Live show reports / comments

[P-K]

Tesco Festival Mannheim last weekend :

venue, big enough, soldout, still room to move around, no need to make it bigger.

day I :

Anenzephalia : great way to open, trademark COLD style, stage presence = apathy, old & new tracks, throbbing layers, Dalek-vocals. Some found it boring, i liked it. Great new album.

THO-SO-AA : 'good' dark ambient....but not really what i need to see on a festival like this, at home yes, in my couch....for me it soon became distant muzak.

Operation Cleansweep....classic german pe, maybe i expected just tooo much...it was good, seemed really short and lot loud enough. Lesson One is one fat track. nice.

Grey Wolves...being Klaus & David....short intro, started Beyond Hypocrisy but very weak sound, thin, song broke down...after some fumbling Mike took over with a great Con-Dom set....great save imho ! loved it, short. powerfull.

fun afterparty, drank waaay to much.

day II :

Galerie Schallschutz : loved their set in Antwerp wich was all about performance (elaborate acht wih human puppets&strings)....they changed, sound took over, performance limited to knobs/vocals/projection.....and imho it was great. cold layers, bounding bass, commanding flanger-vocals, screening clips on HAARP, waterboarding etc lol . Sounded way more structured than the first cds.

Propergol : almost 100% same set as Darmstadt, but song didn't merge....wich was rather anoying, building up but no climax. Clear hard sound and visuals perfectly synchronised....it almost felt like zapping from tv clip to tv clip. good, but no content. He's technically gifted, but lacks in content.

Contrastate : my first time, really looked forward o it....set broke into 2 pieces imho....first part was 100% Contrastate with driving synth/loops, typical vocal work....but then it got weird, random sound thrown in, and after 10minutes of rambling in tongues thy really lost me. just too strange. Then they turned back to the clssic sound.....good, but weird lol

Genocide Organ : classic line up, less theatrical than the last time in Mannheim (also less mosh), no rituals, just WHAM....Dog Day mixed with Industrial Strife, Hate, John Birch Society, We care for you (huuuge bass sound wtf), We Are Here To Have A Good Time, Klan Kountry (was great to hear this one!), It's Over etc etc......short break, David joined to do Not Your Country and a final slamming version of Beyond Hipocricy. and then it was over.......top class.

[algiz]

Concerning Mannheim "not your country" fits very well I guess when wandering through the kebab infested streets...

[boredomrecs]

ST. PETE NOISE FEST 5 REVIEW
Nearly 60 noise artists, over 2 days in the Sunshine State.
http://deadtones.wordpress.com/2012/11/20/deadtones-special-st-pete-noise-fest-5-review-by-hal-harmon/

[P-K]

last night "Test Dept. redux" played Antwerp.....consisting of 2 original members (Graham Cunnington en Paul Jamrozy) bringing material from the first few albums .....2 laptops and some e-drumpads.....chaotic & mostly pointless almost unrecognisable versions of old work. endless noodling with way too digital electronics........Test Dept stripped of it's essential element : metal percussion.

BORING

[FreakAnimalFinland]

Yesterday Xenophobic Ejaculation warmed up for Goatmoon and Der Sturmer. It sounded kind of Bizarre Uproar performing XE tracks with assistance of SS offizer. It was somehow less fierce, less minimalistic, more well put together and songy performance with pretty good salutation approval from audience for lyrics like "white power - white victory!!". Very nice gig.
GM and DS played long sets consisting 15 songs each, delivering pretty much exactly what expected. In my opinion one of the best GM gigs and for DS, despite very barbaric drumming techniques (compared to previous drummer), I think this was better than their previous Finnish gigs. Energy from vocalists presence got into much better element in small venue.

[Invisible War]

My live action report for Day 1 of the Tesco Festival is now up on Heathen Harvest:
http://heathenharvest.org/2013/01/06/tesco-25th-anniversary-festival-live-action-report-day-i/

[P-K]

NoiseFest 4 Kortrijk belgium 16/2/2013 :

venue nice, new, clean, good sound, not small, not huge. nice

Crucifix Eye : i don't have the hots for 'HNW', never had, ...and i felt ashamed to hear it pouring out of a laptop. next!

n0pr0b : didn't notice, to busy chatting, drinking, laughing.

