steerpike's Last.fm Journal

Drone beats doom

Sun, 31 Jan 2010 11:02:27 +0000

Fri 29 Jan – OM, Lichens

The metal-heads were out in force at Ravenna's Bronson Club to pay homage to OM's stoner doom rock - there to embrace this band's dark godless kingdom of mantra meets metal.

But Robert A.A. Lowe, who joined the Californian duo on stage, turned out to be the true star of the night.

Earlier Lowe, performing as Lichens, gave a mesmerising solo turn. Using only guitar, repeater delay pedals and extraordinary wordless vocals he produced a rich multi-layered sound that you felt could have gone on for hours but unfortunately transported the audience for just 25 minute or so.

Looking like a weird Indian mystic, Lowe struck me as a musician who is so wired into the musical universe he could make any instrument sing. For the first song of Om's set he played the humble tambourine as if in a trance-state and for the band he also contributed drone effects, keyboards and Ennio Morricone-like banshee wails.

Despite his efforts, Om struck me as poor relations to bands in a similar vein like Earth and Sunn O))). They lack the stylised grace of the former and theatrical showmanship of the latter. Their slowed down Black Sabbath riffs and the meaty drumming of Emil Amos make for a powerful sound but the slow and portentious vocals of Al Cisneros give the music a leaden quality. The intention is to sound epic but his voice is so devoid of emotion it just has a distancing effect.

It was a case of psych-drone winning out over doom-rock.

Cum On Feel the Noize

Tue, 26 Jan 2010 19:13:34 +0000

Thu 21 Jan – Netmage
See my Blog for impressions of day 2 of this event which featured:
Ectoplasm Girls Swedish laptop sisters.
The Magic State Swedish Ectoplasm Girl.
Es Finnish Fonal record guru.
hong chulki South Korean ear blaster.
Aaron Dilloway American microphone muncher
My Cat Is an Alien Italian toy boys.

Steve Earle Setlist + Blog Link

Sat, 5 Dec 2009 13:58:21 +0000

Thu 3 Dec – Steve Earle, Joe Pug
Edit this setlist | More Steve Earle setlists

Source: setlist.fm

See also my blog post.

CONTAMINATED NEW AGE

Tue, 15 Sep 2009 19:26:36 +0000

Mon 14 Sep – Blues Control, tropa macaca, Belzebu Katmandu
See my blog review

A RABBIT NOT A HABIT

Wed, 22 Jul 2009 07:44:22 +0000

Tue 21 Jul – BANDS APART

The last time I saw Animal Collective was in dark club in Bologna (Il Covo) where they played for around an hour without pausing for the ritual of applause. There was something intense and mysterious about them that I found fascinating.

Playing outdoors in the beautiful setting of Piazza Castello, Ferrara makes it impossible to recreate such a claustrophobic mood. Their curious hybrid sound of techno-dub-noise-pop is less effective in these surroundings and works only when at its most tribal and trance-like.

The 'songs' they play are only vaguely recognisable from the album forms - the structures that were loose to begin with are transformed into something shapeless - a process of mutation rather than improvisation. In this double-bill with TV On The Radio - they play first and I would say their set is a good half hour too long. The version 'Brother Sport' which should have ended the show on a high was a bit of a damp squib.

There are moments that transported me and moments that bored me - often it's as if they themselves are trying to find the magic groove - the zone that exists beyond the tune or hook. When they find it, the effect is stunning - one moment when Avey Tare was strumming and yelping, Panda Bear drumming furiously and Geologist's head bobbing to the beats was a moment to savour and it was worth the trip to witness this alone.

TV on the Radio are another 'hybrid' of sorts although not in the same weird or psychedelic way. Their sound is quite conventional Indie-Rock fused with a pulse of jazz/blues. They were worth seeing for Kyp Malone’s amazing comic strip beard alone! I found Tunde Adebimbe’s strained his voice too much to make an impact and he and the band blasted out their hits energetically but something of the essential subtlety of their sound was missing. The muddy mix didn't help their cause.

The high point was the encore - Family Tree is a great song which works its magic without needing a big arrangement and Staring at the Sun is by now an established classic.

The show was a good showcase for these two fine Brooklyn bands but I think the natural habitat for both is an intimate venue with a kick-ass sound system.

THE MOZZA ALTERNATIVE

Wed, 15 Jul 2009 11:29:51 +0000

Tue 14 Jul – Etnofestival 2009

Morrissey cancelled two concerts at Rimini for "un-resolvable reasons" which Mozza later explained via his home page was due to the fact "the venue could not accommodate our PA system or lights, etc" rather than for health problems.

I have a suspicion that not enough tickets were sold too - certainly the shows were very poorly publicized. A friend who lives in Rimini says she didn't see a single poster which is strange since these would have been the only concerts in Italy. Either way the organization leaves much to be desired - was Morrissey planning a a show of Emerson, Lake & Palmer proportions - we'll never know!

The consequence of this was that I headed up to San Marino for day 2 of their annual Etnofestival - one of six concerts in successive nights from around the globe - Corea, Spain, Cuba, Brasil, Colombia and, for the show I attended, Guinea.

It turned out to be a spectacular drumfest. Mamady Keita is a 59 year old master of the djembe (African drum). On stage he is accompanied by a band of 5 other drummers, 3 big-mamma dancers, + balafon, kora, flute & sax players.

They created a real party atmosphere from the start and several members of the audience lept on stage during the show to display their dancing - including one pregnant white woman!

A great show and, I suspect, more fun that Morrissey would have been.

