music

Last Saturday I have been to a ‘batcave night’ in Dynamo, the famous local ‘youth centre’. Indeed, this is the Dynamo of Dynamo Open Air, but these two organisations are not as closely linked these days as you may think (I believe). Dynamo got a completely new building a few years ago and however I have spent my Saturday nights in the old one for a couple of years (in my metal period), I hadn’t been in the new building. Then I heard that a friend of a friend organizes gothic nights there, so I figured this was a good occasion to ‘hit two flies in one blow’. “Gothic” nowadays mostly refers to girls in big, black medieval dresses listening to Marilyn Manson and Within Temptation. Learning that the band Götterdämmerung would play that night, I had guessed that this wasn’t going to be such an average teenagers gothnight. On entering the tiny cellar of Dynamo (even smaller than the cellar in the old building) I was immediately struck by the amount of 80′ies gothrockers with black mowhaws and other ‘traditional gothic’ appearances. DJs Dood and Ghost were playing music that is probably too old for me and when Götterdämmerung entered the stage I realised that for years I had mixed them up with another Dutch band that I saw with them on the same night many, many years ago (Gail of God). Götterdämmerung gave away a lengthy and lively show on the tiny stage with two dozens of classical goths dancing. This really isn’t my kind of music, actually I never really listened to goth (I went from metal to dark ambient and industrial), maybe it was the beer (too much) or the atmosphere, but this was a very enjoyable evening. It seems that there is a small but active “batcave” scene in the Netherlands and after Den Bosch, a few of them give them a haven for a monthly gathering and that in a city that always seems to have been deprived of a goth scene, but maybe I missed something else too. Not something that I will go to every month, but should you be interested and able to come to Eindhoven, pass the multi-cultural audience of the rest of Dynamo to go straight down to the batcave, check out the following websites for more information:
DJ Dood @ Myspace, Dynamo announcement of the december party (if you are later, look for “Dood” nights under “indie/alternative” in the calendar).

Yesterday there was a so-called “pagan folk festival” in Utrecht. The order of performance was exactly the other way around from what I expected, but it soon became clear why. I personally found the combination of the bands a bit strange: In Gowan Ring, Sieben and Faun. Sieben isn’t exactly a “pagan folk” band and isn’t Faun from a different scene? We entered Tivoli Helling (I had never been there) and the place was stuffed with people. Judging the variety in the audience (young, but much old, gothic, but much not-gothic) I figured that Faun has brought a big audience to the place. With this in mind, it wasn’t so strange that the evening opened with In Gowan Ring. Their half an hour set was nice. IGR isn’t exactly my band. Their folky music is nice, but a bit too soft and sweet for my liking. I am glad that I got the chance to see this band though. Next up was mastermind Matt Howden. He gave away a superb show almost as good as when I saw him in a theatre in Antwerp years ago when I didn’t know the man yet. I love Howden’s music, but the way he works (’loop machines’) brings a structure to his music that takes away some of the variety that could be there, so I don’t buy every album he makes. The new tracks were great though, so I may consider buying the “Spunge Bob Nudie Pants album” anyway. Faun is a German medieval band with modern influences (dance beats and electronics). I don’t like their music and didn’t stay to watch their show. It was obvious that the larger part of the audience did come for Faun though! Oh well, at least we got to leave before the rest of the crowd and be home at an agreeable time!

Great news! The best new band has put its lyrics online, this will surely add to ‘the Rome experience’!

It is a bit ‘on and off’ with my use of P2P networks. Currently I have ‘an on period’ and of course I am listening to a variety of music. With the discovery of Dogpop and Thorofon (see music reviews section), I ran into Geneviève Pasquier. This is a strange formation around a woman, making some soft industrial dance-like music, which reminds me a bit of a girl group from an entirely different corner: Vive La Fête. So I have been looking around for some Geneviève and Vive music which both sound nice and funny. I usually don’t really look for anything because most of the time I cannot find what I am looking for. Most things that I run into is accidental. In this way I stumbled upon a terrible cd of Dies Natalis (Strasen Voller Staub) and a not too great compilation dedicated to Sol Invictus (Sol Lucet Omnibus). In an entirely different corner I found an album of the Dutch “breakcore” act Bong-Ra (Soldaat Van Oranje), a nice cd with “breakcore”, a great drum’n’bass track and surprisingly, Dutch-spoken hiphop; not bad at all! A much weirder “breakcore” act proves to be Scissor Shock. This is an extreme collection of sounds and rhythms which lacks every structure and is (in my ears) a not too pleasent listen.
There is so much music out there to enjoy!

I never really gave it a thought that besides online compilations, there may also be online labels with free online releases. Just so you didn’t either, here are three such labels that may be of interest:
Decisive Sound Records with releases varying from IDM to extreme noise.
Darkwinter.com mostly with dark ambient.
Enough Records anything from noise, industrial and dark ambient to postrock and “glitch”.

All free for you to enjoy.

29 and 30 September an interesting line-up will fill the old theatre room CC Luchtbal in Antwerpen, Belgium. Be ready for Galerie Schallschutz, Dogpop and Ure Thrall on Saturday and Post Scriptvm, Janitor, G.O. (Genocide Organ) and SPK (DVD preview) on Sunday. More info on the Luchtbal website.

Music news? Hm, why not. I do not intend to become the new Funprox, but I might post something music related every now and then.

“Etude Records, experimental obsure sound archives”

Industrial, noise and ambient, but from another corner it seems. The five releases of so far each have an mp3 track. Not entirely my thing, but if you are into experimental ambient you may want to listen to this material.