Live 2000 |
Last updated 24th December 2000
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Chicks On Speed There's a great sense of expectancy generated by Chicks On Speed tonight; buzzing chatter from the West London cool squad building up a tension upon a foundation of eclectic Electro DJing. When the Chicks come on stage in decorated paper dresses (on sale at the merchandise nook too) there's an urgent crush to the front which drags all before it, even into the maw of the bassbins cramped up into one corner. Lined up in front of their mics, the trio get ready to do their stuff as an oscillating hum builds for the storm of electronic Punk to come... So when it does break loose, it's a bit of a disappointment to say that CoS go for the tried and tested route of starting off with a hook from one genre or another, cranking the sampler output up to eleven, and alternately pogoing or screaming in shrill harmonies over the top while semi-abstract video footage plays on the wall behind. There's Electro, banging Techno, even an ill-advised handwave into distorted Euro Housiness. Add in impenetrable (thanks to an unforgiving basement muffling the sound) vocals which are often only discernable as "One Two Three Four" but actually seem to have more depth if, only they were mixed in better - and it's suddenly a little reminiscent of Sheep On Drugs' appropriation of cheesy crowd pleasers for their own twisted ends. Still, there are moments - the tranced-out post-Motorik groover, the near-unrecognisable cover of Social Distortion's "Eurotrash Girl" rapped out in crunchy slow motion - and they certainly get sections of the audience moving rapidly from stumble-jog to exuberent air-punching, especially with the closing MIDI guitar chord frenzy in decidedly Punky Digital Hardcore-style. With not much room for instrumental manouevre in a pre-programmed set, however, the only real avenue for personal live expression comes from a sprightly ability to leap about the stage shouting for all their lungs' worth. But they have fun while they're doing so, and make an entertaining racket in the process. Seeing them in a cellar is one stage removed from where they'll really work well, whipping up a half-bemused auditorium of several thousand discerning electroheads into some kind of paper cut-out moshpit. -Alvis Presidently- |
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Coil For their third live performance in a year after the seventeen of build-up, Coil arrive onstage dressed in unlaced grey strait-jackets, backed by a neon sign proclaimng the title of the night's performance, Persistance Is All. The multiple possible meanings of this slogan soon becomes apparent, as the playback of Jhon Balance's spoken title beat which opens "Something" fills the "Royal" Festival Hall. The group are backed by a circling corona of fire on the projection screen which soon becomes the visual focus for the set, and this develops into a hypnagogic kaleidoscope show of the first water, trickling retinal patterns like the strongest hallucinogen to the trip-kicking music. Not that drugs are necessary; it's far more a state of mind on offer through the combination of light and sonic textures - or Colour, Sound, Oblivion as the flashed-up message proclaims (as does the black-on-black T-shirt, the badge, etc. etc.). Colour plays a key part in the whole; red for the demonic gyres made from swarms of seething computer imagery; green for the new track "I Am The Green Child", when the previously monochrome op-art patterns become colourfully-edged all of a sudden, as the peak of the trip is implied - or impelled. Blue for the chill of "Amethyst Decivers", and light and oblivion are to follow. Watching the members of Coil onstage is a once again a peculiar combination of technicians at work and hierophants enacting a ritual - which is not so far from how the best musical perfomances of any stripe should be at all. Least occupied when not singing and/or invoking is Balance, who wanders the stage, swinging the large lightbulbs dangling low from the roof in small circles, crouching below one as it describes a short arc for a time. Two bulbs break in flashes of lightning, and later one swings perilously close to the metal frames of the instruments. Balance performs some kind of calisthenics, takes a turn around the space between the sharly-angled racks of electronics, twirls the strap of the strait-jacket around his head. Peter Christopherson, Simon Norris and Thighpaulsandra perform their alloted tasks with more attantion to their boxes and keys, occasionally gathering to stand shoulder to shoulder admiring their projections when the music can safely look after itself for a while. Unlike their presentation of Time Machines earlier in the year, tonight's show brings forth songs from their far back catalogue - "Titan Arch", enlivened by the excoriating guitar feedback ride Thighpaulsandra evokes, and "Blood From The Air", one of Coil's strongest pieces, a searing slow lament on the immanence of death in the world and the sickness of God. Higher beings might command, as another message goes, but Coil may not be obeying. All through the middle section, the group are joined onstage by a xylophonist of great skill, who helps bring these unexpected songs to rattling life, and Balance expresses his surprise to be singing them live after so long. He also takes time to drop a passing curse on Stevo for continuing unhelpfulness in regard to the Coil albums he still controls the rights to. And the finale, introduced as "Constant Shallowness Leads to Evil" - Coil are having a lot of fun with this Situationist-Occultist opportunity to broadcast billboard-sized thoughts to a crowd, even if they be the readily-persuadable; one of the few traits they share with Psychic TV these days, apart from some of the most effectively mindbending light shows around - and brings things off in a welter of dial-stretching analogue synthesis, urgent rhythms (some crashed out on a sheet of metal suspended behind the electronic setup), and strobes. And more strobes. Plus more, repeated, phased until the room is virtually alight, drenched in brightness and unholy righteous noise. How to take the roof of the hall through thunderous bass tones and distending harsh white light. And their slogan for the end? "God Please Fuck My Mind For Good". This is the kind of psychedelic dualism Coil unleash through this most enlivening of musics - the sublime and the horrific encased in an onrushing suspension of time through sound. Dramatic and effective, and far fucking IN. -Antron S. Meister- Nectarine No.9 are three guitarists, a bass player, drummer and a bongo-man in a floppy fisherman/Raver hat. They make an inoffensive Indie-Rock noise, but not one the least big enough to fill the Festival Hall, or keep much beyond a hardcore audience of already familiar fans in their seats. Quite how they appeared on this bill is somewhat of a mystery. So is... Jim Thirlwell has lost it. I do not mean this in a good way. I don't recall ever being so disappointed at seeing a performer I have previously enjoyed, going down on the world of Rock 'n' Roll so sloppily, so not amusing. O, I can remember back in the day, loving the feeling of letting Mr. Thirwell shock me and bring me to the verge of violent exhaultation, but his performance this week at RFH was none of that. Had I not been reprimanded to hold onto someone's coat, I would have left. It was a sad spectacle indeed. Disturbing though it was to see Foetus set up in such a Rock star stage, Mr.Thirwell (AKA almost anything you can think of) did start out with a big sound, calling many of his faithful followers right down front of the auditorium because in the olden days, it was hard to imagine sitting still with Foetus on. His flash Charlie's Angel style outfit and hairdo really did put me off right away. The Elvis pisstakes really were better left to Lux Interior. The hired musicians, boring. Really boring. Song after song and cringe after cringe, I lost my sense of humour and guessing from the sidelong looks of almost everyone, I was not alone. Has our Clint Ruin developed an unhealthy interest in Mick Jaegger or what? There was a little bit of a spark of hope when "Saviour" was done, a peak in the pit for "English Faggot", but all in all this was a boring show. The pre-planned encore included Mr.T. in a silver lamé jumpsuit, looking not much different than well, Mr.T. Too skinny, too silly, too shiny for God's sake, I really do want to see the humour, but I don't. Is it that all our Industrial noise heroes have gotten too old and are now living out their boyhood fantasies of being rock stars? At least when Cope did it at Cornucopia, everyone knew it was a silly joke. Jim on the other hand made a fool of himself. O dear, I wonder what the future holds? My sympathies to whoever went to Foetus to experience the blastbombing noise that Jim Thirwell used to provide us. Thankfully, I really went to see Coil. -Lilly Novak- |
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B.J. Cole and Luke Vibert O! if all nights out could be so entertaining! A New Orleans style jam session set up between avuncular B.J. Cole (occasional collaborator with Spiritualized) and chin-pierced Electro Bohemian Luke Vibert (sometimes Wagon Christ and Plug) and a couple of friends to boot. And not New Orleans because of the Jazz like you might be thinking, but because of the unity, the compiling of talents from such different discipines, because of how much fun they had while doing it. A mournful and then playfull ignition between friends, so driving with bleepsome Technoid beats and crunchy Drum and Bass underbeats, the pedal steel pulsing like a Juno and bongos looming. The Southwestern, the south Pacific, south of obvious, south of dreaming, and just south of playland. Cole and Vibert are soon joined onstage by sharp-suited Bobby Valentino with his dynamic fiddle to jam... jammm, exchanging banter between themselves and the audience, sharing their bonhomie and letting us all fully into their enthusiasm; and when that was over, the applause was magic (and someone called out "I love you"). Mr. Valentino (looking a bit like Clark Gable) lent his violin to colour the picture in of this very fantastical, very movie-like set. Did shows used to be like this? This energetic, this distracting? This is why it reminds me so of New Orleans, for they still do it all this way there. Now sit back and imagine the coupling of two such foreign to one another musical entities; a pedal steel guitar mixed up with found source-sampled, synthesized ultra-now type noise. The union of these two sources cancelled out all my misgivings, and in a way they cancelled out each other. Mr. Cole did not merely seem to be playing this antiquish pedal steel, he seemed to be comanding an ageless force to perform without limits, producing sounds that were melodic and illusionary. Not unlike watching a snake charmer pull danger out of basket. And Mr. Vibert, with all his gadgets and gear provided a perfect accompaniment, to the point that one became the other, the other engulfed the one. The music on surface was generally up and quick and even danceable, but it was not possible to ignore the underlying chemistries being created in fantastical epic stylings between the two. To futher the magic, they were joined onstage by Pete Lovett for the final few Plug-like Drum & Bass pieces, who proceeded to allow himself to be transported into hypnotic grooves by his green bongos, and an occasional tambourine. What was different with him is that his instruments were simpler, and they seemed to come to life and posses him. And the intensity of that possesion produced sounds only barely reminiscent of bongo playing poetry readers, and more like the pedal steel and Mini-Discs and samplers which welcomed these even more foreign sounds into their midst. Now if all these things just don't seem like they match, imagine the suprise shock that went up my spine when I realized they were playing together something that sounded suspiciously like the half-forgotten Seventies tune with the keyline "My Baby Is So K.O.". Right, that's how the whole show felt. Mr. Valentino joined in with his devilish violin and charming movie star presence a few more times, and came close really to stealing the show. The crowd loved him. All too soon the whole event was done, the musicians each in their turn looking thrilled with their exhaustion. If this group were stuck in front of a rave full of chemicalised dancers they'd probably love it too, go crazy with the tranced-out 303 swathes and hyper HipHop beats swirled over with the psychedelic pedal steel far removed from the gentle twirls of Wout Steenhuis, spin into the energetic, joyful pizzicato of the electrified violin swapping melodies and passionate buzz with the steel. What a sight that would be to see, and equally the same set put before a palm-court dinner-dance for the Lounge reaction; but the Spitz on a Monday night is perfect, resonating to the booming bass and rolling swoon of 21st Century Swing. As an audience, we could have witnessed this all night long, and will no doubt look forward to their return. -Ander Stardust- |
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Bobby Conn;
To warm up the 30 odd audience is New Orleans (not so) boy band The Sex Hunter. Not too different to bands I was seeing 15+ years ago: 7 Seconds, DRI, The Circle Jerks - they just dress (a bit) different now. A definite and welcome lean on Birthday Party (sound, not couture) from time to time and plenty of dredging up angst against this slack and lax crowd, they are sweet boys really. However, their loudness cannot really wake me or anyone else here. New Orleans seems to be in hibernation for the winter.
