SSRI was very different from Turku. Instead of aggressive and screeching harshness, it was kind of playful (...boyish?!) experimental electronics. PTT's sound especially with sampler pitch tweaking and delay pedal speed tricks. Nice textures with combinations of Kandelin's rawer sounds.
FEUERTAUFE delivered solid set of Finn-PE. As I must have mentioned to some people on the spot, there was nothing really new or different here. It falls very well in line with fierce and brute stuff that has emerged over here over some years of time. But then again, loud aggressive vocals could be heard well, sound was loud. Can you go wrong with screaming about baptism in fire, playing synth tones and sampler marching, with straight arm salutes and old german speeches?! Hardly! Only in kontti!
WHITE SWAN suffered from some severe technical issues. Severe meaning, that basically unable to play set, but trying to keep it going for 20 mins. Quiet, glitchy cable malfunctions, no vocals could be heard at all, etc. Well, was this his first time live? Good reminder is: It happens. And it usually happens to most of people at some point, so knowing what to do when things start to fail, is pretty good thing to consider... To stop set, change cables, do solid 5 mins blast would have worked just fine.
UNCLEAN has very different sound from Feuertaufe. It was loud enough, but didn't appear as loud as Feuertaufe due being more about smooth throbbing heavy electronics than fierce loud noise. Samples, layers of throbbing synths, experimenting with different kinds of vocals. Quiet hoarse voices, louder screaming, etc. All vocals very quite low in mix. I'd say too low, but not sure what the aim was? Many times in mix just as vocals were slowly rising louder, Unclean started to slide vocal track volume down. Treated with extensive distortion and delay, it was less narrative, more of contribution to noise anyways. I still rate his Joensuu gig as best. There it also appeared to be more on "stage". Not kind of back to the audience, partly behind PA speakers. PE gig frontmen - face the audience, thanks... ;)
STAB ELECTRONICS was very different from Turku. Several people told me they considered this gig superior to Turku. I personally thought Turku was much better. On this set, I do agree that sound was less of wall-of-amps. Clean PA sound would give STAB more character of his own sounds. Clarity also exposed some glitches in "seams" of loops and vocals didn't blend in so well as in Turku, but were very loud and clear. I believe that was among qualities many heavy electronics fans liked. I personally preferred that vocals blended within noise, instead of being on kind of "separate layer" on top of electronics. Still was good reminder that when some noise bands play more than 1 show, it's good to use opportunity to catch more than just one show. Video was very explicit and resulted some excited yelling in moments of gay-ass-fisting, heh..
Despite being same video, same songs, gigs very very different and exposed STAB much better than seeing just one show. Changing conditions, changing sound, different levels of intensity. Kontti is of course unbeatable if one looks for claustrophobic experience instead of band performing in bar, next to bartender selling pints of beer...
Cheers for Obscurex for investing to new PA system. This certainly opens possibilities of Kontti gigs to have more clarity, and not just wall of bass amp rumbling, hah...
