Live show reports / comments

Started by FreakAnimalFinland, July 25, 2011, 09:35:36 AM

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Goat93

TOWER TRANSMISSIONS IV 26.-27.09.2014

Startet with Pain Nail. Very Intense and loud. Wished for more Vocals but did well all in all.

Nordvargr was one of the Highlights of the Fest for me, since t was not Ambient/Drones that i thought in the Beginning. It was on some Parts already really Noise and Harsh. And it was the First Time i see a Theremin in use.

Ke/Hill was Solid good Concert, will look forward for the New Album for sure.

THOROFON used a very Rythmic Set, so the Question pops Up "Whats the Difference between Old School Gabba and Power Elerctronics". It was absolute Great and Fun, specially for the People who have too much Energy for the Stage. I think One Song was direct from Geneviere Pasquier?

Nickolas Schreck and john Murphy on Stage was a Pleasure. Such a weird and Deplaced Concert. In some Programm with Neofolk Bands like Death in June it would Fit for sure (or too good maybe?). Just Great. Nickolas Schreck is a Impressive Person on Stage (and Outside). Very Polite and Cool. John Murphy looked little bit boored from time to Time when he "only" used to Play Drums, Smashed part of it, used to start and end the Samples and sing a bit. Funny was the Screen, since someone was too Nervous? to use the Player correct, but this was also before. Think Ke/Hill had the same Problem, but not as Bad as Nickolas Schreck & John Murphy.

Irm was a Solid Noise Concert. Quiet nice, but without surprises.

A Fucking long Surprise was Institution D.O.L . Was Thorofn on the Day before Rythmic and Entertaining, this was for Saturday. But instead of using only Hard/Shocking Themes, they have had a Lot of Fun on Stage and brought a Lot of Fun to the Audience. It was confusing and weird, since they used to have these Typically Sadistic Images and War Themes and on the Other Hand these Party and Love Stuff, like throwing Flowers, giving Sekt to the People and Give People some Roses.

The New Blockaders. Noise, Noise, Noise. Actualy i believe the Sound was really Reduced on Saturday and here i was absolute Sure about it. It was a really good and Solid Work, but the Audience was mostly already overpowered. So no real Reactions, besides some drunken Guys.

FreakAnimalFinland

Day #2 photos now online too: http://special-interests-magazine.tumblr.com/
Less photos from some. More photos of others. Without flash on camera, lighting situation wasn't ideal in most of cases... Especially last band playing without any lights whatsoever..

DOP POP was odd. I recognized some album stuff, but also lots of stuff wasn't sure whether I had heard or not. More goofy & weird than I expected to be. I guess not knowing german language, can't really tell what the band is about?


VILGOC did harsh noise wall. No more no less. I thought to lay down on side of stage, and woke up when set ended. How long I slept, don't know, but good static sound for that purpose..

TUNNELS OF AH was among worst of the fest. I can't think more annoying or plain horrible vocal effects than the ones this project was using. Combined with calm ambient like soundscapes... dull...

NIKOLAS SCHRECK & JOHN MURPHY was something a lot of people seemed to be into. Long set of ritual music. Radio Werewolf and long career in occult/satanic/esoteric matters make Schreck infamous. His presence was ghoulish and credible. Murphy obviously isn't new to anyone into industrial. But just chanting like vocals, clumsy keyboard melodies here and there. Percussion and various electronics by Murphy.. if you reduce this to be musical experience, and ignore the other aspects, then nothing too special here. I kept thinking, if this all was recorded on walkman and the lo-fi sound echoing in some sort of chamber, then yes. But now.. I rather went out for discussion with some people.

IRM was best or 2nd best of the day. Solid industrial rock music, hah. Bass, electronics, vocals. Kind of Scott Walker-esque high pitch howl / shout with bass riffs and slowly drifting electronics and some acoustic sounds. All tracks had their distinctive elements, but the tempo and delivery after all started to repeat itself quite a lot. Solid set, but a lot of similarities in the end. I liked fact that it wasn't so much rumbling this day as Friday. IRM's strength was clearly composition and stage presence. Overtly loud bass rumble wasn't necessary.

