalist and producer who earned a Grammy nomination for 2014 single “Faded,” ZHU retains a somewhat mysterious persona for a musician who soundtracked the latest iPhone commercial (with “Chasing Marrakech”). We do know he grew up in the Bay Area, studied music at USC and probably passed the 10,000-hour mark while releasing a track a week on Soundcloud—for a whole year. He claims his relative anonymity is about putting the music first rather than creating Marshmello-style hype, but fans of his well-crafted, glossy house rhythms probably don’t care why he’s made those choices. They’re too busy getting lost in ZHU’s intricately polished, emotional soundscapes.

“There’s too much information today. You lose the feeling of curiosity, the mystique, and I think that’s important,” he said in an interview with The Fader two years ago. “It is an experience for people to discover music that might become their favorite. If you give them all the information, the experience becomes watered-down.”

Well-reviewed sophomore album Ringos Desert arrived in September in conjunction with his Dunes Tour, which visited the Shrine in LA, Brooklyn Steel in New York and First Avenue in Minneapolis ahead of its stop at the Pearl on October 20. The album features diverse guest spots from the likes of Tokimonsta and Majid Jordan and dabbles in disco beats, futuristic-western atmospherics and sprawling storytelling—an expansive experiment compared to 2016 debut LP Generationwhy.

In Las Vegas, we’ll get to know a lot more about ZHU, who will be telling that Desert story in concert before spinning a different tale from the Apex booth.

ZHU October 20, 11 p.m., $20-$40. Apex Social Club, 702-944-5980.

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Brock Radke

Brock Radke is an award-winning writer and columnist who currently occupies the role of editor-at-large at Las Vegas Weekly magazine. ...

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