- Mijn maximalistische Zondag and
andermans lost in music faces -
feat. JEGONG, GROS COEUR, LASTER, MOJO AND THE KITCHEN BROTHERS, NEPTUNIAN MAXIMALISM and UBOA
Ok, here I am after a couple of days of me being lazy about writing (that exhausting 24h blood pressure reading the other day surely helped), ready for the final Roadburn report of 2024!
The festival has grown to be such an immersive thing and there are so many details and detours, so many possible shoutouts and little observations to be made that it's impossible to mention everything noteworthy. I'll just try to concentrate on looking back on the music as good as I can after a couple of weeks and won't bore you with a conclusion that even tries to to encapsulate everything.
The festival has grown to be such an immersive thing and there are so many details and detours, so many possible shoutouts and little observations to be made that it's impossible to mention everything noteworthy. I'll just try to concentrate on looking back on the music as good as I can after a couple of weeks and won't bore you with a conclusion that even tries to to encapsulate everything.
Let me just repeat that we need the Paradox also on Sunday, even though I cannot complain about not having seen enough outstanding performances through all the four days plus Wednesday night. This Roadburn blew my mind once again, so here's a heartfelt Thank You to Walter, Becky and everyone else who has a part in making this wonder of an event happen again and again under increasingly difficult general circumstances!
Sunday started in The Terminal with the three skull-helmet-whateverthisis-wearing Dutch dudes called Laster performing their album "Andermans Mijne", which translates to "someone else's mine". Coming from the vivid Avantgarde Black Metal scene the band has morphed into something different now, a catchy, sometimes even danceable mix of Metal and New Wave, which connects the two elements through its dissonant (call it voivodish of jazzy) chords we know from bands like Virus, Kayo Dot, but also Joy Division or Killing Joke. The quirkiness of "Neonism" Solefald also came to mind through this all around great performance, which left me no choice but to buy the album afterwards and make it the first merch purchase I spun in my car on the way home on Monday.
Compelling, memorable and strangely addictive weird stuff. A great way to begin the day.
Compelling, memorable and strangely addictive weird stuff. A great way to begin the day.
This cannot be a reliable review, since I only took a small glance at the biggest Main Stage setup for a commissioned show in Roadburn history yet, including even more members of the Metropole Orkest on stage than during Triptykon's "Requiem" in 2019.
"Lux Tenera - A Rite To Joy" started very minimal with Electronic sounds from Die Wilde Jagd which made me think of the possibility that they could be trolling the audience at first. Just imagine: All that orchestral shebang, only for the musicians to sit perfectly still for an hour during some silent bleeps. That would have been more performance art than Spinal Tap at the puppet show!
Of course eventually the orchestra started to play, we got some heavy German accent vocal introduction and it got big... but honestly I just filed it under may check it out if it's being recorded and released afterwards, because... you know what's coming now...
"Lux Tenera - A Rite To Joy" started very minimal with Electronic sounds from Die Wilde Jagd which made me think of the possibility that they could be trolling the audience at first. Just imagine: All that orchestral shebang, only for the musicians to sit perfectly still for an hour during some silent bleeps. That would have been more performance art than Spinal Tap at the puppet show!
Of course eventually the orchestra started to play, we got some heavy German accent vocal introduction and it got big... but honestly I just filed it under may check it out if it's being recorded and released afterwards, because... you know what's coming now...
CLASHBURN:
Leaving such an impressive production very early because you have more important things to do. That's Roadburn. In fact I should be glad that there was a mistake in the Timequare App announcing the Neptunian Maximalism show around twenty minutes too early. Otherwise the Next Stage might have already been completely packed when I decided to move my ass over there. Who knows?
Let me repeat it for the sake of spreading the word in defense of the band, who will probably be haunted by this mistake for a while: Neptunian Maximalism did not start too late. They did not drag during their soundcheck. The timetable in the app was just wrong.
So if you couldn't get over to Grails or see Deathcrash in the Hall of Fame immediately afterwards - it hasn't been their fault.
Personally I found everything today at least interesting, so the whole day was a clash, including the secret shows in the Ladybird Skatepark, which were a thing again this year (albeit the park has moved to another building) and parts of the Offroad program.
Most painful to miss was right now Fear Falls Burning including Dirk Serries and Colin Webster, who were both part of the fantastic Martina Verhoeven Quintet in 2022. I also really would have loved to see Habitants, Hilary Woods and one full show which will be adressed further below. In hindsight however I'm still satisfied with all my choices. And if there was one performance this applies to above all others, it was the following:
Most painful to miss was right now Fear Falls Burning including Dirk Serries and Colin Webster, who were both part of the fantastic Martina Verhoeven Quintet in 2022. I also really would have loved to see Habitants, Hilary Woods and one full show which will be adressed further below. In hindsight however I'm still satisfied with all my choices. And if there was one performance this applies to above all others, it was the following:
By far my most anticipated show of the day was "Le Sacre du Soleil Invaincu", a Raga inspired eighty minutes mighty suite heralding a new phase for the Belgian collective Neptunian Maximalism. The players were all familiar from the 2021 Roadburn Redux performance as well as from the amazing show I witnessed live in Nijmegen at Right On Mountain Festival 2022. It weren't as many though, since the line-up has slimmed down to just six musicians; no two drummers plus extra percussionist and - even more noteworthy - no Jean-Jacques Duerinckx on Saxophone. So it seems as if the tribal and Spiritual Jazz elements of the group have completely moved over to Zaäar at this point.