FEN FLOWERS

Wed, 1 Jul 2009 04:25:22 +0000

Sat 27 Jun – Richard Youngs, Lisa Papineau, Claudia Macori

I've long admired the quiet eccentricity of Richard Youngs so I welcomed this rare chance to see him live at a free outdoor concert in the grounds of the Rocca Malatestiana, Cesena.
I wasn't too sure what to expect. I know he doesn't do too many live shows and his recorded albums are hard to pigeonhole. Avant-Folk probably gets as close as anything to defining his music but just to be bloody minded he's recently put out what he calls his pop album (Beyond the Valley of Ultrahits). He plays 'Like a Sailor' from this record although he not really in the business of plugging this release (the limited edition of 300 is already sold out anyway!).
In many ways Youngs is full of contradictions . He lives in Glasgow but doesn't make anything resembling urban music. He has collaborated with artists like Makoto Kawabata, Alex Neilson, Jandek and Alistair Galbraith yet seems to be a man who is quite happy in his own company.
Many of his solo albums have the trappings of classic outsider songs - intense and lonesome although they never cross the pain barrier into tortured or whining. I picture him wandering the Highlands and Lowlands of Scotland composing and rehearsing his beautifully enigmatic songs like 'One Hundred Stranded Horses' or 'Soon It Will Be Fire', both of which he played at Cesena. The latter is one of my favourite songs of his - I really like the fragility of his wavering falsetto and the illusive quality of his words.
His songs reference nature a lot and are rich in a kind of pagan spirituality that establish a mood rather than tell stories. When he plays acoustic guitar, there are fleeting shades of Bert Jansch although he seems at pains to subvert being regarded as just another sensitive singer-songwriter.
In this one hour show he frequently dispensed with his acoustic guitar in favour of performing a series idiosyncratic a cappella songs - a kind of a Celtic beat poetry. The most memorable of these was a Allen Ginsberg type rant-chant called Fen Flowers which features with numerous compound nouns prefixed by the word 'Fen' - Fen-energy, Fen-language etc. "This is my next single", he deadpans.
He's called back for an encore which seems to take him by surprise and he admits to not having prepared anything. He finally decides to do an unaccompanied version of Advent - the title track of his first solo album originally released in 1990 . As with his other songs, the words are obscure. When he finishes he says "Let that be a warning to you" , leaving us to guess exactly what we are being cautioned against.

RAGAPIANO

Fri, 19 Jun 2009 21:53:51 +0000

Thu 18 Jun – Ragapiano
The open air space within the complex of the beautiful 16th century Classense Library makes for a perfect setting for this inspired solo performance, part of the 'Bianco Nero Piano Forte' concerts for the Ravenna Festival.
FABRIZIO OTTAVIUCCI plays a blend of classical and experimental piano works. The programme is well judged so that the more 'difficult' atonal or free improvisation pieces are balanced by more accessible works.
For the first half he played 'Quattro illustrazioni sulle metamorfosi di Visnù' by Giacinto Scelsi (1905-1988) and a fluid and mesmerising piece by Terry Riley.
He opened the second half with 'In A Landscape' by John Cage, a delicate atmospheric work with a real sense of space. What struck me about this is how Cage’s unimposing textures satisfy the criteria which was later defined as Ambient Music; what Brian Eno described as music which is "as ignorable as it is interesting".
After this, the first of Ottaviucci's own piano ragas is a frenzied work which forces you to engage . With feet stomping to a beat of his own making he practically attacks the piano and literally lets his hair down (he ties it back in a ponytail when playing works by other composers). This ' let's get physical' approach contrasts sharply to the meditative calm of Cage's piece.
It is followed by his Raga d'Inverno and 'PsicoRaga' which return us to balance and spirituality - more in keeping with atmosphere of music as a form of 'prayer' - one of the key themes of the Ravenna Festival this year.
A brilliant musician and a fine way to spend a sultry summer evening.

BLACK SEA - RED DESERT

Sun, 29 Mar 2009 20:35:24 +0000

Fri 27 Mar – Fennesz, punck, Black Fanfare

On stage Christian Fennesz cuts an elegant figure with an attractively haunted quality that shows he's more deep than macho.
He is an intense performer who doesn't feel the need to speak or engage in any eye contact with the audience. Instead, he directs a steely gaze at his laptop as if willing the machine to produce the right combination of loops. With an electric guitar he adds a human touch to his formidable digital creations.
At the Bronson, he performed one unbroken piece for 45 minutes followed by a 10 minute coda. The concert was billed as 'Fennesz plays Black Sea' but there was only the vaguest resemblance to that recorded work.
The stronger emphasis on the guitar gave a more aggressive edge to the sound. A welcome knock-on effect of the higher volume is that he avoided being sabotaged by noisy bar bores. The downside was that there were none of the flashes of quiet after the storm that gives his music such range and beauty.
The music played at the Bronson was more abstract noise than ambient bliss, striking in its own way but lacking the grace and subtlety that makes his albums so atmospheric and calming.
Supporting act punck showed that computer generated music gains little from being performed ‘live’ unless the human element is added.
For all I know Punck (aka Adriano Zanni) could have simply pressed the ‘play’ button on his Mac - the slide show consisting mainly of desolate seascapes was not enough to inject any life his Red Desert Chronicles.

Vic Chesnutt link

Sun, 22 Mar 2009 17:49:57 +0000

Sat 21 Mar – Elf Power, Vic Chesnutt
Blog piece inspired by this gig.