Swans in Arena Wien | concert review

Swans is not a band I'm familiar with, for some reasons I missed them all these last three decades - maybe because for me post-punk was mostly British, and no wave was more on the side of free-jazz or contemporary music…

Anyway, some (younger) musicians I'm playing with strongly advised me to listen to Swans and to go to their concert last friday, and they were right! It was an intense and inspirational concert, and probably a landmark in my life as a musician and music lover. Their unique combination of minimalism and maximalism, fueled by rock energy but ruled by contemporary music strategies, allows them to break the boundaries of their art as much as the emotional ones of their audience!

Fronted and powered by guitars (ES-335 Lucille for Michael Gira and telecaster for Norman Westberg - not the guitars you'd expect for such a noisy act), Swans' rich sound owes a lot to the lap steel of Christop Hahn that creates beautiful distorted textures and the percussions of Thor Harris (gong, tubular bells, vibraphone, cymbals…) - who also played trombone, clarinet and what seemed to be a homemade silicone string bass similar to an Ashbory bass, but that he also played with a bow, I have to learn more about that (actually it's a pity that the mix at the Arena Wien didn't do justice to Harris' presence and put the guitars really on top of everything). And of course Phil Puleo's powerful drumming is the bedrock of this  musical architecture.

Since I didn't know their songs and didn't expect anything, I could really just dive into the music and let myself go in their repetitive patterns and thunder drones, carried by mere sonic bliss. My only reservation was that Swans is very brainy, with a kind of macho self-consciousness that prevents their music to become really emotional and reach the plasmatic creative chaos that would have really blown my mind - I don't know if  this Viennese concert was not their best or if it's just what they are…

Vienna Improvisers Orchestra @ 21er Haus

Last week I went to see the Vienna Improvisers Orchestra in the Viennese contemporary art museum 21er Haus. I went there without knowing what to expect - I just knew one of the musicians - and the evening started with poems reading in German, that I mostly didn't understand (except, for some reasons, some erotic poems - gotta check on my learning German method).

The VIO comprises about twenty musicians and plays directed improvised music, conducted by Michael Fischer in Butch Morris style, with a made to measure gesture code. I've actually been a longtime member of a similar orchestra in France - the acclaimed La Pieuvre - I'm quite familiar with this, and I have to admit that the music resulting of this method is roughly always the same... It's powerful the first time you hear it, but once you know the tricks it's quite limited - the vocabulary is too narrow and the musicians' focus being always split between following the director, listening to the other musicians and improvising, they can't really produce something interesting more than a few minutes in a row...

The VIO is saved by its instrumentation and its musicians - the flutes and cellos give it its specific color, as do the female voice trio and its beautiful long modulated drones. Electric guitars are a good counterpoint with original sounds like detuned chords and a general well mastered minimalism. Drums are also quite well placed, that can be difficult. There was sometimes some text readings added to the music, quite cliché but not unpleasant, and even enjoyable when it slipped to theatrical.

picture by Christian Kurz

My feeling about the 21er Haus concert is that ultimately this kind of orchestra should be able to play without being directed. It would take a lot of practice and deeply involved musicians but I'd love to hear the music it would produce. I always believed that a music piece is always contained in its first seconds and that a good improviser is the one who can understand the underlaying structure and bring it to its 'logical' conclusion: to reach that as a collective is a grand achievement!

That makes me think that the ultimate purpose of Communism was supposed to be the disappearance of State, once the People has reached Political Maturity...

Yuri Landman Ensemble and M185 at the Siluh Records Label Night at Waves Vienna

I've had a pretty good time last Friday, as I joined the Yuri Landman Ensemble for a concert at the Waves Vienna festival.

The Yuri Landman Ensemble is an ever changing band project created, directed by, playing compositions of and performing together with experimental luthier Yuri Landman, with plenty of guitars and Yuri's trademark DIY instruments - the home swingers (see Yuri tuning one on the left) - plus bass and drums. Yuri picks up local musicians wherever the Ensemble plays and quickly teaches them a few minimal repetitive compositions with more or less room for improvisation.