Rest assured though, the "Maximalism" in the band's name still applied, especially to the droning heaviness and uncompromising huge scale of the composition, which at first - and for quite a long time - threw me back ten years into the past, to that formative experience when the second Roadburn Festival I attended introduced me to the idea of crushing yet meditative Drone Doom with Indian elements with the mighty Main Stage show of Bong.
Even down to the very rare primal vocals of the project's leader Guillaume Cazalet and the sitar-esque lead ornaments (actually played on an amplified saz) Neptunian Maximalism's performance was very close to Mike Vest's super heavy Psychedelic Doom sound.
But that was only the first third or so of the show, which would eventually become more brutal with a huge Black Metal crescendo, but also included more chaotic as well as Ambient passages and an evil incantation by bass player Reshma Goolamy.
It's impossible to adequately recount the grandiosity of this whole performance, not only because of the passing of time since then, but also because this was a thing just to lose yourself in and I haven't been in a very analytical watching mode to begin with. "Le Sacre" has been recorded in a church in London last year, so I already can't wait for it to be released as an album. Without a doubt this was one of the greatest highlights of Roadburn 2024!
Rest assured though, the "Maximalism" in the band's name still applied, especially to the droning heaviness and uncompromising huge scale of the composition, which at first - and for quite a long time - threw me back ten years into the past, to that formative experience when the second Roadburn Festival I attended introduced me to the idea of crushing yet meditative Drone Doom with Indian elements with the mighty Main Stage show of Bong.
Even down to the very rare primal vocals of the project's leader Guillaume Cazalet and the sitar-esque lead ornaments (actually played on an amplified saz) Neptunian Maximalism's performance was very close to Mike Vest's super heavy Psychedelic Doom sound.
But that was only the first third or so of the show, which would eventually become more brutal with a huge Black Metal crescendo, but also included more chaotic as well as Ambient passages and an evil incantation by bass player Reshma Goolamy.
It's impossible to adequately recount the grandiosity of this whole performance, not only because of the passing of time since then, but also because this was a thing just to lose yourself in and I haven't been in a very analytical watching mode to begin with. "Le Sacre" has been recorded in a church in London last year, so I already can't wait for it to be released as an album. Without a doubt this was one of the greatest highlights of Roadburn 2024!
I didn't feel like immediately going into another already packed room, but went to the queue behind the Hall of Fame to at least catch a little bit of one surprise show in the Skate Park.
Yeah, this show shouldn't even be included above in the header, because I didn't actually see enough of it to have an impression complete enough to justify a proper review, but hey, I have a decent title picture for once, so let me write a couple of lines about Mojo and The Kitchen Brothers anyway!
In the last-minute announcement they were sold as a kind of Belgian King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard, and as soon as I saw the setup with two drumkits in the new skate hall, it already seemed appropriate. And it instantly got backed up once they started to play their fast and energetic uptempo fuzzy Psychelec Rock. Just good times!
For the second track they slowed it down to a trippy Blues atmosphere and one of the drummers got on the microphone instead. Super cool and promising stuff. I'm sure the whole fifty minutes of their performance must have been awesome, but I really wanted to make sure that I got a decend spot in the Hall of Fame, so I had to cut this criminally short. But at least I've been inside the Ladybird Skate Park once. *check*
In the last-minute announcement they were sold as a kind of Belgian King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard, and as soon as I saw the setup with two drumkits in the new skate hall, it already seemed appropriate. And it instantly got backed up once they started to play their fast and energetic uptempo fuzzy Psychelec Rock. Just good times!
For the second track they slowed it down to a trippy Blues atmosphere and one of the drummers got on the microphone instead. Super cool and promising stuff. I'm sure the whole fifty minutes of their performance must have been awesome, but I really wanted to make sure that I got a decend spot in the Hall of Fame, so I had to cut this criminally short. But at least I've been inside the Ladybird Skate Park once. *check*
Next up was JeGong, a band which only exists because its members met at Roadburn once and found out about their matching musical interests. Two albums of great Heavy Psychelic Post Kraut Ambient Rock instrumentals have come out since then. (I still have a sealed spare CD copy of "The Complex Inbetween" for sale btw. Hit me up, if you want it!)
This was supposed to be the first ever live appearance of the duo, but drummer Dahm Majuri Cipolla (Mono), who I had seen last playing for Årabrot in January, and Sum Of R's Mäder (bass, electronics) sneakily brought a guitar player (who you cannot see sitting next to the drums on my pictures) with them, so technically this was a indeed a trio. Still their first live show though.