INSTITUTION D.O.L. was amusing. I don't know whether it is meant to be funny, but damn.. The guy had silly speeches in middle of tracks and the way he gestured on stage, seemed more like parody show. Female vocals was strong. Music was generic at best. Male vocals and stage presence was between annoying and funny. I'd hope to see female member go for solo project. Even typical throbbing heavy electronics worked well with her.

THE NEW BLOCKADERS delivered maybe best show I have seen. Lots of junk. Not all-out-harsh noise, but scratching, clanging, screeching, banging, bursts of noises. Lots of physical action. Intense for entire live set = good length! If this is about time for TNB to really be finished, then certainly much better moment for final show than for example BF event desaster.

LUMBAR PUNCTURE played without lights. Doing ambient/industrial stuff, with cinematic feel to it. I would assume many thought it was just DJ music as you could see nothing and most people left...   Not big fan of cinematic stuff on live situation, so didn't listen entire set.

Big thanks for Eric & entire Tower Transmissions crew for good organization! Great venue, good organization. I hope long future for this fest.
E-mail: fanimal +a+ cfprod,com
MAGAZINE: http://www.special-interests.net
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HongKongGoolagong

HYSTERESIS - new duo project featuring Jase (formerly of DK720 and Mothers of the Third Reich) and artist Charlotte Chw, playing at an odd afternoon matinee show at a cinema in Leeds celebrating 20 years of Phil Todd's Ashtray Navigations project. Film backdrop of moody coiled springs shot in b/w. Female strange body movements/dance accompany a blurted sax solo. I'm thinking of 60s Fluxus reference points, then she starts to sing. She is slapped round the face while singing childlike tentative words - I could make out Sa-Ku-Ra. Trash and broken glass is thrown into a vibrating contact mic'd tumble dryer as the mood gets darker. Jase plays discordant anti-chords on a detuned guitar, then the male ties the female's wrists to her knees with rope and she plays the same sounds with the nails on her bare feet, the guitar having been laid there. More and more mysterious sound input from contact mikes around the stage reach a crescendo of noise and a huge pile of cymbals is thrown down to cut off all sounds aside from the spin dryer still vibrating and slowly winding down.

It was silly, it was more than a little kinky, it was genuinely strange and uncategorisable and uncomfortable and I loved it.

Apologies to anyone who watched all of Smell & Quim at Shards of Ordnance awaiting the spark that never came - by its improvisational nature S&Q is hit and miss, the Manchester thing with BLJ in May was unforgettable and transformative, this one was made of fail! Con-Dom's set was excellent I thought.

GEWALTMONOPOL

I've been informed that the woman interfering with STAB's set in Brum was the cunt who is in Smell and Quim. That explains a lot.
Först när du blottar strupen ska du få nåd, ditt as...

Guldur

Quote from: FreakAnimalFinland on September 29, 2014, 06:55:44 PM
I'd hope to see female member go for solo project. Even typical throbbing heavy electronics worked well with her.

Yeah, she has her solo project called Magadan. New releases are being prepared for this year. We go for a compilation and full tape under Zaetraom label and hopefully an EP under L'White records. Anyway thanks everybody for making great athmosphere in Dresden, it was a pleasure.

HongKongGoolagong

While nipping out for food I managed to miss the whole of STAB Electronics and this traumatic ping pong ball and tickling incident, With luck everyone involved can get counseling and therapy - maybe a handholding support circle can be formed for anyone affected. Stay strong!

Dry your eyes lads. A couple of basically friendly drunks saw an absurd side to a confrontational performance and reacted to it, it spurred the guy on to what was apparently a quite cathartic and impressive finale which I really wish I'd seen - win all round and no-one even fell out.

The streets outside were full of intoxicated young ravers going to the nearby clubs. Some of them would probably have thrown glasses, and some of them might have found the sounds and ideas at Shards of Ordnance life-changing and inspiring. We'll never know.