Tourette : solid harsh noise, good dynamics, fun to watch. good live-act imho.

Svartvit cancelled because of the flue, dude, i work 10-hour-shifts under flue & fever.

Jaakko Vanhala : genious harsh noise with great dynamics, great to watch him bang pedals, scrape metal and twist knobs with great focus. in perfect control of his gear. GREAT.

Wild Classical Music Ensemble : i don't get this, 5 people with 'limitations' doing loose free-rock? Way too high on the bill too.

Aqua Dentata : basic generic drone. boring. next !

Tommi Keränen doing what he does best, high-paced laserwar electronics. pew pew! very good.

Helm : only have his 'To An End' wich ws very good but creeped the hell out of me, this was completely different, massive low-end heartbeat/pulse, drones ranging van soft & warm to loud and buzzing, very hypnotic, VERY psychedelic. at the end it reached Coil/Cyclobe-territory .....very very strong.

Grunt : more stuctured than on Broken Flag, great use of metal, springs (that vocal-drone+slinky device was great!), etc nice build-up to climax. very GOOD but could have been louder :-) ....i like his work for years but that Mikko+Jaakko live combo is really gold.....btw : heard many compliments about the pissing in the video, sometimes more is better :-)

Sudden Infant : never really got ino it. unique poem-noise based on vocal loops & samples....did nothing for me.....

11euro, great night.

[impulse manslaughter]

My favorite set: Grunt, really nice old school PE feeling and a more confident stage performance compared to the BF-fest. I also liked Keranen, Tourette & Helm. I was talking in the back when Aqua Dendata played but it sounded nice to me. Missed the first 2 acts, didn't care too much for the Vanhale set and liked some of the Sudden Infant parts but hated the poetry stuff he did....! GREAT festival!!

[Ashmonger]

Crucifix Eye: missed this due to arriving a bit later than expected, according to my friend who had seen him before we didn't miss much anyway.

n0pr0b: Entered and just saw the last couple minutes of this. Sounded ok, but not really great either.

Tourette: I really liked this a lot!

Jaakko Vanhala: Also really good. Didn't know his stuff before this gig, but might have to check out some of his releases.

Wild Classical Music Ensemble: We didn't know what to expect so decided to go eat, only pizza in Kortrijk, apparently, and fuck Pizza Hut, I mean, normally their pizza's are ok, though not more than that, but Hot 'n Spicy?! My ass! More like plain and boring! Anyway, we entered the hall again during the last track of WCME, I liked the drums and some of the sounds of this track. Then the encore track just sucked, so I guess we didn't miss too much.

Aqua Dentata: Sounded good to me, nice sounds, but not very interesting to see live.

Tommi Keränen: Though there were some moments which I didn't like (I'm afraid this lasernoise stuff isn't really up my alley), it was good.

Helm: Some nice parts, impressive deep bass beats, but too long for me.

Grunt: For me (and my friend) definately the gig of the night, really good! Also that video was at the same time perverted, denigrating and funny! Funny that both me and my friend felt like the spitting part was the most denigrating, don't ask me why, but it seemed more denigrating than the pissing part.

Sudden Infant: good noise parts, interesting performance in a way (that whispered 'she's dead now' part made us laugh, hehe), but not really up my alley after all.

Good hall, indeed and for €11 it definately was worth it!

[Jaakko V.]

Huge thanks to the organizers, fellow performers, the audience and everyone else involved!

A very nice set of pics viewable here: http://gals.fber.be/#/album/f5f23q/slideshow

[FreakAnimalFinland]

Big thanks from me as well. Unfortunately schedule was so hectic, and also eating/drinking/soundchecking etc happening during fest, so had much less time to chat with people than hoped for! Good to see enthusiast traveling to gig.. Antihumanism, mr. Leatherface etc..

Crucifix Eye was ok, but as said, nothing very exciting. With white mask and hoodie and good lights - looks good, but noise was quite standard and ending of set somehow little confusing - thinking was this intentional or things just got slightly fucked up? For opening band, not bad.

I think n0pr0b was actually less interesting. Thinking of electric drills piercing into guitar amp would be automatically somehow interesting, but overall sounds was pretty weak and style of electronics not my taste.