I think I expected much less, that perhaps the recordings of his voice were enhanced and specialized. Right here live and real and raw and un-effected, Bobby Conn sings and speaks, and it is nearly miraculous how pure is the sound. Let the inhabitants of my beloved Crescent City roll on undisturbed in their winter torpor - God knows they must be tired after their nine months battle with the sickly heat and night living of the rest of the year. I am on my way back to cold London, warmed and glowy, with Bobby Conn's voice in my head. -Lilly Novak- |
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Cornucopea - Two South Bank Evenings With Julian Cope Since this two-day festival in the South Bank Centre is essentially Julian Cope's entry in the venue's largely excellent series of Mini-Meltdowns, it probably comes as no surprise that he is seemingly omnipresent, playing solo twice, and collaboratively in the guise of both Brain Donor and Queen Elizabeth. This could easily have been something of an ordeal for those not of the fanlike persuasion for this most eccentric and Rock of eccentric Rock stars, but thankfully there was much to be admired and enjoyed at Cornucopea - the brightly psychedelic esoteric symbolism on dispay in the foyer of the Queen Elizabeth Hall on the first night (all too appropriately run on All Fool's Day); the marvellously Tardis-sized starry-print, fake-fur Disco booth of the Miniscule Of Sound, a superb piece of pint-sized clubbing and a haven for both those seeking a sly smoke and Ian Dury fans alike; the sight of a South Walian "Free Cannabis" banner flying high above the stage; The Mellotron Brothers, inventors of the device of the same name, wandering the halls in labcoats and a flurry of eccentric statements; the Krautrock Colouring Competition, with eager Kosmische fans scribbling and scrawling over Bridget Riley's dizzying cover to The Faust Tapes in the knowledge that they would have to compete with the expert talents of Cope's daughter to win the coveted first prize of a copy of Amon Düül's gatefold classic Disaster. Musically, the first night was a mixed bag of Cope's enthusiasms and indulgences. Anal is not only a vibrantly orange-haired and robotic abuser of the VCS3 synthesizer (sharp stabs and squeals permeated the foyer at intervals throughout the night) but also a tank driver on leave from Kosovo for the show. He made loud noises of varying volumes and intensities, and occasional unpleasantness as perhaps befits his day job. Oscillator swoops, groaning arpeggiations, that sort of thing. Julian Cope's address to the capacity crowd of assorted heads and self-confessed weirdos was engaging, infuriating, self-consciously wacky (he even declared himself to be "Post-ironic" in a leering, ironic manner) and conducted from the vantage point of boots of a size quite suited to walking on a lunar surface - so at least he came well prepared for not only the April-shower dampened streets of London, but later extraterrestrial travels. His solo set includes many a quip and crowd-pleaser, the most notable being a heavily flanged and wah'ed "Pristeen". In fact, Cope was so in love with the sound of not only his own voice, but the phasing swoop generated by the six/twelve strings and several necks of guitars found lining the stage that he kept up some sustained banter as well as seriously long rides on the effects pedals, to surprisingly restrained ends - he knew when enough was enough, and the benefits of silence in counterpoint to the curling fuzz trails. With plenty more from him later on over the weekend, he could contain himself somewhat for the opening invocation (Odin's name kept cropping up, as well as references to the Vikings' misrepresentation of him as a bit of a combative god over the poetic side - more on this later) - this was probably a good thing all in all, and rather entertaining for a while. The Groundhogs played off to one side after Cope's intro, in the relatively small but pleasing Purcell Room to a fair-sized crowd who soon got a taste of one of the greats of British Rock history, Tony McPhee and his amazingly dexterous fingers on the fretboard. To watch McPhee play is a marvel of technique and obvious enjoyment, built on years of experience and a prodigious talent on the guitar. On this night he was in fine form, with the group managing only about four songs in their forty-minute set (it was a weekend for some seriously extended pieces), including the fabulously R&Bluesy "Split Parts 1 & 2". McPhee has a distinctive sound thanks to his multi-finger picking style and tightly-controlled use of the whammy-bar; about as close as anyone living to all the best elements of Hendrix - but thankfully without the bombast. The Groundhogs' performance also ended up as one of the highlights of this festival, demonstrating that old-fashioned Seventies underground Rock & Roll still has much to recommend it in the hands of experts. By contrast, Queen Elizabeth (who of course played in the Queen Elizabeth Hall) made a bid for the most outrageously Progressive sound since The Cosmic Jokers of the weekend. With more synthesizers of all shapes and sizes on display than seemed perhaps necessary for the sound they produced, plus Cope's favourite Mellotron 400 and a few iMacs for good measure, it was a remarkable show for several reasons. First being that it was an outing for the hour long "Dianaver" from the Now Goddess trilogy; as Cope explained at length in the foyer, this work in progress includes tributes to and invocations of two other contemporary icons/goddesses, those following on from the ex-Princess Of Wales being Linda McCartney and the murdered TV presenter Jill Dando - three celebrities of various statures who acheived mass veneration, if not actual sainthood, after their deaths in recent years. He may be trying to reclaim these figures for the "underground", but Cope still has a lot of convincing to do on this subject, and how Queen Elizabeth's music fitted it remained a little elusive. Second and thirdly in the confusion and entertainment stakes about QE was the appearance of not one but three Thighpaulsandras, all dressed alike in quite natty frilled cuffs and white body suits, with the trio in cloned disguise under double tufts of hair presenting an androgynous alien identity. JC handled the Mellotron and the vocal intonations on the subject of Diana alike to quasi-religious effect, and while there were some very pleasant pasages of Theremin and Moog, knob-twiddled squeaks and sliding squalls, there were also frightening echoes of the opening keyboard riff to Dire Straits' "Money For Nothing" in one passage which made for extremely disturbing associations. Still, the ensemble also showed themselves to be capable of whipping up a cosmic space storm from time to time, and received a rapturous reception. The same couldn't be said on the same scale for the woefully dull Kid Strange And The Doctors Of Madness who were promisingly billed as "firm favourites of all the forward thinking motherfuckers". This man is obviously a post-Glam inspiration for the weekend's convener, but less so for a large section of the rapidly uncrowded foyer, and he banged out some overly-loud Pub Rock tunes almost entirely divorced from the slightly peculiar Seventies track included on the free CD Programme presented to every ticketholder. Last up for the Saturday night were Cope's newest band, Brain Donor. Apparently formed to indulge both Mr. and Mrs. C.'s love of KISS, the flawed genius himself and long-time Cope guitarist Doggen strapped on the doublenecked Dan Electros and kicked out their own particular Garage Metal jams. Was the epithet self-indulgent mentioned yet? Brain Donor was all this and more, and extra ladled on for good measure; funny for the Simmonds-eque make-up and those enormous boots, and not much more than that beyond the first couple of songs and the back projection of a blinking psychedelic eye moving slowling into and out of the pupil with its gently orbiting harmonic spheres. This film was replaced by a more amusing show of the group in rehearsals, but much of the audience had fled into the night in search of transport away from the excesses of cod-Metal April Foolery by this time. But what an entrance. Introduced to perform with the alternate title of "The Industrial Use Of Semen Will Revolutionise The Human Race", the four men, dressed in furry white suits (complete with hoods) decked with oval mirrors which give them a sinisterly whimsical appearance somewhere between lab-rats, arctic explorers and (as was the inevitable description heard afterwards) The Teletubbies took their places with an air of slow-motion solemnity. There has rarely been a sight at once cute and ominous, disturbing and hilarious, and Coil should be praised highly to the stars just for stepping out on stage after all the years of prevarication dressed in such marvellously eccentric costumes, and the welcome they received was an eager and astonished acknowledgement of their presence. With a touching hug for each other, the quartet set down to business, and business was decidedly estranged, and suitably symbolic. As was the pattern for the night, the emphasis on analogue synthesis was high, but in uniquely Coil fashion - growing ranges of shifting treble, ceiling-shuddering bass booms, wave-riding drones and plateaus of noise featured in a set which drifted into and out of Time Machines to include variations on Balances' spoken part from "The Mothership And The Fatherland" and sections also exposed on the accompanying concert CD Queens Of The Circulating Library. These featured the sampled voice of Dorothy Lewis demanding the return of the Library's books, that "The forest is a college, each tree a university," moreover "All knowledge resides within me" and declaring that "Your membership has expired; you are way past your expiry date", transforming Mothering Sunday into Mother Earth Moonday through this particular collective work of musically-activated temporal phase-shift. Add in the gorgeously-vocodered quotation from Aleister Crowley, "Every man and Woman is a Star" and many of both Coil and the entire festival's themes are encapsulated: transgendered evolution; esoteric technological mysticism, historical and transtemporal expositions on the nature of both future and past; circular and spiral motion through psychedelic time and space. As they played, one or other of the group would wander in a half-dignified, semi-comic gait brought about by the restrictions of the suits to stand before the sigil in a contemplative manner of worship, curiosity or scientific scrutiny. Sometimes they would shine torches in each other's faces, looking for signs of who knows what, perhaps to stimulate the visual purple or even to make a mystery deeper, to communicate ideas of seeing. At one point, just to show that it really was a matter of smoke and mirrors, two cuddly celebrants reflected beams of light off miniatures of the scrying glass emblem through gouts of smoke around the Festival Hall interior, to slightly puzzling effect. By the perfomance's end with the hoods which had been thrown back for the sake of avoiding stifling under the lights restored, and with one member draped obscurely on a speaker, soaking up the humming sounds emanating therein, the effect conveyed by this manifestation of Coil was a startlingly confusing mix of awe and amusement. The audience's applause was rapturous, and their joyous group hug and final bow to the auditorium was unaffected and disarming. That Julian Cope managed to follow such a stupendously weird performance was an acheivement which reveals his strengths as a performer. Once again, he took up a selection of guitars, double-necked and otherwise, to wah and phase his way through a selection of crowd-pleasing favourites, and to pronounce himself not only a poetic avatar of Odin, but also to be in possession of a cute behind. However, the most effective section was his long imaginary journey in which he took the audience and the now-renamed Republican Festival Hall spaceship (piloted with difficulty by an equally fictious George Clinton) on a journey Westward for Mother's Day to the ancient site of Silbury Hill along a route of megalithic and resolutely modern dissident significance, with comic and ritualistic results. Thanks to his engaging storytelling, this journey was occasionally quite convincing and frequently funny, enjoying a passing curse upon the former Tory Transport Minister and current candidate for Mayor of London Steve Norris, the politician ultimately responsible for the destruction of much of the countryside around Newbury, as the ship passed overhead. However, the climax came with Cope's rendition of "Sleeping Gas" on Casio drum machine and Mellotron, accompanied on the impressive Festival Hall pipe organ by Teadrop Explodes co-founder Paul Simpson (whose ambient Skyray project also appeared on the Saturday night bill) in a rousingly dronesome manner. So it was something of a disappointment that the grand finale, the much-touted reunion of Manuel Göttsching and Klaus Schultz was little short of a New Age explosion of an effectively trippy light show. Eventually morphing into an undertow of crisply refried Techno beats, laid over with Gottsching's plangently pleasant guitars and Schultz's massive array of blinking-light synthesizers racked behind him, their performance took on the sonic qualities of an Ambient rave and the appearance of mission control at a space shot. Set off under a glowing canopy of projected stars, Ash Ra Tempel did succeed in producing some of the spaciest sounds this side of a System 7 concert, no doubt a group who owe a huge debt to Ash Ra but also equally prone to trickling masses of effects and warm melodies into an uniformly nice sound. This was the ultimate in Electronic comedown music, lulling some of the more drained audience members into sleep while entrancing others through a combination of carefully-crafted composition and admittedly magnificent tones generated by the wall of electronics. As a conclusion to the festival, it was the just about the perfect way to bring the circling heads and low-Earth orbiting bodies gently back through the ionosphere into their seats. With just two pieces of around half an hour each, the Ash Ra set was one of the longest, and the last burst of applause for them (largely delivered in anticipation of the conclusion thanks to an alleged misunderstanding that they were taking a cigarette break rather than leaving before an encore) was as heartfelt as for any of the other acts one what was a genuinely enjoyable weekend, often in complete disregard of the actual or imagined qualities of some of the performers. -Linus Tossio- |