GEWALTMONOPOL

Good to know gigs are open season. I'll bear that in mind. If you should happen to be around when Shift plays please feel free to interfere. It would be a pleasure.
Först när du blottar strupen ska du få nåd, ditt as...

martialgodmask

Quote from: HongKongGoolagong on September 30, 2014, 07:09:31 PM
While nipping out for food I managed to miss the whole of STAB Electronics and this traumatic ping pong ball and tickling incident, With luck everyone involved can get counseling and therapy - maybe a handholding support circle can be formed for anyone affected. Stay strong!

Dry your eyes lads. A couple of basically friendly drunks saw an absurd side to a confrontational performance and reacted to it, it spurred the guy on to what was apparently a quite cathartic and impressive finale which I really wish I'd seen - win all round and no-one even fell out.

The streets outside were full of intoxicated young ravers going to the nearby clubs. Some of them would probably have thrown glasses, and some of them might have found the sounds and ideas at Shards of Ordnance life-changing and inspiring. We'll never know.

Thank you ever so much for your contribution.

Ernpe

Vapaan taiteen tila / Helsinki on October 23 2014

Keränen
Today We Kill, Tomorrow We Die (Norse)
Tuukka Haapakorpi & Hermanni Yli-Tepsa
Antoine Chessex (Suisse)


Early evening show, from 18:15 to 20:30 perhaps. Keränen started, doing his now-usual slowly moving massive noise style. In the middle of the show there was quite long period with almost white noise with barely hear-able things happening on background. Best part was definitely at the end when Keränen went through various sounds of his setup, could have been more focused though. Yet very enjoyable solid noise.

Today We et cetera was one man playing snare drum and cymbals on the floor, looping it, playing some (prerecorded?) electronics and such. Nice dynamics from very quiet into loud acoustic banging. There was a moment of louder electronics, shortly turned down in favor of acoustic drumming. Hardly much more than 10 minutes, at least didn't get boring at any point.

Tuukka Haapakorpi & Hermanni Yli-Tepsa played some quiet sounds amplified. Nice minimal set-up and minimal sounds but no focus. It seemed that the other guy was about to end the show at least twice but other just kept going scraping his amplified snare drum. Could be nice for a tape if edited, though.

Antoine Chessex, second time in Finland this year. Previous gig at Sture 21 was loud full blast noise. This time Chessex was using his saxophone ina more colourful way. First some great, loud eerie drone, then really nice in-your-face noise. Don't know how much of that was improvisation but definitely most focused show of the evening. The sound didn't become dull for a single moment. Chessex also took advance of the venue (an actual concrete bunker) and its acoustics.

Chessex will play at Turku - Pori - Tampere / Friday - Saturnday - Sunday, recommended shows for anyone into noise.
Noise & other underground reviews in Finnish: http://box-is-record.tumblr.com/

fin de siècle

#174
Nuclear War Now Festival 7th/8th November 2014

I have never been a fan of the Nuclear War Now label programme, which is in my opinion for the most part an accumulation of untalented musicians ... however, live it is very enjoyable : )

Day 1:

Demonomancy being the opener of the festival started with an amazing intro which was the best thing of their set. It`s a good band with elements of Ondskapt and Portal, but after a while rather boring due to lack of talent ...

Katechon sounded much better and more powerful with their 2 guitars, however rather standard, uncreative BM. To my surprise the singer was wearing a Le Scrawl (german left wing grindcore) t-shirt.

I skipped Mefitic, since the samples I listened to on youtube didn`t sound really promising ... so I spent my time in the merch area, which is always total bliss ... Iron Bonehead, WTC, and others were present ...

Before Bestial Raids entered the stage, people were already going nuts and screaming, so I was curious, what to expect. And indeed they were a total blast. Dressed wth black hoodies and gas masks, they fulfilled all cliche`s of a high speed war metal band. Nice.

I was very curious to see Black Witchery again, who were my personal highlight at the same festival 2 years ago. In 2012 the drummer with his heavy boned body was standing up from his chair after each song (!), screaming at the guitar player while playing air guitar in order to advise him, how to play correctly. Everybody could see it, very unprofessional but very amusing. I am sure he was beating him up after the show. The guitar player was playing a bit out of tune, ok, but no one would have really noticed this actually ... This time they performed with a new guitar player. Their set was just great, high speed blasts with a satanic feel. Awesome!

