music

Yesterday we were at the second Phobos festival, organised by Martin of Phelios. The nice location was the Sophienkirche right in the middle of the nice city of Wuppertal. Apparently the church is still in use as a church. A bit strange to have beer-drinking and smoking people in there. In any case, there were five projects performing, four of which were a bit too dark ambient / soundscapish for me (Northaunt, Circular, Svartsinn and Raison d’Être) and one project for which I came: Land:Fire. The latter gave away a very nice ambient-noise show. There was a big screen for projections. These varried from explicit horror film scenes (Svartsinn) to psychedelic animations (Circular) to more of a compilation of images with a story and texts (Land:Fire). The venue was quite large, the seats very hard, but the atmosphere nice and the sound much better than expected.

On 1 December, the new Haus Arafna will be released. It is called “Tomorrow” and Gallakthorrö has 4 mp3’s on their website as teaser.

Yesterday Luftwaffe performed in Rotterdam. I had high expectations that were made true! Starting (like the last album) with post-industrial drum-and-scream tracks and going to energetic neofolk songs lateron, the show was good and the sound was good. Earlier we got a surprice act with Die Weisse Rose (not my band) playing own tracks and covers. The opening act was the Luftwaffe sideproject Gnonomonclast, which seems an acoustic brother to the main band. Same members, different roles and unfortunately not too convincing. The little Exit was fairly filled with people, so this was a rememberable evening.

Something completely different, but very interesting also on the Flux/S festival was Telco System’s “12 series”. 12 Speaker/monitor setup making random sound and vision resulting in very dark ambient/noise! See here for a preview and information (you can set the menu to English using the menu) and search Youtube for “Telco Systems” for this and other projects.

Music is a nice thing. Music that I would normally probably never get to listen to can sound good when used well in a film or during a good performance. Jesco Hoop played at a local art-and-technology festival yesterday. Hoop is a young, female singer-songwriter with a unique style. She melds different kinds of music, puts the use of her voice on the max and in style goes from fragile songs to more happy tunes. Two guitars, three singers, four people on stage. Not all her songs were great, but most of them were very nice.
Jesca @ Myspace

Last weekend I saw In Slaughter Natives again. Yesterday I was playing the titleless debut album and my eye fell on the year of the recordings: 1988, the cd itself is of 1990. This guy has been making this kind of music for over two decades! What age does that give him when he started? A similar thought I had about Geneviéve Pasquier. Her Myspace says she is from 1979. With Thorofon started in 1995, that makes her 16 when she started to create extreme electronics (Courtman had a previous incarnation as Kommando). So where does that place me?
Looking back my metal period started when I was around that age, 16, 1991/2. For a few but active years I listed to blackmetal and from 1994 or so the related sideprojects that I liked better. Then Mortiis (with whom I was in contact) joined CMI and so did I (1994 I guess). I bought the larger part of the available back catalogue. For a couple of years I appear to have bought both metal and industrial, but the first came less and less and eventually just died away. I explored the larger gothic scene with medievalish things, mostly electro (for a short while) and later neofolk when I ran into Eis & Licht. I already knew L.O.K.I.-foundation with Turbund Sturmwerk and from them I also got Endura (demo!), Blood Axis and The Moon Lay Hidden Beneath A Cloud. The latter I saw live a few times and at a concert bought the first Der Blutharsch 12″. But 1994/5 that is already 15 years of industrial music. I am getting old!
In all these years I have compilated a respectable (I think) discography. Most normal-sized cds are in the case below. Tapes, vinyl, special packages, etc. are stored elsewhere. I change the visible covers frequently. New titles so that I remember I have them, titles that I want to remember to play some time or simply a cover that I like. Do you recognise them all? Note that my musical taste goes beyond ‘the scene’.

phobos II ///
an evening of dark ambient music
saturday 13.11.2010

lineup ///
raison d´être (cold meat industry)
land:fire (loki found)
circular (loki found)
svartsinn (cyclic law)
northaunt (cyclic law)

address ///
sophienkirche 20
42103 wuppertal
google maps link

venue ///
the concert takes place in a church in wuppertal (germany)
next airports are cologne, bonn and duesseldorf

hotel ///
you should book your room in this hotel: mcdreams
it is very close to the venue (10min walk) and offers good prices and quality

presale ///
please write an email to phobos[att]phelios[.]de with number of tickets you´d like to have
the capacity is limited. last year´s festival was sold out, so you should get your ticket in advance if you want to be sure to get in
tickets cost 20euro each