Dry & Heavy First off, any further mention of the fact that Dry & Heavy are a Japanese Reggae band can largely be dispensed with; so they are Japanese, not Jamaican. Well, there are Reggae and Dub groups from all over now - the Czech Republic, the Basque Country, Texas even. Other than to say of course that this particular set have got the format sussed pretty much completely, apart from maybe the boonie hats some of them seem to have adopted as a kind of identifying headgear. Well, that's possibly quite Japanese. Anyhow, after along wait for the band to show up on stage, during which time the arriving trickle of audience numbers are ably entertained by Dry & Heavy's label stalwart Pete Holdsworth and his collection of classic Reggae and Ska vinyl both old and new, they finally arrive to the short but enthusiastic introduction of none other than their other UK parton, Adrian Sherwood. The core are of course Shigemoto "Dry" Nanao on drums and Takehashi "Heavy" Akimoto with his Fender bass. Did anyone mention Sly & Robbie? Well, the comparison seems quite apt, and this rhythm section put out a steady beat and flowing, deep bass as the rock-steady foundation for the ensemble's upbeat set tonight. With Ao Inoue and Likkle Mai sharing the vocal duties when not dancing enthusiastically offstage, the string of songs and instrumentals rides on elegantly-effected melodies from Kel Horriguchi's skanking guitar and the stabbing electric piano and synth emulations emanating from Mitsuhiro Toike's Korg (though he does have an actual electric organ from the same maker racked together with the digital beast too), all drawn into the mixing desk for heavy dubwise echo effects. The sound itself is generally adequate, but could have had a better mix on the vocals, but the bass reverberates the fixtures and fittings nicely, the treble is nicely clear; and the occasional clouds of interesting herbal smoke make for a congenial atmosphere. Much of the set is drawn from the new Full Contact album, though there are welcome appearances from the previous years' "Radical Star" and their sweetly-joyous "Dawn Is Breaking", and each song's applause is received with polite thank yous and infectious, if somewhat restrained, enthusiasm. Dry & Heavy are an marvellously-polished group, and their assured concentration on the no-nonsense rhythms and elegantly-crafted tunes is received with warm applause and a genuinely-demanded encore. Reggae enters its fifth decade in greatly diversified form, enriched by one of some of its more dignified exponents of the weighty heartbeat bass and footstepping drums, delivered up with the same authentic one love it ever was, wherever it may originate. -Antron S. Meister- |
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Einstürzende Neubauten Even just standing waiting for Neubauten to arrive on stage for this Twentieth Anniversary tour (!) is something of an enjoyable experience, thanks to the wilfully obtuse nature of some of the instrumentation and sundry kit arrayed on the platform. So ignoring the usual guitars, basses and keyboards (even if it is renamed an EN[soniq] through judicious appliaction of gaffer tape), there's plenty of machinery, metal and pieces the uses of which will become apparent throught the two and half hour set they play. A large metal sheet - standard equipment, even if FM Einheit is no longer here in muscle-girded solidarity to pound and crash as the powerhouase of the group - likewise the tubular bells made from piping, the large blue plastic tubs and odd strips and sheets of steel. The bass spring is a familiar friend from many years of tightly-coiled reverberation, and even more recent (though truth be told it's nearly a decade since the group introduced it...) constructions like the towering bell-wheel are known quantities. It's the turbine sitting oiled upon a cradle withstarter-motor poised, spiked around the flanges like a particularly outré belt adornment of the rubber and steel-adorned contingents in the crowd, which is the unavoidable centrepiece of the stage set. What noise will this device make? Consumate thespians that they are, Neubauten arrive in suits of a sort, all black and grey, but off the wall more than the peg. No shirt for Blixa Bargeld under his jacket, just a waistcoat encasing his skinny frame. Alex Hacke soon drops his top in favour of a beserker style, somehow slightly resembling a tubby Lemmy on his black thunderbass, though N.U. Unruh remains exactly the same as ever, eternally genial in appearance and perched behind the clutter of steel and industrial plastics. There are new members and guests too; the sharply-dressed Jochen Arbeit (good to know they're keeping up the Punk-Industrial stage names too) on guitar, and the unfamilar faces of Rudi Moser and the briefly-returned Marc Chung at percussion and synth respectively. All are eventually introdued by Bargeld, cabaret-style, as Professor Such-and-such of the University of wherever appropraite, in a gesture which manages to be both silly and entertaining. So of course Blixa starts it all with a dramatic puase and a cigarette lit into the microphone, a sharp inhalation and the swooning swing of "Silence Is Sexy". Expecting the buzzing audience to be quiet during the pauses punctuated by the first clatter of metal and Bargeld's smoking is more than a little optimistic, given the almost tangible aura of excitemt in The Astoria, but somehow it becomes relatively silent at the right moments, with the chorus and verse of the tightly-controlled klang uplifting and complimenting the rich croon of Mr. B to a T. The next fifty minutes or so before their first break showcases much new album material, and makes what could sometimes seem almost a subdued record anything but on stage. There is plenty of dynamic tension between the gentler songs and the energetic cruises through noise, but "Sabrina" is elegant and wistful; "In Circles" and "Newtons Gravitätlichkeit" allow for breathing spaces between the vented spleens. "Die Befindlichkeit des Landes (The Lay Of The Land)" is a good example of both, slipping from the adoration of melancholy into the echoing strike of steel bars in sharper relief than the CD edition, allowing some breathing space before the second half and the more crackling numbers. And when the get into full cacophonous assault, Neubauten really get going, swapping instruments and bringing in various lengths of drainpiping reconfigured as objects to be struck or strung as bows. "Zampano" becomes an almost funky groover, the rumbling bass thrum and rapid-strike percussion offset by the whirring clicks of machinery and Bargeld's piercing banshee ehalations. Hacke introduces one song with a vibrator placed against the strings of his bass while Arbeit joins in the whirl of harmonic overtones on E-bow. "Alles" is a storming battery of metal sheets, poles and blue tuns brushed and bashed into an ecstatic blur, while the comparatively smooth "Alles" of the studio becomes a mosh-pit ruck of near-Metallic proportions on stage, the full-band chorus shouted over furiously pounded guitars and thumping kickdrum and sundry cannisters. However, the overarching impression is of the melodic structure, the beautiful resonances extracted from the whirr of the turbine slapping rhythmically against its frame, the chime of a hollow bar left to resonate against itself, and in a remarkable piece of theatre, Blixa's solo introduction after the first interval with an industrial-strength airbrush nozzle played first over his mic and hands and then face and mouth in a backlit slice of personal windtunnel drama. For the longtime fans, despite occasional dismissal of calls for twenty-year old songs, Neubauten spring out the occasional surpise when they get onto the plateau of the show, even thrilling the crowd with a disorienting runthrough "Yü-Gung". "Die Interimsliebenden", "Haus der Lüge" and "Der Schacht von Babel" (this latter introduced with an amusing story about Seymour Cray having dug a tunnel to the woods on the other side of Silicon Valley so that elves could help out with the design of his supercomputers) are all deployed firmly and four-square, but it's moments like the growling stomp of "NNNAAAMMM", the trance-inducing "Zebulon" or the blinding uprush of full-on sodium strobelights at each "NEU!" of "Ende Neu"'s chorus which pass this gig into the realms of the awesome, the literally spectacular. Each departure brings an increase in the crowd's demand for more, and the come back again and again to before closing with the stirring hums and stamps of possibly their most beautiful of all call and response swingers (though it's true they have more than a few of those), "Salamandrina". Nearly as much a physical and emotional workout for the audience as the band, seeing Einstürzende Neubauten having so much obvious pleasure at the feats they perform in wrangling music from what would generally be considered non-instruments by the uninitiated concludes on this June night in London, somehow appropriately, with cries of "Viva la revolucion" from a Mexican member of the throng after the house lights have gone up and the crush for the doors begun. -Tango-Mango- |
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Faust Wakes Nosferatu Faust were originally asked to improvise a live score to F.W. Murnau's classic expressionist retelling of the Dracula story for an outdoor vampire film festival in Germany a few years back. For some reason the promotors asked them to perform to the silent film twice on the same bill; the generators failed, rain loomed, disaster threatened. Still, they survived the experience, recorded an album as Faust Wakes Nosferatu, and made a few more performances as time allowed. Now, as the last of the Outro series marking the departure of David Sefton from the artistic helm of the South Bank Centre, Faust open the first night of their gruelling UK tour of the show in the Royal Festival Hall. Bringing up the introduction to the film itself, the band settle into a warming-up routing of metal percussion, organ swarms, plucked and fed-back guitar, bass reverberations. The sound in this hall is excellent for the performance (save for the slapped-back bass under the rear terrace seats, with a consequent extra hum added to the noise), and Faust soon settle into their score. The print of Nosferatu is of course complete with German words on screen, but this is hardly important for anyone familiar with the Bram Stoker story or its many derivatives. Murnau was not just a pioneer of so many of the outstanding uses of chiaroscuro and special effects which became the stock references of the horror film from the Twenties onwards, but an acknowledged master craftsman and artist of the Twentieth Century. The conjunction of band and film is not seamless, completely tight or always exact - nor was it intended to be in the style an accompanist would have used; there are no piano runs indicating suspense. Instead, Faust energise the film through a series of volume and textural shifts, making a soundtrack which is part concert, part score, backlit demonically by a light which changes colour from purple to white to blood red to suit the mood onstage and on-screen. On a stage draped like a fantastic cobwebbed junkyard, Hans Joachim Irmler's organ is a terrific distorted buzz, taking much of the emotional background, while Michael Stoll's electric bass and contrabass make for an effectively monstrous low end rumble which moves from the percussivly coiled to the warmly wide sound of looming dread. Steve Lobdell makes guitar sounds around the higher reaches which mark out particular patches and seques between movements, but foregrounded is the ever-moving figure of Zappi Diermaier, initally decked in a Halloween vampire cape as he bashes and strikes his way across the usual array of steel sheets, chains and the various drums, aided and abetted by the clattering and churning Lars Paukstat and Ché Clément from the shadows. Zappi also does the vocal duties, which are delivered in is bellowing style at various points, echoing a screen of text or, at possibly the moment of greatest intensity of the performance, when he screams the name of the film's heroine Ellen as the music rises to a swelling level of dramatic noise as Nosferatu makes waste the port city though plague. There are the usual Faust standbys of burning percussion, flares and small amounts of explosive, and during the first appearances of the vampire at the castle, a suspended sheet of steel gets a brief scraping from angle-grinders. In all, the band are in great form for this show, maving around each other within the parameters of sound, appropriate to the film or not. As ever, they provide an experience on their own terms, and make a dynamic association with the visual and dramtic elements Nosferatu imposes on their summoning of suitably dark, devilish even, music from chaos. -Antron S. Meister- |