The result is quite impressive - and this particular concert seems to have been a good one -, and that's the kind of music I enjoy playing. I've been part of some impro big bands such as La Pieuvre or LISIM and I always liked parametric improvisation allowing large groups of musicians to improvise together as a collective. Yuri's way is playful and efficient, and the music we played was both improvised and his music, at the same time minimalist and maximalist - all I like.

Also I got to meet some nice people from the impro Viennese scene, and I'm longing to go back on stage more regularly together with other musicians, I didn't do that for ages. After the show I went to have a drink with friends and when I came back to say good-bye to my new comrades, I got stuck in front of the next concert, in a completely different style, but no less excellent. Austrian band M185 plays what I'd call trance rock, with heavy bass lines, hypnotic beats, energetic guitar layers and cool Moog loops - and that's exactly the kind of music I want to listen to lately! M185 has something of the Black Angels but less referenced, less pretentious, more pop - well I really enjoyed it and I also discovered that Austrians can rock - I thought so far they're all just hipsters listening to 2000s minimal/kitsch electronic music.

PS. Actually on Sunday evening I went again to Fluc (the club where we played on Friday) for a minimal/kitsch electronic music concert and really enjoyed myself too (with Superskin and Bear Bones, Lay Low).

concert review: The Horrors in Lido, Berlin

On sunday I saw the Horrors, and I'm sorry to say that it was quite a disappointment. I'm probably partly responsible for this, because I expected something like their debut album Strange House, the thrilling tongue-in-cheek faux-garage-goth I enjoyed so much when it started to be visible on YouTube (one of my favorite way to discover new bands, always more interesting live than in studio) and didn't listen to the following albums. 

Well this is not the same band obviously, not the same music, not the same spirit - the musicians look bored - not the cool blasé look of wannabe idols they sport on earlier videos, but more going-to-the-factory-to-earn-the-daily-bread bored. Most of the audience was bored too actually, if you except a bunch of drunk over-excited teens who could have been in front of Justin Bieber (to be honest, I don't know Justin Bieber's music, I just noticed his hairdo on top of pimpled faces), bawling the single's words. The music is mostly layers of synths with cheesy factory sounds covering the rest (but the drummer - Spurgeon was super sharp and prevented me from falling asleep).

Badwan's voice matured nicely and he has now some late Peter Murphy vibes, but with their current music it's just a waste. At some point I realized with horror that this music reminded me one of the worst band I've ever heard: Simple Minds! At least when Kaiser Chiefs are pillaging the Boomtown Rats, they have the good taste to steal interesting music. Only the last song was a little bit exciting, with a chaotic and noisy guitar and a long crescendo, but I felt too frozen to enjoy it, it was too late. No songs from Strange House, no Sheena is a Parasite, no She's the New Thing, alas...

Let's still talk guitars: Hayward plays Jazzmasters and Jaguar - Fenders and an unidentified copy - and a AFS Ibanez semi-hollow (with tape on the headstock, maybe Ibanez isn't cool enough, but for me their semi-hollows are highly desirable), and plenty of effects. Webb plays a precision bass with a cool metal pickguard - I liked him much better playing organ and leaving bass work to Cowan and his Dan'o Longhorn... If someone's interested, here is a pic of Hayward's pedalboard. 

They could have been cult, they will just be successful, the Horrors have lost their mojo!

concert review: Acid Mothers Temple & the Melting Paraiso U.F.O. in NK, Berlin

Acid Mothers Temple & the Melting Paraiso U.F.O. 

Last monday I had the great pleasure to see Acid Mothers Temple & the Melting Paraiso U.F.O. in NK - a cool place for alternative and experimental music in Berlin (where I've been performing last june). I utterly enjoyed their powerful and noisy psychedelic post-rock, and I am very interested in their artistic process evacuating the issue of novelty (that is often problematic in improvised music or dance in my opinion) by totally diving into psychedelic genre, using all the expected sounds and licks, and able then to focus on pure intensity and communion. I've had similar experience with butoh pieces that some people thought too cliché because they always expect something looking new, where I was marveled by the physicality and acuteness of the dancers.

So yes you could dance yourself into trance at their concert, but you could also take it as a pure musical moment - just like you can listen to a Johann Sebastian Bach mass without having to go to church! Of course Kawabata Makoto shone at the guitar, combining slide cosmic whispers with chaotic shredding and heavy riffs - almost made me feel like playing a stratocaster (though he wasn't playing his famous left-hand strat - I always thought that if I'd play one, I'd do the same and play reverse!). And other musicians are not just supports, they are such a powerful rhythm section that they could send the building into outer space!