thanks ///
kirchengemeinde elberfeld-west
unerhört ev
hotel mcdreams

contact///
martin stürtzer
+49 202 7395840
phobos[att]phelios[.]de

flyer ///

Last weekend we have attended the Saturday and Sunday of the three days Dutch gothic festival Summer Darkness. However I have always found the festival’s apparel too ‘teeny’ with these dolls in the artwork, etc. it seems as if the vast majority of the visitors is my age or above! The festival is more and more starting to look like the Wave Gotik Treffen in Leipzig, with concerts in a museum, a church, ‘gothic city walks’ or tours over the city’s waters and of course concerts in a variety of venues. There was an interesting schedule this year, a bit too tight perhaps even. On Saturday we started with the dark ambient noise tunes of Allseits, not bad, and then Phelios, which was a bit too monotous for me, but we did not stay until the ‘idm-part’ started… This was only in the first half of the afternoon! In the bigger venue of Tivoli Oude Gracht Faith and The Muse would be next and I was interested ‘for old times sake’. A couple of grufties on stage, a nice drum-workshop opening and then the show started with awfull sound and bad music (and did I miss Faith or did I just not recognise him?). I took off… We had to hurry in order to get to a museum where three special concerts would take place, two of which I was interested in. When we came in Jännerwein just started after a long delay. Jännerwein is just another neofolk band in my opinion and I did not really have to see them. The show was just fine. Next up was Peter Bjärgö and I was curious about this since he was supposed to play on old instruments from the museum. The show sounded like an Arcana show to me with just music from a computer and a bit of singing. Next up was Ianva and when the sound was already awfull at the previous bands (why amplified in a resounding former church?), but with Ianva it was so bad that we left. They had some technical problems on top of the bad sound too. Off to Tivoli Helling to rush in just when Spiritual Front started to play. Great sound (finally!), the guys were enthousiastic and gave a very nice show. Next up was Bjärgö again, but then as Sophia!! The shows was not much to look at and besides the drumming and the vocals the music just came from a computer, but this was mostly a ‘best of’ show with his greatest and most energetic tracks and that on high volume. Great!
Our Sunday started with Kelten Zonder Grenzen at the Domsquare and XMH (electro) in Tivoli, but the interesting program would take place at that other Tivoli. Allerseelen, yesyes, and Petak seems to start getting used to being on the stage. Again nothing live but drums, a bassguitar and vocals, but this was actually a very nice show. Ianva did have proper sound this time and they played very well, but since their music is not exactly mine and we had to eat… Next up was In Slaughter Natives. I have seen him quite a few times already, but it is always nice (and again mr. and ms. Bjärgö on stage). I was mostly looking forward to Geneviéve Pasquier and her show was brilliant! Her catchy electropop was magnificently wrecked by Dan Courtman who turned the show in a heavy industrial noise piece which seems to have been put together right then and there. Pasquier wore a nice cabaret outfit and enjoyed Courtman’s earcracking sounds while dancing on the discobeats on the background. On cd Pasquier is nice, catchy and slightly industrial, but this liveshow was much dirtier and really great. The last performance at this location was the legendary Dirk Ivens (Dive) who started a bit earlier and would play a bit shorter because the organisation noticed that people were leaving early to see DAF at Tivoli Oude Gracht. Nothing life except the vocals and at times extremely loud danceble industrial, but in my opinion not really convincing. DAF, to close off, was very disapointing. I do not know DAF too well, especially not the more recent material, but inspite of a stuffed big all at Tivoli with enthousiastic fans, I found the few songs that I saw a bit tame and pretty boring.
No worries, I saw some great performances and I must say that inspite of the ‘teeny’ image of the festival, they had some great bookings and a nice atmosphere overall. There were a lot of grufties all over the city to the delight of the many students and tourists that were also present. Small Leipzig for sure and a much shorter drive.

I have seen Von Thronstahl a couple of times in the past 10 years, but this time there was a show in Germany on a secret location (of course). Present in the Ruhr-gebied in the afternoon, the expected SMS with the location did not arrive, but after some phonecalls we were on the way to some community centre in some suburb. First there were no less than three boring electro ‘performances’, meaning, music with dancers on stage. Another project whose name I do not remember made a more harsch form of electro or industrial with noisy tones alternated with lectures of which I did not understand much. Musically this was not too good, but in comparison with the rest, not a reason to leave the room. Von Thronstahl themselves gave a show with bad sound and unstructured songs, a bad combination. After a few tracks the guys were quite in their element and the performance was as energetic as other times that I saw them. Then some Australian woman (sorry, I did not recognise her) was pulled on stage and a few attempts to sing DI6’s “Little Black Angle” were made. After this the energy was mostly gone, only to return at the time when the venue had to be cleared. All in all I found the show amusing, but I have seen the band in better shape. The whole scene then had to move another 24 kilometres for another venue where a party with Forthcoming Fire and another Von Thronstahl performance was to take place, but since today is a working day, we decided to skip that second half.

Another free mega-download-sampler in five parts under which one with videos of Dead.Circuit and Ariu Kara. All a bit too monotous ambient for me, but if you are interested, go here.