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London Musicians' Collective Ninth Annual Festival of Experimental Music Now semi-permanently established at the South Bank for the past few years, the LMC Experimental Music Festival has become one of the fixtures of the London Improv and New Music scene, struggling through into something approaching mainstream cultural acceptance - though that's a relative position of course. This isn't to say that its become particularly watered down, blanded out or easily commercial; far from it, and while not everything will be pleasing to all ears, it neither should be nor could be, and much on offer is is such high quality that a few dull spots can easily be avoided by those disinclined to favour one piece of Avant-noodling will soon find another of superb quality for their edification and enjoyment. Ninth time around, and Saturday's Purcell Room show has two extreme of that which can be described as experimental - Die Trip Computer Die and Walter MArchetti. DTCD have all the right attitude and equoipment; wind up gramophones, electronics by the rackload, potatoes... Their best feature is the individual TV's showing close-up of the musicians' eyes throught their set; the least effective is their over-jokey presentation. Very English, quite deadpan, but lacking in real bite, and the trio end up seeming like pranksters who've stumbled onto Electronica and plunderphonics for a laugh. Which is fine, but there's a spark missing from their show, no matter how many stunts involving close-micing/amplifying root vegetables (which is the highlight) they deploy. Marchetti, on the other hand, is what many people would imagine to be the apotheosis of Avant-Garde game-playing. He arrived on a stage set with a grand piano and a music stand, proceeds to completely ignore the instrument, other than to lay out a trail of score sheets from the piano to stand, before gathering them all up to place thereon, back to audience, while a set of speakers broadcast his minimal recording of slowly-delayed notes to the auditorium as he slips one-lined score sheets from one side of the rack to the other. All the time he holds slips of paper in his hands, discarding them slowly but intently to the floor. After what seems like an unendurably long time, the performance ends (though one wag is heard to wonder if the performance is over whn the last audience member leaves) and it's all as Situationist as anyone could possibly want. Now this is precisely the sort of thin this festival should encourage, if only for the odd part of it - too much of a good thing and all that - something which really does bring into question the notion of what exactly constitutes sitting in a hall and witnessing a performance. Sunday brings the heavyweights into the Queen Elizabeth Hall, though throughout the weekend there's a bubbling, pleasant melee in the foyer, between the assorted record stalls from stalwarts Recommended Records and the entertaining Jacques Brothers on the These Records table. Odd performances on the foyer stage from a man in amask reading the paper to slippery electronica and cello improvs abound, provoking various reactions between rapturous applause, bafflement and simple avoidance in favour of the bar. In the main cavern, Viv Corringham brings her sometimes indifferent, sometime slightly entertaining songs on subjects including the environs of the Holloway Road and its denizens to the stage, with the turntable slippage and needle-groove abuse of DJ Martin Tétreault largely wasted on this occasion. Charles Hayward, formerly drummer with This Heat, on the other hand, is a revelation and a bombshell in one. Hayward crawls onstage in imitation of a child, crying and slowly edging towards his massive drum kit, before seating himself and proceeding to astound and energise with the breathtaking power of his show. Backed up by lo-tech tapes and singing in a highly-affecting moan about the gap between the Information Rich and Information Poor or the genetic modification of people as well as food. Rock and Roll? Yes indeed, but as far from the hairy head-down Grunge/Metal/R&B template as can be, and Prog too for that matter. If anything, it's somewhere in the realms of Japanese Noise-Rock and the experimentalism of everyone from Faust to Caspar Brötzmann that Hayward's energetic pulse of tape-riffs and primal drumming lies. Awesome. Hoahio are the duo of Haco, who both sings and plays a mean electric mandolin, and Yagi Michiyo on koto. Their songs are of course all in Japanese, but the mixed sense of fun and seriousness are apparent in any or all musical languages. Michiyo's playing of the koto's strings reveals that she is not only a player of considerable conventional talent, but that she has developed an ability to pluck, strum and distend the possibilites of the instrument into shapes which would quite probably horrify her teachers. Now this really is where the trick lies; in the ability to forget instructions, avoid scores, and to head off into the abstract, the degenerate as some might even have it, and to combine that dissonance with what ordinary wisdom would have you believe melody and linear composition can only offer. Hoahio are very much the example of this skill, but essentially the whole festival revolves around it, revels in it. Finally for Sunday night, Gert-Jan Prins, Lee Renaldo and William Hooker bombard the hall with their distraught electronics, (presumably resurrected) Sonic Youth guitars and Free-Jazz drumming respectively. For what seems like an aeon, the trio batter, grind and squall, weaving feedback into glitch and around the palsied, fractured rhythms of the almost demonic Hooker. Ebbing and flowing as good Improv should, there are few longuers, but more bursts of intensity cruising into attenuated soundscrapes the like of which will make the purists reach for their heckling if not their machine guns - for all the good it would do above the glorious din. Renaldo plays everything with his guitar; the monitors, the floor, his amps, sometimes almost wrenching the squeals of distortion from it's body, sometimes gently coaxing while the drums crash into each other and the cocktail of electricity bubbles on Prins' table. Cathartic's the word. The marathon continues on the third day back in the smaller Purcell Room, where Toshimaru Nakamura is a diffident form stood behind a simple mixer, and not a lot else. Through the apllication of channels feeding back on themselves in an accretion of pure tones made wrong and right at the same time, Nakamura produces some quite affecting swoops, whoops, sweeps and whorls out of nothing much more than electricity amplified exponentially into dangerous levels of intensity - which is proved when he sets a monitor on fire. Nice one, Toshimaru! When Jean-Hervé Peron slips barefoot on stage with Big Simon on guitar and Chris Cutler at the drumkit, it's with an air of anticipation that he is received. How will the formar Faust frontman do without the chaoticians at his side, stood there with acoustic guitar in hand, and no sign of record sleeves to paint naked, or televisions to smash, as he informs the audience there won't be tonight? The answer comes when he opens up into "It's A Bit Of A Pain" - like a dream, taking layers from the songs more familiar from their metal-bashed backbeat and power-tooled melody, and making them anew in gentler form... almost. Peron's set is quite affecting, not only for the chance to hear "The Sad Skinhead" or "Jai Mal Au Dents, Jai Mal Au Pieds Aussi" (a song misheard many times as "Cheb bad Buddha, ship on a better sea" - so sometimes Jean-Hervé sings those words too, a big grin on his face) in altered lights, but for the banter and stories which soon dispels his nervousness in favour of an exchange of good-humoured "Fuck off's!" with certain sections of the audience. Cutler's drumming is a phenomenon in itself, light, precise, knowledgable. Big Simon is more than adequate in his semi-improvised extemporisations around the tunes of "Sixty Sixty" or while Jean-Hervé enthuses about being more like a tree, and brings forth his home-made double-neck guitar bass combo. A releatively short set, it's to be hoped that the warm welcome his return provoked will encourage Peron into more live appearances in the near future. The festival is brought to a close with a performance which recapitulates the aim of the event - Anna Homler, Steve Beresford and Richard Sanderson, arranged behind a long table-load of toys, electronics, kipple of all kinds made to produce work which veers from the whimsically obtuse to the eccentrically enlivening. Their set takes on moments of silliness, and then turns them into art, pure and simple. When Homler sings, it makes connections that the unaided instruments and junk couldn't adequately explore on their own, and the balance between noisy chaos of a lo-tech kind, the cut-up potential of the electronics and human vocal extemporisation makes for a fitting slowdown into the drizzling night. -Tango-Mango- |
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Not Breathing; AA23 opened the night, and I thought they had some really, REALLY nice moments. but things did seem a bit sloppy and loose at points - especially with the excessive scratching (which when ON - was wonderful.. but less is more when it comes to scratching). The set was MUCH more active than when they opened for Sol Invictus of all people; and to be honest, I like the minimal, more bleepy side a bit more (I guess comparisons could be made to someone like Ultra Red when I talk of the more "minimal side). Whatever, it was good, and my ears were quite happy. Next was Instagon, continuing onstage with members of aa23 .. which added a nice flow to the evening. For those who do not know, Instagon is a project from Orange County that started some years ago as an excuse of sorts to assult people with A LOT of noise and chaos (never with the same line-up, always changing). Since then, Lob (the fellow behind Instagon) has calmed things down a little and seems to have moved things in a more musical "jam session" like direction. This time around the group was only 3 people big - a sax player, bass player, and drummer. I liked moments of the set, though it was VERY repetitive and sleepy, and the drums were a tad bit too simple and conventional for my mood. Perhaps someday they will do something without a drummer - especially with the nice bass and sax they have had the last few times I have seen them. Last night's performance was not the best, and certainly not the worst, I have seen from instagon -- just kinda "there" Not breathing flowed into Instagon the same way Instagon flowed into AA23, and then they just took things away. The set started with a ton of toy/Speak and Read type manipulation and layers of noise (reminding me a lot of the EAR Datarape stuff - if that is what it is called). Not too long after came the beats: and wow! It was just flat out sick! I really wish more Industrial Dance/Jungle fans were at the show, because the beats were out of control - yet so damn smooth. I dont know, I guess the only real solid thing I can say is Not Breathing ALWAYS put on a sick show, and this time around was one of the BEST times I have seen them (aside from, perhaps, a New Years show they played at and hated :). Didj, fucked-up electronic toys, tons of blips, weirded-out melodies, washes of noise, odd-hypnotic beats, some cute Furby mutant thing; oh, what a nice night. |