Grave Upheaval played a solid show of ultra heavy slow-motion doom metal. Really good.

When Impurity set up their merch table, people were very busy buying their stuff, getting flags and t-shirts signed, etc. so I was wondering what`s all about this hype. I think, their stage set up and costums were hilarious. To me they all looked like total idiots. The singer dressed in a black drape had a black ski cap on his head (for warming up the ears in the cold) and the guitar player was dressed in an executioner costum ... the music was utterly primitive black metal. Odd. People loved it though.

Before my personal highlight of the festival showed up, I was impatiently standing in front of the stage permeated by total excitement. And yes, Nocturnus were simply great! Though Mike Browning is the only orginal member of the band (some might consider the line up as a Nocturnus cover band) the whole team did a great job. Nocturnus actually completely don´t fit to the label programme, but since Nuclear War Now re-released their Demo tapes on Vynil (festival edition 12" limited 100 copies) they were part of this festival. After performing almost the complete "The Key" album, they switched to Incubus (with Mike Browing being the original member) performing their complete EP, which is the only material the band every released. Though the EP itself is a badly sounding rehearsal recording, the live interpretations were rather clean ... awesome! After playing another 3 Nocturnus songs, with their ultimate masterpiece "Undead Journey", they switched to Morbid Angel with 3 more tunes as encore: "Demon Seed", "Chapel Of Ghouls" and "Angel Of Disease". Most of the people knew the songs by heart and were singing along. I have never been playing air drums and air guitar with so much passion. Without doubt Nocturnus were the absolute highlight of the festival ... total bliss!!!

Day 2:

Due to my late arrival I missed Death Curier and Witchcraft, but saw the last 15 minutes of Hellvetron with a horrible drummer really spoiling everything. Though the composition of the songs was quite ok this was just another band without any new ideas and talent.

I was very excited about the only Heavy Metal Band of the festival Root, which I knew from their great "Hell Symphony" album. They behaved a bit like rockstars, which however wasn`t that bad at all, but which positively added to the humorously nature of the set. Especially their singer (with an age of surely 60+), dressed with a black drape and with a wicked root-like face paint, was great entertainment.

The Swedish Irkallian Oracle, whom I already saw live together with Portal, 2 years ago, fulfilled all expectations with their unique ritual black doom. Overall good live presentation, all members dressed in black coats, candles, gongs and obscure banners with sexual organs of both sexes implemented into the design.

The Greek Varathron played some kind of black thrash heavy metal. With partly Slayer like melodies they were one of the more interesting bands of the festival, though I couldn`t stand to watch their rather long set, which was becoming a bit boring after a while ...

The headliner of day 2, Revenge, seem to be a big hype within the black metal scene, at least almost 50% of the audience was wearing Revenge patches and t-shirts. Their kind of pro NS black metal image seems to attract all the thugs in the audience, thus a safe distance away from the center of the crowd in front of the stage was surely no mistake. After an amazing intro (I love sirens!) 3 tough guys with heavy boned bodies entered the stage. As a friend told me the drummer was obviously having a Reichsadler and Hakenkreuz tatooed on his right arm, and I must admit it was a beast of a drummer, ultra brutal high speed blasts overall the 30 minutes set. The alternating deep growls and high pitched screams of both singers were a bit irritating, cos it sounded more like Hellnation, which means more like a power-violence than a black metal band, also their plain appearance with black t-shirts without any print on it, didn`t give any hint of something "anti-christian" or similar. Lights out. New flags in the background set up, new intro, kind of noise sounds (could be Bizarre Uproar), then a 4th guy with a second guitar entered the stage and the cult band (?) Conqueror attacked with another 25 minutes of high speed BM madness. Even more brutal than Revenge without the deep/high pitched vocals, but now in my opinion better in line with the sound. I liked it a lot though Black Witchery and Bestial Raids worked out better for me.

Overall a great festival. The only thing which really annoyed me (besides the large number of NSBM idiots) was the constant smell of farts, where ever I was standing or wherever I was walking ... black metal fans are simply the worst louts ever.




