Zebulon, the Brooklyn-born venue now settled in LA, felt like it had been airlifted straight out of its original home last week. Not the tech-money Brooklyn of today, but the idealized version — the one people still chase in memories and myth. The Brooklyn where basement clubs and DIY spaces felt like sanctuaries, where the music was loud but the connections were louder, where people weren’t just watching a show but experiencing it together. That’s the energy Ela Minus tapped into, turning the night into something that felt immediately raw.
Zebulon, as noted, is a Brooklyn transplant — a venue that once defined a specific era of New York nightlife before shutting its doors in 2012. But instead of disappearing, it found a second life in LA, reopening in 2017 in Frogtown, bringing with it the ethos of its original home. That tension — between displacement and reinvention, between past and present — made it the perfect setting for Ela Minus. Her music, too, has lived many lives, evolving from the raw, insurrectionary energy of acts of rebellion into the introspective yet expansive sound of DÍA.
Her setlist reflected that balance. “IDK” and “IDOLS” pulled the crowd into her world, setting a tone of simmering tension. “I WANT TO BE BETTER” landed like an urgent plea, before “megapunk” reminded everyone that her punk roots aren’t just aesthetic. These songs once felt like rallying cries — anthems for an exhausted resistance. Now, they felt like echoes of another time, not any less urgent but reframed within a new reality.
And that’s the thing about DÍA. If acts of rebellion was about tearing things down, DÍA is about figuring out what comes after. That shift was obvious in the way her new material landed live. “BROKEN” and “QQQQ” hit heavier than they do on record, all tension and release, but without the cynicism that sometimes colors electronic music’s darker moments. “ONWARDS” and “UPWARDS” built on that feeling, the kind of tracks that don’t ask you to dance as much as they demand it. “COMBAT” closed the night like an exhale — a final moment of clarity before stepping back outside to a cigarette-smoked conclave of Los Angeles’ youth.
In past reviews, Ela Minus’ live sets have been described as distant, her back to the crowd, locked into her machines, lost in the mechanics of it all. That was still true at Zebulon — she spent much of the set manipulating her gear, dialing into the details, letting the music take up more space than she did. But what was different was the energy in the room. This wasn’t just a performance to observe; it was something to be a part of.
That’s what made this night feel like Brooklyn at its best — the version people still talk about, where it wasn’t about coolness or industry hype, but about losing yourself in the moment, surrounded by people who were just as present as you were. In a city like LA, where detachment can feel like the default, that kind of night is rare. But Ela Minus made it happen — just like Zebulon, she took something that once belonged to another place, another time, and gave it new life.