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Oh When consumer electronics expanded sufficiently to include musical intruments at relatively affordable prices for the average band to use in the Eighties, the result was Synth Pop, unfortunately with some quite dire results. Then came the Techno revolution, and Sampler-based bedroom cookups, and eventually everyone who once would have formed a Garage band was in on the Electronica act. Now that the original Mini-Moogs and Stylophones, DX7s and SH-1s have become collectors' items after years on the second-hand shelves at bargain basement prices, their place in the battery of instrumentation available to those who started out as Indie Rock bands (in the loosest possible sense, covering a variety of pleasures and sins) soon eclipsed the treasured varnished sheen of a vintage Fender Jaguar or a Rickenbacker semi-acoustic guitar as objects of desire. The sounds if not the hairstyles of Eighties are getting a reappraisal, a resurgence even, far beyond the retro-revival of such stadium nostalgics as ABC or Gary Numan. Oh have brought along their batch of antique digital and analogue synths and keyboards from Bamberg, Germany, to cram onto the stage at Kosmische for this last date on their brief debut UK tour. In the foreground are the aforementioned Moog and Stylophone manipulations of Phil Stumpf, plus racks and boxes of effects, and the remakable wood-veneer cabinet of Atari-teeshirted Ron Schneider's Solina String Synthesizer, which cantankerously drifts from its programmed pitches at will adding a stochastic variance to the sweeping sound - who says machines don't have souls? As with the best of the Electronic Rockers (Salaryman or To Rococo Rot spring to mind for example and quite different reasons), Oh have a real drummer in the shape of Frank Taschner who keeps the beat fluid among the drum pads and Simmonds kit-parts, and a real electric bass - or two - swapped between various band members when not at the keyboards for the warmly booming low end duties. However, this band are on a shimmering, Funk-based road to groovy parts, and set out to produce a joyful live sound which soon gets the decently-populous audience shuffling in appreciation. At moments such as the swaying bubbly Dub swoon of "Ballong" or the uptempo stepper "39,6" comparisons with the frenetic glee of Mouse On Marscan be made for reference purpose only, but Oh are generally much more straightforward. Their aim is to make a bright swarm of sound to get the feet moving and please the ears with alll that lovely circuitry, and this they largely do. "Freightliner" is a tight marvel of easy syncopation and tropical-bird synthesis, and when it fades out on an oscillator curlicue the main impression drawn from this quintet is of infectious fun. Like the glitched-up video of Pong playing throughout the set, Oh have got the balance of an easily-digested but sufficiently engrossing sound just about perfectly judged, disturbing the picture enough with channel-tweaking in the case of the game, sprays of multiple synth voices and spacey noises from the keyboards, to make for a distractingly different experience. Thanks to their appreciation of the virtues of longevity over novelty, concentrate not only on the properties of their ensemble's three-decade's worth of equipment in and of itself, but how it can be best turned to goodtime advantage. -Freq1C- |
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People Like Us; First round on a rare night of electronic experimentalism in Brighton, held in the converted supermarket cabaret venue Komedia and hosted by Semiconductor was Lucky Kitchen, an electronic duo between Alejandra Salinas and Aaron Bergman (AKA Alejandra and Underwood as the handy little placards placed on top of the mixer for each act stated). Their music was accompanied by a little video projection story, which strained at being cute, while we strained our eyes to read the sometimes garish captions. Apparently the story was about a creature called Pip and its misadventures, done in Hello Kitty style among other little creatures. For all its adorable stupidity, the Pip story really was lost on the audience, and the music could have done without it. Conversely, the music creations were clever enough; loads of natural sounds such as birds and insects and storms emerging in synch with the storyboards. There was a carnival type Classical theme which was far more successful in disturbance than the video with its childhood comforting. There are two ways A&U could possibly go with all this, one being to ditch the fairy-tale and go on with good music, or second, they could bring a more sinister aspect to toyland and project a showdown between Pip and Badtzmaru, soundtracking it with their provoking audio backings. Next up was Dummy Run. If someone can create pop music out of crackling buzzsaw fire pop ear-pierce noise, here's Nic Birmingham to try. Grating sounds which should cause me to wince blend and form into melodies, bass-driven musical prose, rattling harmonies. There's a mean sound coming from the fingertips of that mild looking man, no manners required. He paces, it gets louder, he looks confused, the crunches mount in attack. He concentrates and a chill goes down my spine. The sound manager fucks up - the audience protests. Nic frets, we are back in sonic torture heaven. He nods along as if to cartoon sing-alongs, sound becomes bombastic with echoes and derision. The music turns into the kind of soundwalls one can easily have as background to an interesting conversation, but I am compelled to watch Dummy Run, closely. He knows what's coming; he has a plan, a scheme even. He's listening himself and moving RCA jacks around quicker than a turn of the century telephone operator in a New York hotel. And he scares me, another assault, he looked puzzled, another attack, another rhythm. I could dance to this, if I were on drugs. This vocoder type voice is screaming at me through relentless static, I wonder if Mr. Dummy (Mr. Run?) has found the secret to A.I.? Fuck, now its over, and I thought I'd be bored. Could this be future of pop music? Brain-pop maybe. Now as if my head wasn't stretched out enough already by Dummy Run, up comes Vicki Bennett doing People Like Us. Immediately I realise there is to be no aural mercy, so I stay as tuned as DR made me get, and consume. Visual, phonic, PLU has created an experience so fresh as to quiet this whole full room audience. Recycling found sources of film, songs, words, People Like Us is making the most out of an economic approach to creativity. In a world where nothing is original anyway, and everything is disposable, PLU lends newness to previous genius and novelty to that which may have been overlooked in the past. It is all forms of expressionism and re-expression which make sense. Especially when true heart and mind are put to the task. This is the overwhelming feeling which emmanates from Ms. Bennett, that she has wrapped and spiralled her soul into this work, and she intends to get yours in there as well. "What kind of sounds would be like this music?" Visual affrontation. "What's music? The beat we live our lives to. It's very important, just like lycra." Epiphany! This could help us understand music! There is a childish temptation to come hither, to listen. PLU uses our human tendancies towards nostalgia to bring us all into formation. Homemade Clay! Delightful! Vicki wanted everyone to pay attention, finally all the poor bastards shut up and paid their debts! Looking around at the stunned and still quiet room full of people who are that normal sort of group where it's trendy to be bored, I have to smirk a little at their general raptness with PLU. "Water coming off the eaves is good music." Austria - coincidence/genius? "We used to do it this way - now we do it this way...we are leaving the land...This is our thing, this is our faith, this land, this is our life..." Vicki Bennett uses media to show us our own growth, our own progress. She shows us how we once were idiots who worked too hard. She shows us that we are still idiots, but when entertained, we can learn. We can improve. And there is hope. "What's the use relying on others for entertainment? The best thing is to make your own enjoyment, if you can...". And if you can't, People Like Us will. Grim reminders constantly run through the show of our own follies. Blame ourselves, hate ourselves. "The silence of the day is broken by a gun at nightfall..." It is amazing to find this stuff and put it all together, she shows us our future through the audiovisual pasts of people like us! Complete submission? OK, Vicki. More quickly and accurately? OK, Vicki...Data incomplete?...OK, Vicki. Maybe next time... -Lilly Novak- |
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Pere Ubu Performing for their 25th anniversary, Pere Ubu delivered such a marvelous performance as to bring me around to wondering why I don't listen to this band everyday. And why are they not lauded as the one of the best of the last quarter century? Why is Pere Ubu not a household word? Just as well really, as they do inspire that very possessive cult underground sort of attitude among their fine stock of fans. Not many other bands since could dismiss their powerful influence, and most worth a shit have happily given credit where credit is due. However up and down the reception of Pere Ubu has been over the last 25 years, the Royal Festival Hall definitely got a good dose of the up. Dave Thomas led the band through an alphabetical play list of all the best songs, highlighted of course by "30 Seconds Over Tokyo", "Cry", "Final Solution", "Monday Morning" and "Wasted". Honestly, it is difficult to define a showstopping moment, as every song rang true to the darkest places inside. The music was as melodically abrasive as ever, with a key instrument being Mr. Thomas' shiny red apron all geared up with microphones which he used to get feedback off every available surface. Pere Ubu never sounds as simple as a guitar/bass band. There is too much distortion and noise and weird horn blowing and the rythyms are shot through with Pop beats, but also shot up with an adrenaline urge that keeps their sound so off mainstream. Dave Thomas has always had that way of telling stories over the noise and his voice still does reach and pull right into the heart of matters. While he is not necessarily the most approachable person of all time off stage, Mr. Thomas communicates in ways so personal as to create familiarity. His brand of dark humour and razor sharp irony seemed to speak especially well on Wednesday night, all the way to the final crowd surge during an inspired encore set which saw Wayne Kramer of MC5, fresh from his support slot, join the band for a pelting celebration of "Worlds In Collision". It is very hard to explain just how good Pere Ubu are live. Seeing them ten years ago or tonight feels the same way with this unmistakable realization of having witnessed something really great, ultimately important in the scheme of musical history. They are truly a band that spans their 25 years of recording with hands laid onto every genre of music in that time. It is mastery really, and still so touching to the soul. -Lilly Novak- |
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Primal Scream; I had a T-shirt ready for Death In Vegas. It had the cross-sectioned brain from the cover of The Contino Sessions on the front, with a Levi's logo stamped across it. Underneath was the quote from Bill Hicks about every word from the mouths of artists who advertise being like a turd falling into his drink. In the end, for better or worse, I couldn't be arsed to take it and throw it to them onstage. I was there for Primal Scream and just wanted to enjoy. Still, I just couldn't summon any enthusiasm for Death In Vegas' set. I loved The Contino Sessions - that was exactly why I was so offended that they saw fit to sell "Dirge" to fucking Levi's. Do they have a legitimate excuse? Did one of their mothers need the cash for a brain operation? I suspect not. Kind of disillusioning for bands you love - young bands, at that, not old and tiring ones - to clamour for a piece of ass in the corporate gang-bang. Many say I'm naïve. Yeah, yeah - whatever. However matey they are with Bobby Gillespie, they didn't deserve a fucking second of stage time next to Primal Scream and Invasian last night. I've always thought it was your loss if you let something about an artist spoil their music for you. And so it is. When "Dirge" (their new single) started up and the crowd went wild, I felt nothing. These people are following in the footsteps of Nick Kamen. Thankfully, the Primals unambiguously burnt those disillusionment vibes away. I came in during "Swastika Eyes", and spent most of that track piling my way down to the front. Most of the first half of the set was material from their incredible recent album, Exterminator. The only thing that shocked me more than the searing intensity of the uncompromising title track, "Insect Royalty", "Kill All Hippies", "Pills", "Shoot Speed/Kill Light" and "Blood Money", was how half-assed most of what passed for dancing was down there. Around halfway through their performance, they played the first track to really get everyone jumping ecstatically - "Rocks"! Catchy beat, dumb hedonic lyrics - that's what the people want! Don't get me wrong, I'm not down on the Primals' 'old hedonism' or something - "Higher Than The Sun" was utterly majestic. But c'mon! You could feed a few Rolling Stones singles into Windows 98 and it could churn out umpteen 'new' tracks that kicked ass as much as "Rocks". Plus, most of the aforementioned new tracks are at least twice as ROCK, musically, as "Rocks" - and they're fuelled by the storming, righteous fires of Illumined Dissatisfaction. But for their duration, whenever I glanced out of my furiously leaping fit of dancing, most of the people around were curiously earthbound, just shaking their hips or pushing each other. Ah well. That said, there was quite a healthy moshpit going for a lot of the Primals' set. At times it just looked like it was filled with people who'd drunk too much to dance, and got the illusion of dancing by letting themselves be pushed about by a few macho lager lads. But during one track, I finally realised these were the people having most fun. There was no real aggression, and when one bunch of lads, jumping in unison with their arms round each other - that gleeful sulphate look on their faces - grabbed me to join them, my prejudices vanished. We were all having a truly great time together. "Accelerator" was as blinding as can be, taking me back to that first, shattering time that I listened to the album, and then cranking the intensity up to white noise levels. The line "What's that screaming in my head / It's the future / It's the future / C'mon!" perfectly crystallises for me those moments when naked hope is born, bloody and wailing, from crushing frustration. Much leaping ensued. Exterminator is so different, in many ways, from their previous godlike album, Screamadelica, that it was a grand testament to the band's integrity to feel last night that they still encompassed the spirit of those years. Eight years ago I was on the very same dancefloor, as loaded as I've ever been, dancing joyously to "Movin' On Up". Last night I did the same, and felt a connection back to that time that had very little to do with nostalgia, or trying to 'recapture' some golden era. It felt like... an integration. Movement had taken place in the meantime. Stagnation had been faced, succumbed to, and overcome. Frustrations remained, but so did hope and energy. Just before "Kill All Hippies", the inspiringly enthusiastic bassist Mani grabbed the mike and made the cheapest comment of the year: "Anyone who's going to Glastonbury this year's a bloody hippy!" (Right, so you're making a statement by playing bloody Reading, then?) It's ironic that the Primals are toying with subcultural rivalry at a time when they're truly integrating - for me, at least - so many of the great impulses in modern music. When they finished, that was it. At the moment, they're just not an all-nighter band. Nothing, nobody can follow them. I popped in briefly to check out Invasian, whose rumbling hi-speed drum-and-bass rap would have taken my head off on any other night. But no, this was a Primal Scream gig - full stop and amen. -Gyrus- |