Bloated Slutbag

Someone weaker than you should beat you and brag
And take you for a drag

HongKongGoolagong

Cold Spring promoted night, 23/7/15, Manchester. A very nice and unusual vintage venue but really, fuck £4 for a can of average beer at the bar.

TUNNELS OF AH - I'd just walked in and this guy was performing and I felt claustrophobic and disoriented. Was surprised on googling to realise this performer was in Head Of David whose music I enjoyed a lot live back in the 80s. Some OK sounds but not especially distinguished vocals.

KHOST - On the same bill as HOD back in those days were often Godflesh, and you know I never liked them that much to be honest, they were alright but I can't understand the lionisation. I do like the song on the great new Sun Kil Moon album about going to see Godflesh! Well, Khost are a kind of tribute act to Godflesh with some added laptop samples. The first chord of the ultra doomy songs always felt good but it struck me as an odd form of music to be making in 2015.

IRON FIST OF THE SUN - I had somehow managed to avoid hearing this well regarded musician's work for many years - hey I'm old and out of touch - his sounds and bleak visual backdrop and especially the fucking perfect vocals were very powerful, and very well received by the audience too. I loved it, it made me realise PE is still a living genre albeit within more strict formulas.

SKULLFLOWER - backdrop film of snarling wolves, not long after some extreme environmentalists in the news had recommended reintroducing wild wolves to mainland UK. First track Samantha on guitar, MB howling, second she switched to violin and Matthew picked up a guitar, walls of shrieking and towering feedback and howls and mysterious frequencies that almost made you levitate...signal of cutting throat to sound man, sound all cut off, entire set total of fifteen minutes. I loved it but some felt ripped off by the shortness. I am told - specialinterests world exclusive! - that this may be the very last Skullflower live show ever - we'll see.

kettu

I forget if there was an official name for what happened here during the weekend, rainbow quest 2015 ??! birthday celeabortion.

here are my thoughts of bands Ive seen.

INTOLITARIAN: evil tactical gear and ROUGH sounding noisecore. tinkered drum sound, bass and singer. I hardy saw anything but the supercharged sound caught my ear and any kind of stage presence and look is always welcomed.

Vapaudenristi: there was commie propaganda discussing the band which used the word löysä / loose to describe the band and now I cant stop thinking about the old timey thing of shouting faster at shows but löysemmin!! has replaced faster. music was delightful street rock

DEATHKEY: two guys making noise and the main fellow shouting and contributing noise. I feel I need to hear the recording to give final judgement( wink nudge, send me files) but the overall feeling was good. maybe 5-10 minutes longer, they started to sound more coherent midway of set so a little more would have been dandy.

Goatmoon: seemingly quite upbeat and celebratory show, taking in karaokebar/pizzeria surroundings with the band playing, a gay time was had.
I was dissapointed when there werent any media present. being that the bar was in the middle of a suburb everything went fine and it should be documented how well boys and girls behaved.







MT

Wild weekend behind indeed. Lots of excitment, expecting feeling in the air but in the end everything turned out victorious.

Vapaudenristi was best of the whole weekend. Once the set started to play, I felt an kathartic feeling at the gig place. All the bullshit, nonsense and whining was swept away and forgotten. Great set list, good delivery as usual and very "empowering" gig! Intolitarian was a surprise, never listened much of the project until last week listend to the latest album. Live gig was very well executed, tight blasts of merciless noisecore type'ish massacre. Savage performance. Short but so sweet. XE deserves also an honor medal, duo vocal assault with speech samples and rumbling noise. Hails! Deathkey consisted to junk metal noise, some drums and contact mic rubble plus vocals and feedback. Brutal delivery and ear piercing frequencies. Crushing set, very diffrent of what I expected because of lost gear during air travel but still, very good!

Zeno Marx

Did anyone see either of the Harry Partch Delusion of the Fury performances at Lincoln Center in NYC?  If so, care to comment?

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/07/25/arts/music/review-delusion-of-the-fury-with-new-partch-instruments.html?_r=0
"the overindulgent machines were their children"
I only buy vinyl, d00ds.