A great moment (at the exception of the two stupid headbangers who arrived late and stood just in front of me when I was already on the first rank, and danced as if they were at a Motörhead concert in 1985 - I know what I'm talking about, I was there, but I grew up since)!

Edit: I didn't mention gear, but I was agreeably surprised to see that the musicians of AMT avoid the current trend of indulging in vintage/custom guitars plugged in a impressive line of boutique pedals. They play with basic Fenders - Precision Bass, Telecaster, Stratocaster - and each have no nonsense Zoom G2s multimeffects, a couple of Boss pedals - a looper for the bass a.o. -, a wah, a big handmade unknown metal cased pedal, that's it... Considering the sonic mayhem they can produce, it's all the more impressive!

concert review: Olaf Rupp & Julian Sartorius in -able, Berlin | 13 May 2011

On friday I had the luck and pleasure to see Olaf Rupp and Julian Sartorius playing in a small galery in Berlin.

Olaf Rupp is a stunning guitarist, who developed a very personal style of free improvisation on acoustic nylon string guitar. You could feel the legacy of Derek Bailey, the master of improvisation on acoustic guitar (but who isn't his heir in this domain), but Olaf Rupp's technic derives from classical and flamenco, played with fingernails, that make his music quite unique, and very emotional - I have to say that the audience was quite mesmerized! And this doesn't mean that his register is limited, he produces a huge array of sounds, far beyond the suave notes one expects from the nylon string guitar, from thundering chaos to soft micro-melodies, everything very organic and inspired.

For the occasion Olaf Rupp played with drummer Julian Sartorius, who was not less excellent, I rarely saw such a creative improviser in front of a drum set, combining endless different technics with a great accuracy, avoiding the usual trap of the accumulation of tricks.

I appreciated the fact that the concert was dense but short, many improvisers fall in a kind of trance and loose track of good timing, where Rupp and Sartorius, who had something to tell, just told it and stopped (though the audience insisted for an encore!) A word also about the place, this small gallery in Neukölln called -able, who organizes more and more interesting concerts - I'm happy that they are in my neighborhood and that they are my friends, and I advise my fellow berliners to keep an eye on their program...

Concert review: Lysn in HBC, Berlin - 19 Feb. 2011

Lysn is a electro-acoustic impro act created and fronted by trombonist/electronicist Hilary Jeffery,  with guitarist/vocalist/electronicist Marc Weiser, trumpetist Franz Hautzinger and drummer/pianist Steve Heather - all four familiar to European impro scene followers.

I quite enjoyed Lysn music and after having a look at their website I understand why: their project meet many of my current concerns about music - psychedelism, drones, trance -, and many of their references are also mine - a.o. Gong, Angelo Badalamenti, Can, Public Image Ltd, the Velvet Underground... The flesh of the music is provided by heavily effected trombone and trumpet building solid layers of rich and complex brass sounds, combining bright drones and shorts hypnotic loops. Jeffery completes his trombone with a gizmo box (the whole thing he calls the 'tromboscillator') that allows him to reach extremely low notes; he often settles the pieces on three slowly looped notes, simple and solid harmonies on which his colleagues can go wild.

Weiser's voice work - filtered by a Kaos Pad - ranges from Pink Floydian etheral voice to clownish hectic  speeches, and his guitar provides rhythmic patterns and noises; Heather is apparently not a regular player of the band but his contribution was highly appreciated, either with minimal piano harmonies or hit-hat/shakers tiny rhythms - seems to be an adept of limited instrumentation, I appreciate that.

Again, I didn't think of bringing a camera, reviewing concerts in a new trend on this blog that I start to enjoy - gotta do it seriously...

12:56 AM

concert review: KTL in Festsaal Kreutzberg, Berlin

Yesterday I saw  KTL, the project of Stephen O'Malley from Sunn O))) - on guitar - and Peter Rehberg from Mego - on electronics (I didn't think of taking my camera so I have no picture, anyway the stage was very dark and full of smoke so there wasn't much to shoot). 