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Primal Scream; So this is what gigs look like these days. It's been awhile. Last time I was here I got thrown out for pogoing atop the right-hand side speaker stacks on, if I remember rightly, a combination of mushrooms and speed. This time I sit quietly on the stairs overlooking the audience and crowdwatch. Well, I've not been well. Girls with those colourful children's hairclip things that I've never really fully understood the point of mill about below. One solitary chemically empowered casual dances wild-eyed to the pre-gig choonz on the PA, and is given an appropriately wide berth by those around him, but other than that there are no real characters for me to report. The boys drink much beer and look strikingly ordinary, most all of them having that Oasis-casual thing going on so unfortunately prevalent today. Younger people than I sit alongside me and take photographs of each other. I press my face to the railings on the stairs and watch the crowd below, wishing I was on drugs. I console myself with the fact that I at least look as though I am. Both this time and the time before I was here to see Primal Scream. It is a little kept secret that their high-NRG Techno Rock anarchist rebirth has restored my faith in Rock & Roll, and the future of music in general. If you've heard what Primal Scream are sounding like these days then you know what I'm talking about already - imagine THAT but up LOUD. If you've not and you don't, then there is no task more pressing for you than for you to purchase, shoplift or ramraid yourself a copy of Exterminator right away. Yes now. The stage is all strobe lights and barbed wire and thick white smoke drifts off and down into the front rows. Bobby Gillespie shambles onstage looking and sounding like a particularly hungover Mark E Smith, and the comparison is borne out by the truly awful shirt he has on. He is wasted, of course, and can't sing, but no change there. And to be honest with you, the whole band is a bit on the sloppy side, burned out and well into a long tour, but to come onstage to a song like "Swastika Eyes", and not have it sound like the first great song of the Millennium, which is what it is, the bag would have to be full of more than drugs. They follow that with "Shoot Speed/Kill Light", and the rest of the show keeps almost exclusively to the new stuff, as if they know that what they are doing now is easily the most important stuff they have ever done. And they're right. The few backwards glances are to "Rocks", "Movin' On Up", and an eerie take on "Higher Than The Sun". For the rest of it, they play the entirety of the new album, even (a little ill-advisedly) the instrumental "Blood Money", but it doesn't matter. It's like being at a club. That they can create that kind of atmosphere is itself strange and impressive, but it's odd getting used to not looking to the singer as the focus of attention. Bobby G sometimes looks a little lost amidst all of that SOUND. The focus of attention now, if anyone, is Mani. Mani's great. I was surprised to discover that he has already become the heart of The Scream, like Keith Moon was in The Who, and Keith Richards in The Stones respectively. He's the spirit of the show and talks to us more than Bobby. And he's the most ROCK of them all right now - looks the best, too, like a Viking in leather trousers, legs apart, electricity coursing from him, pounding out these fucking HUGE pounding pounding throbbulatious basslines. So much energy, and it's all over the place. The crowd get frisky. Bobby gets bottled a couple of times and leaves the stage twice. There seems to be just something in the air. I break up a fight myself to "Accelerator". "Keep your dreams" kicks in, a little lumpen live, but still beautiful, drawing me in, lighting my fire, and then "Exterminator" itself, all funky Donna Summer and upful dissent - gets my body movin' and I give in at last and the elevation music takes over. And I'm dancing. I can't help it, I'm dancing. They're playing "Exterminator". Nothing else matters. I'm dancing. And I'm like that the rest of the night. I feel good. There is a ringing in my ears. I smell like an ashtray. All the way home I pirouette and swirl and dance over the darkness of Hyde Park. Ragged and wasted and right royally fucked as they were, tonight Primal Scream were the greatest Rock & Roll band in the world, hands down, no contest. Too right. Stitch that, y'fucker. -Harper Godhaven- |
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Michael Rother & Dieter Moebius; Dead Voices On Air are conducting a bit of an experiment on the London leg of their tour, starting off loud, noisy and danceable and trailing down into ambient passages of extended mood workouts. Mark Spybey and Darren Phillips man the keyboards, sequencers, samplers, digital technology; Darryl Neudorf is behind a bare drumkit (coplete with fluffy liner on one drum). So they kick off into a post-Industrial Dance groove, and instantly several key signifiers make links to everyone from Coil (arpeggiating keyboard weirdnesses, atmosphere), Psychic TV (the stripped analogue beats, the moments of ecstatic upness) and of course fellow Vancouverians and fellow-travellers Download (that digital Techno-noise, the earnest need for cathartic harshness). Largely instrumental, the only moment of vocal outpouring comes during a heavy-skanking Techno Dub, when the words "I hate who you are" become the mantra of the minute and the atmosphere becomes strangely windswept, cinematic even - and surprisingly, much of the Goth contingent in the audience make a break for the border. Strange how Dub drives the forces of darkeness away... Michael Rother and Dieter Moebius take the stage with their younger cohort linking them into the current generation of German Electronicists - they may be old, but they surely know their grooves to perfection now. Rother has aged well into a distinguished, but still youthfully attractive pop icon of the underground; Moebius has a gnomic air of mature engagement with his equipment. But appearances and charisma are not all that it's about - what the trio produce is finely-honed electronic music, drawing on the Rother and Moebius' thirty years of experience. With all the noises emanating from a seemingly standard MIDI set-up plus laptop, what makes sense ultimately is the groove - that Motorik beat which has ridden the waves from Kraftwerk through NEU! and Harmonia. Add in the the (now-)digital flecks of buzzing, flickering or plain lovely tones (continuing and expanding the standard set by those same groups plus Cluster) which provide a crest to the joyful mix. It is worth stating of course that these two geezers were part of either or both of all those seminal groups, makers and shakers of some supreme moments of coasting, driving or thumping Electronic music - and this is made crystal clear by their choice of The Roots Of Electronica for the tour's title. When Rother picks up his guitar for "Silberstreif" (from the 1982 album Fernwärme") the double-meanings are several; there is plenty that is old, ageless even, but NEU!; there is as much of the new. There was a self-description in the sleeve notes of the debut NEU! LP, declaring that they made "New music for mind and pants". Quaint German translation to English aside, this dictum remains true twenty-eight years later, stirring the senses and moving the feet in a simultaneously trance-inducing, ambient style - and of course both those genres would never have been quite the same without the contributions of both Rother or Moebius. What occured at The Underworld tonight was not merely historical for its position as the first appearance in London of two legends of Electronic music, but for the celebratory atmosphere they created which is and shall remain, timeless. -Tango-Mango- |
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2nd Gen; A night of drones on Seven Sisters Road, strangely light on traffic in the aftermath of petrol protests, but still teeming with North London's variegated Saturday night fun seekers and the requitiste fully made-up goths on the 253 bus. The Red Rose is no stranger to the extremes of music, and the venue's home as a noted comedy club is somehow appropriate to the onstage antics of Bajina. Two geezers in various stages of hand splatter-painted scruffiness, face paint and a "Police Line - Do Not Cross" headband (the fashion item de jour for the less publicly-supported kind of road protesters) behind a bunch of electronic kipple, making an unholy racket with all the glee of children set loose to their own anarchic devices. It's an enjoyable blend of guitar feedback, radio noise, snatches of charity shop recordings of the likes of Thunderbirds and Wout Steijnhuis' sonorous Hawaiian guitar, all mashed into a bundle of fun from the tapes slapped from Walkman to Walkman. Best of all is when the bandana man sits feet up in a leather-bound formal chair while the deck abuser does his worst to sundry vinyl, leering into the audience and stabbing his teeth with a live jack plug in painfully faithful imitation of a dentist drill. Still, they took it just too far in time terms, but how exactly does this kind of noise assault end gracefully anyhow? OO (as in Infinity) have a similar problem knowing how long to make a set of drones extracted by E-bow from their acoustic and electric guitar. They sit at their mixers, making the drones rise from a low hum to an all-enveloping swarm of electricity around the hall over what seems like an hour but may have been substantially less. This is one of the appealing facets of the drone: the distancing of time from the listener as the subtle shifts in tone and frequency make the transition from one second to another liquid variables. But the problem with this set is not of OO's making; it comes instead from the too-good acoustics of the Red Rose in picking up every last inane comment of certain sections of the audience, some of whose every last impolite natter ("Has it started yet?") somehow makes it through the moments of maximum volume, even in the front rows a few metres from the PA, to mood-deadening effect. There is less of this problem for Dual, fortunately. The trio make their beginning on three bowed guitars and a few flight boxes of effects, accompanied by slithering red and white abstract projections. Another long piece, but with simple, slow percussion backing which adds a new dimension to the Dual sound, one which once again is reminiscent of the shifting drones of Main. The night becomes alive with the rise and fall of bows on coiled steel, and even with the distractions which are still there to spoil it all at times, Dual largely break through to the core of the audience's attention. A mixture of the meditative and the abstract, the music makes itself felt. Last up are 2nd Gen, tonight being main man Wajid Yaseen behind a black box or two (even if one is a yellow Sherman box after all) and accomplice Paul of the charmingly-named Dachau. Paul looks like a demented, fresh-faced Sixth Former in his untucked grey shirt and tie, and his performance is in suitably Punkish style. While Yaseen wrenches a series of squals and spaceless distortion from the electronic kit, Mr Dachau sticks a mike between his teeth and spends much of the set screeching his accompaniment to Wajid's occasional microphone shouts. Then the blasted beats kick in, and a mashed-up bash of recycled metallic riffs and loops for what passes for the evening's closest resemblace to individually identifiable tracks. 2nd Gen's set is short but noisy, and wraps everything up before the DJs and excellent cut-up films finish off the night in a welter of neglected sounds from Coil, Loop and beyond. What is refeshing about this night was the concentration of some wilfully-extended drone music and avant-stupid sonic exploration under one trembling roof; if only some of the punters would show more respect. -Antron S. Meister- |