Tourette was very nice. First it started with grainy distortions carved out of contact mic'ed small metal objects and it was very crisp and distorted, but not really loud or "brutal". In middle of set he experienced few technical flaws of sound disappearing and I thought this is it, he'll stop set now. But no. He fixed the problem in few seconds and returned to full of noise blast for rest of the set, which made it really good noise show. If he would have stopped before total noise blast, it would have not been this good. I like the use of visible noise elements, such as guitar strings with contact mics or the metal objects. You can connect what comes from PA to some source or direct action.

Jaakko Vanhala started very well and due some small technical issue, the most high pitched metal junk sound turned low in mix after few minutes, but it still sounded perhaps loudest of the gigs on the fest? Fast solid harsh noise, with heavy bass frequencies and dense and busy layers of sound. More forceful noises than Tourette, more brutalizing aspects, yet still very much "composed" and intentional structures.

During Wild Classical Music Ensemble I was eating back stage, so could only hear it. Handicapped people making free-rock/chaos music of some sort. Heard both compliments and also some wondering why the band was on the bill.

Aqua Dentata was something I had never heard before. Not even name. Glacial minimalist ambient. Cold minimal tones, often thin and "fragile" quality. Despite sources was of course analogue synths etc. He would sit entire set in front of big handmade synth and other gadgets and slowly modulate the tones and oscillations. Light-show was only element what brought something to look at, but gig was very good for sitting next to wall, just experiencing the sound itself.

Keränen was only noise act that abused most of all guitar/bass amps than PA. While approach has advantages, it also has some flaws. His lazer noise benefit of the ruggedness of amps being blasted on maximum volume, but it also creates lack of deep bass frequency. Highs & mids were most definitely the most painful noise of the fest, but in level of gut-punching bass heaviness, it couldn't beat Vanhala's sounds. I personally liked more of Keränen's set in Kontti couple weeks ago, but this was nevertheless another proof of his skill to deliver sold harsh noise sets one after another. For personal tastes - me too would like to hear him use more of the metals/junks/etc besides lazer synths and filters.

Helm! God damn! I have been rather big fan of the LP that came out on PAN. Set included bits and elements known from the album, but basically re-constructed into new set? Lightshow was blinding inferno of red & green burning your eyes, music was perfectly executed. I hope to get my damn package from PAN sometime soon to have this gem in my mailorder too...

Grunt. With no possibility to sound check, it was little gamble what exactly set will sound like. It was quite similar to what was played in 2 shows before, but now squeezed into shorter length with some different transitions etc. Now listening the recording live, I have no regrets. Louder? Could always be! But instead of loudness I think focus on style of sound or detail of layering or combinations of sounds remains more important.

Everything worked great in organization. Thanks for the organizers etc!

[FreakAnimalFinland]

Another photo cavalcade of the festival:
https://plus.google.com/photos/107588635976319287211/albums/5846035006821752385?sqi&sqsi

[metalpunk]

Seems to be great event!

I posted my show report about Speigas fest (GRUNT/POGROM/VANHALA/OORCHACH/MAAAA) here http://blog.harshnoise.org/?p=1979

[nyarluna]

BLACK LEATHER JESUS

PHX AZ 21/2/13

It's not often noise legends roll through town, so this was an event I made sure to attend.  Six person line up delivered a well executed performance.  This first stop on the "Go West" Tour offered searing high end with an abundance of low end rumble and metal clatter.  Three men off stage handled various metals and spring contraptions while the foundation screamed feedback, contact shaking and grinding abuse from the stage.  Overall great performance and rare experience to see BLJ live left me wanting more.

[Goat93]

Nr.3 Experimental Music from Poland into the crypt.

BISCLAVERET
AB INTRA
Der 2te Freund


3rd. Concert in this Place. Its the Inside of a Big Elephant Statue and maybe Room for 30~40 People. So the Location fits 100% to the Music, mostly Dark Ambient with sometimes Rythm Structures.The whole thing was really Familiar and Small, First two Musicians where just Mixer/Laptop + Movie Screen Ambient Soundscapes, while the Third where with a Singer.
All Sets where not Boring, so it was a nice Evening.