KTL plays the expected but enjoyable drone/doom characteristic of Sunn O))) and to be honest the electronics in it doesn't add much to the genre. Thought its sharpness, amplitude and aggressiveness, Rehberg's sound lacks the richness of O'Malley's guitar and after a while it falls on the wrong side of minimalism, becoming almost tedious (and I don't have a pro-guitar bias, I enjoy and play electronic music as much as guitar one; I actually witnessed something similar with a guitar duo gathering Keiji Haino and JF Pauvros, where Pauvros was completely overwhelmed by his partner - after a while you couldn't even hear him at all but it was better like this).

KTL played two long pieces, the first one a two notes drone song, beautiful and intense. O'Malley played with an e-bow and most variations came from imprecisions and accidents - e-bow playing is very difficult to master - and I always enjoyed this approach to experimental music. As I noticed in my Altar review, it sounded quite like heavily distorted 4AD, let's say it felt like the crossing of Dead Can Dance and Popol Vuh played in a sawmill, the soundtrack of a 2099 Werner Herzog/Klaus Kinsky movie we'll never see. Quite tripping indeed.

The second piece was less interesting, based on a super slow and heavy doom riff by O'Malley, sometimes evolving in seemingly improvised bridges, with Rehberg making some noise on top. It feels that the complete sonic chaos I enjoy so much in Japanese ultra-noise doesn't work for drone/doom sound and prevents the expansion of complex frequencies that makes it so special. The lack of inspiration was quickly blatant; with such intense music it is counterproductive to play a one hour set as expected in a rock concert - even if you pay the same price... 

And now a little bit of guitkism, O'Malley played his trademark Travis Bean TB1000S down-tuned probably in A (though it's not a baritone scale), plugged I assume in Sunn model-Ts but the amps on stage didn't bare a logo, but one big Fender. Most of the pedals on his pedal board are unidentifiable - customs or DIY in alu boxes covered with tape - but a ProCo Rat and I think a Blue Beard. There was also a lot of reverb and echo, and the sound is so low that I thought he used an octaver - though it's never mentioned in his rings descriptions.

And in echo to my previous concert review, I must add that unfortunately this year again I won't see PJ Harvey on stage, the next concert is not sold-out this time, just unaffordable. For 60€, I'd rather go to the opera - it seems that now live pop music is an upper-class recreational activity.

concert review: The Dead Weather in Huxleys Neue Welt, Berlin

A few days ago I was at the concert of the Dead Weather in Berlin - a quite amazing performance I must say. I've been following the Kills for a while now, so when Alison Mosshart joined the Dead Weather, I was quite curious about this new band - though I never really listened to the White Stripes, the Queens of the Stone Age or the Raconteurs.

The Dead Weather have been posting great live videos on the Web so for a while I was happy just with them and bought their first album just a few months ago - and realised that they were more than just another supergroup à la Them Crooked Vulture (though I'd like to see them on stage too actually).

Anyway, the concert was really impressive, everything seemed really thought and mastered, but the whole thing kept spontaneous and emotional. Usually I'm just interested in the music but the stage set - a giant eye in a baroque architecture painted on  a canvas and lit with black light - and the light show were sharp and beautiful, contributing to the strong atmosphere. I love the almost primitive simplicity of the Dead Weather's music, and Mosshart's voice and stage presence are at the core of it. Having superstar Jack White as a side man creates a strange tension, because thus she can never really be the central focus, also with Dean Fertita being essential playing guitar and keyboards.

This night's version of Will There Be Enough Water? was mind-blowing - it's the only quiet song in a quite energetic set, and then White handles his infamous custom white Gretsch Billy Bo Jupiter Thunderbird for a beautiful and powerful solo, his only one of the concert - more was not necessary (I checked afterward different live versions of the song on YouTube, I can tell that the Berlin one was exceptional).

Didn't see a rock concert with guitars for a long time - I think that all my last concerts were about electronic ultranoise - and I'm happy I waited for something so good - though it doesn't console me of having missed PJ Harvey + John Parish last year!

A last thing, the sound engineers of Harvey's Neu Welt sabotaged the sound of the opening act, like often. People who do that are pure morons. They have all the material, they could do a proper job even if the guys are not world famous. Wonder if these people even care about music.