Slapp Happy; The South Bank Centre seemed to be all on with their rules of protocol as I watched David Thomas from a tiny vertical glass in the big imposing closed door or the Queen Elizabeth Hall. I was a little late and the steward decided not to send me and the long line of other late-comers in to take seats until a break between songs. Mr.Thomas, (frontman of Pere Ubu) doesn't bother too much with breaks between songs, so we stood, me in the lucky only view spot, for most of the trio's set. Eventually we were all loosed on the inside and found seats and got on with enjoying a great lot of humour and bittersweet master performing. David Thomas seems to have just the right hold on the most righteous of Mississippi Valley blues. His voice is big and soothing and the perfect tone for his story -telling brand of song singing. The combination of the Pale Boys Keith Monine After some moments of technical difficulty, Slapp Happy took the stage, one by one, to thunderous applause. This claimed to be only the second ever show for them in this guise, but as they have just come off a successful ten or so date tour of Japan, we see this can't be true. Onstage, Anthony Moore and Peter Blegvad, at the start shadowed from the wings by the intimatable figure of Dagmar Krause, all seemed as comfortable and confident with each other as if they have been performing for 30 years, which indeed, they have, just not together under this name, with these songs. Blegvad introduced most pieces and made little humours over their ages, and the "cuteness" the Japanese seemed to label them with (owing that as long as he and Moore stay in the shadows, Slapp Happy is a cute little band). And true it is, they are cute, and they are iconic and the perfect definition of a pop sound, though I doubt they've ever seen the light of day on a pop chart, thank goodness. The music is simple, the lyrics are intelligent and almost like little fables filled with practicallities for surviving in the world. Dagmar Krause is, without pause, the indisputable star. With a vocal range to rival, well, anyone, the diminutive Pop-Krautrock-goddess is nothing if not genius. Singing almost every Slapp Happy song I love, excuding "The Drum" (to the consternation of my companion), I felt I understood by seeing her live why it is I like this band so much. I don't have too much appreciation for pop music in general, I wouldn't often be accused of being an "easy listener". Still, Dagmar and the Slapp Happy team have captured an audience for three decades of unlikely fans, and the woman's energy and sincerity and the purity of her oh-so-versatile voice may just be the reason why. All and all, Peter Blegvad was a little goofy, Anthony Moore was holding a little background space for himself, and Ms. Krause was queen. Together they made the phrase "slap happy" ring completely true as they seemed to be the happiest people in the universe, as good pop icons, I suppose, should do. Leaving the QEH, it was notable that most faces were smiling, and there was an undeniable air of well being. With any luck they will get to like this performing jag, and we will see much more of the Slapp Happy trio in the future. -Lillia Novak- |
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Sonic Boom Live Presented in conjunction with the excellent Sonic Boom exhibition of sound installations at the Hayward Gallery, the line up for this event features three groups and artists who have also been selected for inclusion in the gallery. Project Dark are the first onstage, lurking behind a bank of samplers and sundry equipment, with the audience decked out in 3d-glasses for the presentation of the Disc Continued film - and handily, that universal promoter of all things vinyl and experimental, John Peel pops up in the movie's intro to remind everyone to slip on the red and blue filters. The film and soundtrack are used by the three members of Project Dark as a template on which to build a really quite slick presentation of their various works of deconstruction meted out to the very idea of needles, grooves and music. So in tri-dee detail biscuit bases are spun and rewound on a variety of record players, their three PD wind-up gramophone exhibits are depicted in a variety of settings putting saw blades and wooden discs to use as needle-fodder, making the cartridges and amplifiers screech and crawl with a blend of agony and delight. In front of the screen, Kirsten Reynolds swaps textured discs for each section of the film, while Ashley Davies and Tony Pattinson shuffle electronics and keep themselves busy on the interface of processed sound and more extreme tonalities of diamond in contact with a variety of surfaces, both realtime and synched to the screen antics. Sparks literally fly too, from arm to steel disc (on film - if they're frying the sawblade live, as included in one of the Hayward gramophone exhibits, it's not readily apparent), while 7"s and other analogues for vinyl grooves spin both on and off the platters at various depths of projection overhead. For the finale, after an extended, pounding post-Industrial sequence of cheap turntables blowing their perspex lids under a sutained barrage of re-looped exposives and groaning pickup noise, four real-life decks meet the same fate in a whiff of gunpowder and just a little touch of fun, if not especially Avant-garde, theatricality. But who needs experiment and theory when there's explosives involved? With the reek of fireworks still hanging in the air, a quick stage shift swings the Project Dark paraphenalia out of the way for the crush barrier-framed sheet steel and suspended bass spring of FM Einheit, while Pan Sonic's mixers and tone generators are even more easily set up. For this performance, Einheit, Vaisanen and Vainio are joined by Caspar Brötzmann on guitar, and they settle down to their improvisatory mix of oscillator pitches and clicking pulses with an exploratory sussurus of electronics, feedback and tweaked and teased metal. Einheit is the central focus of his perfomance, and his bulky figure and unruly mop of hair still show the same tendency to violent explosions of lugubrious pounding and scraping of the sheet steel and waving expressively in the wake of a particularly energetic rhythmic moment respectively as in the heyday of his time as the powerhouse of Einstürzende Neubauten. For an hour, the various parameters of reverberating spring and swooping glitch are intertwined with guitar scrapes which even occasionally veer off into the old-school noise poses of Hendrix, but without the Bluesy melodies to interfere with the production of erratic, almost gleefully invasive swatches of electronic interference patterns and acoustic half-rhythms brought clanging and groaning from Einheit's minimalist percussive set up. Sometimes he seems uncertain, bouncing slowly on his eventually bare feet, but always able to evoke the joyful sound of metal on metal at just the right moment in the swelling reaches of Pan Sonic's clicking, whirling brushes with white noise, sine waves and the hermetic buzz of overdriven tone genrators. It takes quite a while for the back-projected visual readout of the ensemble's sound waves to shudder under the characterists Pan Sonic oscillator thud and boom, but by the time it does they have managed to set their stage monitor smoking under the strain of it all, with noxious plastic fumes merging with the residue of Project Dark's firework antics. With sight, sound and smell covered, and the bass frequencies giving a fair go at reaching out to touch the chest walls of the audience (though it must be said at not quite the level expected from these most booming of boomsters), this show is all in all turning into a multimedia spectacular seemingly of its own free will. A requisite few patrons slip out under weight of the sonic assault, and when the quiet comes it leaves a not unpleasant residue of tingling in the ears and the fragrance of burnt-out and bombed-out musical equipment in the nose - the odour of experiment? So after the interval, it's sad to report that Scanner's set is a dull anti-climax of repetitive beat loops and mildly interesting sound scribbles from pocket composer and Theremin alike, backed up with his Powerbook projections of Directorscapes of limited worth and quite dated feel. Electronica in its one-man band form, it is hardly Robin Rimbaud's fault that his previous raison d'etre, the analogue mobile phone, has been made obsolete leaving him with nothing to scan - but he now produces workmanlike digital rhythms and unremarkable tones to little effect instead, provoking little and signifying less along the way. -Freq1C- |
Sorrow; What was supposed to be a World Serpent Presents show with Sol Invictus, Sorrow, and Ostara turned out to be a lot less/more, depending on how you look at it. Due to illness, Tony Wakeford and Sol Invictus were forced to cancel, and due to lateness(my own), I missed seeing Ostara. I did arrive in time to catch the end of a set by some man called Joe, who I have yet to identify. His acoustic guitar and John Denver-ish lyrics seemed really very out of place and I wondered if it was someone's idea of a fun joke to play on the black-clad, maquiage extrodinaire who had obviously come in search of the dark sonics which help mainline World Serpent. To the pleasant shock of everybody, this guy Joe was suddenly joined onstage by none other than David Tibet and Michael Cashmore, and instantly Joe was raised to another level of esteem. Together they performed a gorgeous rendition of "A Sadness Song", full of all the magick which is Tibet, assuring a caring lot of Current 93 fans that Tibet has indeed survived well thru his own recent illness. Chills went up and down my spine to hear him sing and sing so well. Instantly, my Ł10 ticket proved its worth. A flash-quick set change and Sorrow came to the stage, now as headliner. Rose Mcdowall, Robert Lee, and various other musicians of note (who I can't name because they weren't introduced and the Sorrow site is down) came on looking and sounding as Goth as you like it. I was first struck with Lee's beautiful piano-patched keyboarding and later impressed by his versatility playing also guitars and violin, wielding each instrument as only and expert can and pulling forth from them the most haunting music. A lovely accompaniment to Rose's airy voice. The Sorrow set was brief, with short songs and quick breaks between them. Rose seemed to be a bit bored by it all, uncomfortable as she struggled to keep her guitar and/or rubber bat-wings across her shoulder, her song lists in place. She quipped with the audience a little, and made some gesturing for dramatic effect, but the moments when she gets herself lost in a lyric were few and modest. Hers is a voice that when allowed to soar will do so to the greatest heights, and with an operatic flourish that is ghostly and nearly frighteningly beautiful. Tonight she was not letting the overdone locals in on this. Nonetheless, it was a pleasure to see Sorrow and their diminuitive Bad Fairy Queen, and their brand of Goth-Folk musick may be such that brings on recognition by the dark masses. As is often the case with London shows, curfew was called too soon, and the crowd was rushed out into the cold night so that The Underworld could sweep up and get ready to put on whatever poxy club night they had in store. It seems like if Sorrow had not had such time pressure against them, they could have possibly unwound into a freeform of sorts, maybe even bringing on Tibet again for a collaboration which I can only imagine and wish I'd seen. -Lilly Novak- |
Suicide
-Lilly Novak- |
