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The thing about minimalist music is that there is rather a lot of it. There are many people out there making ambient drone compositions – but I found myself thinking during an excellent recent Stephan Mathieu performance in this same venue that there are few who do it terribly well live. It is one thing to do it in the studio, but to get this sort of thing right in a live performance, and to make something that is actually interesting to listen, requires a high level of precision, finely-tuned reactions, and a really good ear. This setting actually seems to suit the Brooklyn-based duo Mountains particularly well – it is in their semi-improvised live performances that they work up ideas, sounds and textures that will eventually turn up on albums – albums, which, until recently, have been recorded live. I had high hopes for their first appearance at Cafe Oto, where they were joined by Simon Scott and John Chantler. Read the rest of this post over at The Liminal.
“I looked back for my comrade; he had stripped off all his clothes and laid them down by the wayside. My heart was in my mouth; and there I stood feeling like a dead man. Then he made water all round the clothes, and in an instant changed into a wolf.”
The werewolf has gripped the human imagination in its clawed paw for centuries. The quote above is from Petronius’s Satyricon, thought of as one of the earliest novels in Western literature, dating from the first century AD (the word lycanthrope too is derived from the Greek). But ancient Greece can by no means claim to be the source of the legend: in fact, wherever there are wolves, you’ll find fables and superstitions about werewolves. Hence you’ll find them elsewhere in Europe: the Norse had their version of the tale, as did the Finns, and the Russians. Read the rest of this review over at The Liminal.
Auto Italia is an old car showroom which has been repurposed as an artists’ space. It is, essentially, a big, grey, metal shed. Any character would have to be provided by the artists using it, which was never going to be a problem with Matmos in town. The duo of MC Schmidt and Drew Daniel have long been known for their colourful live performances – I wasn’t at the show which featured Schmidt sampling the sound of him slapping Daniel’s bare buttocks, although I have seen them using the sounds of dice games, jugs of liquid, plates of crockery and, on occasion, even actual instruments to create their pop concrète. For this latest London appearance, they were joined in this vast space by LA’s John Wiese and the London/Berlin duo Birds Of Delay. Read the reso of this post at The Liminal.
Some more short-form reviews over at The Liminal, including my take on new releases from Badun / Icarus, Phillip Marshall, Master Musicians Of Bukkake, Part Wild Horses Mane On Both Sides, Joe McPhee and Chris Corsano, Ben Vida / Keith Fullerton Whitman, as well as the wonderful Brass Pins and Match Heads compilation on Mississippi Records.
Despite the phenomenal amount of material that the composer and guitarist Loren Connors has released over the years (too much surely for anyone apart from the most committed completist to have kept track of) there remains something ghost-like about him. His public performances are relatively rare these days, which is perhaps unsurprising given the fact he has been suffering from Parkinsons disease for some time. The contribution that this condition has in fact made to his guitar playing is a moot point, though it is perhaps too easy to draw parallels between the undoubted fragility of his playing and his weakened state. But while his condition may be degenerating (slowly, thankfully), his critical stock continues to increase. He has in fact been high on the list of people that Cafe Oto have been trying to book to play at the venue ever since it opened – and so persuasive were they that he made the journey across the Atlantic solely for this inevitably sold-out show. Read the rest of this review over at The Liminal.
The chimeric Raster-Noton label was formed in 1999 when Rastermusic, founded by Olaf Bender and Frank Bretschneider, merged with Carsten Nicolai’s Noton.archiv für ton und nichtton. In a recent interview for this very website, Nicolai attributed the label’s success over the years to the consistency of their aesthetic. And it is true, the label has become deservedly well known for its consistently innovative minimalist electronica. However, as oxymoronic as it sounds, there is a lot going on within their particular brand of minimalism. For one thing, there is a world of difference between the spindly rhythmic lattices of Bretschneider, and the ultra-repetitive techno of Bender’s Byetone project, and that is before you take into account the range of projects under Nicolai’s stage name Alva Noto, from the dense granulation of his Xerrox works to the twisted electronic pop of anbb to the sequence of iconic collaborations with the pianist Ryuichi Sakamoto. And there is much more to Raster-Noton than just the music: both Bender and Nicolai are also visual artists, meaning that as well as having some of the crispest sleeve designs (and some of the most stylishly reductive packaging) Raster-Noton live shows can be spectacular audio-visual affairs. The idea of that aesthetic emerging from the soundsystem of the 150 year old Roundhouse, and filling the spaces between its metal struts, with a choice selection of Raster-Noton acts appearing as part of the Short Circuit’s series of label showcases, was therefore one which promised much. Read the rest of this post over at The Liminal.
Last week, the Guardian named Dalston’s Cafe Oto and the Vortex as two of the ten best music venues in London, and given how these two stand (so far) apart from the rest thanks to their laudable commitment to adventurous programming, I’m almost surprised that they managed to find eight more, to be honest. Cafe Oto was pretty full tonight for the sort of lineup you really wouldn’t find anywhere else in the city: the artists Stephan Mathieu, BJ Nilsen and TSU (Robert Curgenven and Jörg Maria Zeger). It led me to wonder whether anyone had come along to Cafe Oto as a result of the intrigue created by the Guardian’s article, and what they would make of a music venue which sets out to challenge the prevalent notions of what “music” actually is. Read the rest of this post over at The Liminal.
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