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The The It's been seven years since Matt Johnson released "Dusk", the last The The album... and barring the frankly bizarre collection of Hank Williams covers, plus a series of dubious rumours, nobody has heard from him since. Until now. Joining Trent Reznor's Nothing label (after Epic refused to release his experimental album, GunSluts) appears to have rejuvenated Johnson, and his triumphant return to the UK stage saw him debut a selection of material from his forthcoming NakedSelf release (GunSluts is to be released later in the year on his own label). And it Rocked. With a band comprising of an ex-Sly Stone drummer, an ex-Iggy Pop guitarist, and an ex-Frank Sinatra bassist, Johnson appears to have abandoned the rich, dark keyboards of earlier work in favour of a stripped down two guitars, bass and drum sound. It's more Metal, but it's no less dark. Opening with the grinding intensity of "Dogs of Lust", The The quickly had the venue writhing in the sweaty palm of their collective hand. Underlit with bare red light bulbs, the band launched howling volleys of feedback over a throbbing bassline whilst the pounding rhythm confirmed Johnson's re-evaluation of the importance of drums. But as tight as the band were, we weren't actually here to see them. We'd all come to see Matt. And he didn't disappoint. The The don't have a massive following. But what Johnson's fans lack in numbers they make up for in devotion. This man writes music that actually means something to his listeners. His lyrics and music reveal both an emotional intensity and a sense of authenticity that are almost frightening when they go hand in hand. Johnson grimly strides across an artistic landscape that few other bands would have the balls to even visit. Tonight's set was heavily biased towards the political end of The The's range, with "Armageddon Days Are Here (Again)" inducing an aptly apocalyptic atmosphere heightened by the new song "Globalise" (I think) which lashed out at consumerism, in an echo of the classic "Heartland" from the Infected album. That's not to say it was all social commentary. Far from it. No The The performance would be complete without a stroll through the dark territories of emotional despair that characterise so much of Johnson's work. It's a long way from fashionable student angst though. With an oddly stripped-down version of "Uncertain Smile", the achingly poignant "Love Is Stronger than Death" and the blistering hopelessness of "This Is The Day", Johnson isn't wallowing in affected misery... he's plumbing the depths of the darkness and it's all so fucking real! Outside the venue touts were charging 200 quid for a ticket. Inside we were having an experience that was worth more than mere money. We were standing a scant few feet from Matt Johnson - the bloke who wrote "Soulmining", the bloke who wrote "Kingdom of Rain", the bloke who wrote "Mercy Beat" for fuck's sake! And he was singing us his new songs! The encore came too quick - if Johnson had decided to play through his entire back catalogue twice, I'd still be there now. But instead his return to the stage after five minutes of thunderous applause heralded yet another new track (which sounded almost as though Alec Empire might have been involved) and the aforementioned "Love Is Stronger Than Death" from Dusk. Then, confounding us to the end, Matt finished with a quiet track from Hanky Panky - just him and a low key guitar accompaniment. It shouldn't have worked, but hey! this is Matt Johnson we're talking about; of course it worked. I hate reviews that overuse exclamation marks. But last night I was close enough to Johnson that I could reach out and touch him. And as he sung the opening line to "Infected" - "I've got too much energy to switch off my mind / But not enough to get myself organised", I realised that this review could only end in one way: Matt Johnson is back! He's making music that's as good as ever!! The The are the most important band in the world!!! -Grufty Jim- |
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The Third Millennium Festival Generally I would say that if you want to see a gig in London, there are not many more beautiful places than Union Chapel. I would also add to try for summer. This cavernous gothic spired chapel all of stone and wood and beautiful doorways into maze-like passages provides an atmosphere of spooky tranquility and usually gorgeous acoustic quality. Unfortunately, the cold could not be kept out this night, even with the radiation of a dozen or more electric heaters, and according to some of the artists, the sound system was more than a little off. Putting an audience on hard pews in a cold stone room and expecting them to stay awake for hours on end of quiet dreamy music proved to be too much, so what should have been a promising bunch of performances did eventually become tedious and uncomfortable and a lot of the crowd had dispersed for warmer sites long before the end. Waveworld came on first amidst mild theatrics, monk's cowls and funny make-up which was easily forgotten as soon as their video work went center stage and the music became the accompaniment. It was like a video travelogue between a Richard Bach biography and a Jeff Noon novel. Pollen severely came to mind and my sinuses ached in the cold with the visuals of loose clusters. Writhing organic sexual forms, blue and green and then variances all askew in a swampland of space music. Funny, I never think of spacey electronics as this organic, but the video made it so. Nest, pollinate, bed of birth... a fecund background for a DX7 simulator simulating the pollination, conception, coronation. It's good to be so enchanted with film work, especially animation, and the music did not distract from the random thoughts of creation it inspired. Rainsticks, spermatozoa, sea creatures as stage left blows us beautiful horn songs. Digital eels, underwater aircraft, wave form manta rays with a beat... jellyfish ovum-life began in the oceans? Of course, the obvious creation story set to a lonely engulfing sound generation. Every man and woman is a cloud? Or a puppet of the "others". Truly masterful computer renderings, and over too soon for as soon as it stopped, I remembered how chilled I was. Next up was a bizarre woman called Alquimia. With a bank of synths and a man coercing strange tribal percussion tools, she makes herself sound like a chorus of angels, or a choir of herself; must be the echoplex. She is spindly and weird. Her music is rather too much Hippie nostalgia, though her voices are sweet and chiming. What I hear in her lyrics, what little can be deciphered, cries out too much like rape and usury. Victimised femme. Operatic indeed, but not like Diamanda, less ethnic than Lisa Gerrard. On a few songs she is either helped or hindered, (one hesitates to judge), by Michael Nyman, doing some rather blatantly Charlie Brown sounding piano. I think she wants us to think of the suffering of Mary, the scourge of Artemis, but it sounds more like a Mellotron backing for old Star Trek shows. The percussion man was quite good though. I will have to admit to seeing only a few bits here and there of the evening's next offering. White Noise featuring David Vorhaus and special guest Alex Paterson from The Orb was looked forward to by many, but looked at by only a few in the end. Mr.V was well talked-up before the show, about his oddities of old, so there were a lot of disappointed would-be fans when his show seemed to turn into an aural jack-off of himself. It was a strange instrument he has devised, which was quickly dubbed "the phallotron" by a friend of mine, but the sound was not white noise-like, it was not even memorable. At one point, there was an obvious contention between Vorhaus and Paterson who was going his own Orbish way from the elevated pulpit. Paterson seemed to be as annoyed as the audience and ignored Vorhaus' gestures that he turn himself down. Other than that, what I saw was trite and dull, and what was talked about after was worse. What seemed like a few hours later, it was finally time for the headliners, Michael Rother and Dieter Moebius. After their show in February this year - which was stupendous - I think all who had been there were hoping for some redemption to the lost evening. It was a shortish set for the pair, who struggled against an uncooperative sound system and probably had as cold of fingers as I did. Still and all they did put the only light on the evening when Mr. Rother got hold of his guitar, and they found their groove in that post-"NEU!-tastic" way they have. The audience visibly woke up and smiled. I think we all could have done with a night of just this, and perhaps a hot toddy or two. -Lilly Novak- |
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To Rococo Rot; It's City Slang's birthday - ten years old and going stronger than ever at the interface of good old-fashioned Post-Indie Rock, Country dispatches from the edge and exuberent German Electronica. Tonights show is the first London event, featuring the latter stylings in the shape of Dirk Dresselhaus's bubbly bleep outfit SchneiderTM and the ever-evolving melodies of To Rococo Rot. Somehow Schneider have expanded by 300% for this show, with Dresselhaus flanked by various intense cohorts and their boxes of tricks, and together they produce a near-chaotic mishmash of generally upbeat rhythms and some quite quirky noises. Perhaps there is a little of the cheesy on display tonight - a little of the DiscoTechnoPop muted by the surroundings, if only for the audience. No, Dirk is well up for it, punching the air, jerking like he's been plugged straight into the MIDI setup and through into the back projections of virtual plasma balls, pixellated soundwaves and the rather smoothly-morphing effect made up by some clever little software which manages to visually translate the delay effects into sinous strands of what resembles very well-controlled plasticene. He and his companion on stage right are the most vibrantly active of the quartet, lighting up fags and throwing signs like they're at the decks in a rave, not the decreasingly staid halls of British art culture. The group are at their best when the closely-interlocked beats tumble back, around and straight through eash other, or for the devolution into stuttering minimal beats of limited repetiveness, but somehow SchneiderTM even manage to make The Smiths' cover they do sound fun and groovy, even if almost unrecognisable - perhaps squarking the lyrics through a meta-vocoder load of effects rather than in a dreary moan helps. They may not save Electronica from eating itself, bu |
Again, a third way around the world and this time for Bobby Conn. This is the Shim Sham Club, 615 Toulouse Street. A round of jokes on that one and 19,000 Heart Association convention goers available to egg it on ("Why are the French Navy's bases on the Mediterranean like their sailor's trousers? They are both Toulon and Toulouse..."). Other venues imitate this decor: shutters on real windows, glitter gold stage curtains, lesbian chic bathroom graffitti and the odd cobweb strung out over dark and ancient mirrors. The Amerikan accents are assaulting and this is a bit of Amerika with its own language. "Simmer down" means something here. No matter how hard I search the young faces for familiarity, I remember I am a stranger here.
When Bobby Conn comes to play, there are a few more people, and a couple of irritating hecklers, but mostly the ambience of the audience is one of (s)lack, disinterested and uninformed of what genius to which they witness. Bobby gives great effort to holding together a stage show of interest, arriving with plush furry mitts and a sojourn into the audience to do some personal greetings. I wonder if he should not smack a few people with his big fluffy hands instead of patting their empty heads. Soon enough, almost, he goes to singing and then nothing else really matters much. I don't know that I have ever heard a voice this good. Surely there are crooners who could rival him throughout history, but only a handful, even if you look way back. Mr. Conn's voice is rich and smooth and transmits low to high, loud to soft, ranging levels without hesitation. He is a small-statured man, strangely looking like a
little boy and an old man at once, and the voice that he issues and commands
seems to be so much more the vessel of his being than his body or his antics.
Sound travels well in this dilapidated and sinking venue, until I feel that Bobby Conn, his voice, his-self, is wrapped right around my head. I really do not have the words to express my wonder at how this man sings so well. Nevermind that his lyrics are insightful and nearly preternatural in their understanding of the human condition; nevermind that his interpretations of other people's lyrics are stretched out into infinite resource of influences. It is a sidebar of enjoyment that he is accompanied by musicians of great talent and personality in their own right. Even when the band become weary of this disappointing audience and slump into a bored and get it over with finish, it is Bobby Conn's voice, the amazing quality of his delivery of sound that makes the impact, which is unfailing to the bitter end. His songs are anthems that echo to me weeks later.
Ahhh, poor Suicide... always just missing the boat but still trying to hitch a ride thirty years after Alan Vega claims to have coined the term "Punk". These guys are getting old now, and I must say I did feel a bit sorry for them tonight, faced with a boring as stiffs crowd and faint memories to go on.
My sympathy was not needed really after all. Martin Rev and Alan Vega seemed to be having a time of their lives, happy to play about and remain undeterred from their purpose which was to play Rock and Roll. Perhaps they have mellowed; they have definitely dropped the pissed-off attitude. One wonders if the last two years since their most recent reformation has humbled them, or if the aging process has given them a graciousness that foul-mouthed youths could never understand. Whatever the case, they played for and played with an audience mostly attended by people who could easily be their children, sparked and inspired by the odd real Suicide devotee. I was never sure if this was one man moving about the crowd or several different people, but when a voice rang out above the din saying to the band, "You changed my life! I love you!", the appreciation on Vega's face was absolute.
The crowd never did really get to the whipped-up riotous proportions of days gone by, but Martin Rev's programmed beats did inspire movement among the listless crowd. There was almost one fight, when a serious Suicide girl fan got tired of being fallen on by a drunk uni-boy who had probably been dragged to the show. He backed down and the action was short lived. Alan Vega was good with his comic relief and commentary on the importance of "French girls", and Martin Rev pulled very silly faces behind his massive wraparound visor shades while showing off his talent for keyboard playing with elbows, fists and knees. As expected, the musical hightlight was "Cheree", which Vega dedicated to "the girls", but I believe there have been many more inspired versions of this song. The near jolliness which made Suicide all the more charming than ever also took the edge out. It was weird to see them so light and smiley.
Still, what are the fathers of Punk supposed to do now that the kids are really all right?