And what a good one it was! I cannot really tell what exactly it was, but I really don't think that any other show had flown by so fast, and I wasn't alone in that assessment. I guess this succeeded my expectations. I could have easily watched half an hour more than the fifty minutes we got.
This was supposed to be the first ever live appearance of the duo, but drummer Dahm Majuri Cipolla (Mono), who I had seen last playing for Årabrot in January, and Sum Of R's Mäder (bass, electronics) sneakily brought a guitar player (who you cannot see sitting next to the drums on my pictures) with them, so technically this was a indeed a trio. Still their first live show though.
And what a good one it was! I cannot really tell what exactly it was, but I really don't think that any other show had flown by so fast, and I wasn't alone in that assessment. I guess this succeeded my expectations. I could have easily watched half an hour more than the fifty minutes we got.
After JeGong I was having a snack and a final chat with one of my we-always-meet-at-the-same-shows pals and so it happened: I forgot a show! Of course I had checked the beginning of the next thing on Timesquare, but I didn't take a look at the Offroad stages, where I had marked the Crust / Grind / Black Metal of Radeloos///Ziedend, who were playing just a few meters away in the LOC Brewery.
Yeah, totally forgot about that one. Shame. On the other hand this failure allowed me the closest possible spot at one of the for sure most surprising shows of the week....
I witnessed her earth-shattering "Meltdown" on Thursday, yet didn't attend "The Origin Of My Depression", the centerpiece of Uboa's performances as Artist in Residence on Saturday, so I was mildly worried about the possibility of me having missed a crucial piece of the puzzle to get into her final performance called "Calm Down". Fortunately I was wrong, because boy, how intense was this?
On paper this electronic set made of one continuous piece was supposed to be a calming (duh!) healing experience. And while I won't deny that it indeed had that quality, there was an undeniable eery undercurrent. You must also add the exhaustion of everyone at this stage so shortly before the end of the festival. The manageable pain from my soles was already creeping up my legs and my eyes and mind had gotten weary. And whenever I looked up I saw my condition mirrored, since similar to Lingua Ignota's 2019 performances the small stage was set up in the middle of the room, so we stood there in a tiny circle around the artist, facing our weird lost in music and emotions faces.
Weirdly enough this experience gave me a quite powerful alternative context for the much criticized official video art of the festival. As creepy as much of the physical approaches in those films had appeared before (Are we really expected to behave like this without being accused of harassment?), this was the raw and real version of it.
And it was an important part of the impact of this show. It was also fascinating to stand right next to Uboa and see exactly what she was doing to create her sample-based sound - and still having almost no clue about it. I just know that a good part of it consisted on operating within a software on her desktop, which probably was one of the most anxiety-inducing things I've ever seen. Having to quickly do stuff like that on stage would make me sick with tension, haha.
Interestingly, while many impressions of this show are still plainly embedded in my consciousness, I don't have much actual aural memory of it. Yet I still rank it among the most powerful performances of all week. (It actually only isn't included in my list further below because I opted to just feature one show per stage.) What a cleansing experience!
Well, just like Uboa entering the bigger Engine Room stage on Thursday this ended humourously, as the Ambient piece finally got noisier and heavier, just to very suddenly end, her saying "Yeah, this was the thing." (or something along the lines) and quickly disappearing through the crowd. *micdrop*
On paper this electronic set made of one continuous piece was supposed to be a calming (duh!) healing experience. And while I won't deny that it indeed had that quality, there was an undeniable eery undercurrent. You must also add the exhaustion of everyone at this stage so shortly before the end of the festival. The manageable pain from my soles was already creeping up my legs and my eyes and mind had gotten weary. And whenever I looked up I saw my condition mirrored, since similar to Lingua Ignota's 2019 performances the small stage was set up in the middle of the room, so we stood there in a tiny circle around the artist, facing our weird lost in music and emotions faces.
Weirdly enough this experience gave me a quite powerful alternative context for the much criticized official video art of the festival. As creepy as much of the physical approaches in those films had appeared before (Are we really expected to behave like this without being accused of harassment?), this was the raw and real version of it.
And it was an important part of the impact of this show. It was also fascinating to stand right next to Uboa and see exactly what she was doing to create her sample-based sound - and still having almost no clue about it. I just know that a good part of it consisted on operating within a software on her desktop, which probably was one of the most anxiety-inducing things I've ever seen. Having to quickly do stuff like that on stage would make me sick with tension, haha.
Interestingly, while many impressions of this show are still plainly embedded in my consciousness, I don't have much actual aural memory of it. Yet I still rank it among the most powerful performances of all week. (It actually only isn't included in my list further below because I opted to just feature one show per stage.) What a cleansing experience!
Well, just like Uboa entering the bigger Engine Room stage on Thursday this ended humourously, as the Ambient piece finally got noisier and heavier, just to very suddenly end, her saying "Yeah, this was the thing." (or something along the lines) and quickly disappearing through the crowd. *micdrop*
Since I stayed until the very end I had little time to get from the Hall of Fame to the 013, but conveniently my legs acted as if they had been horribly restrained and needed to release kinetic energy, so I almost had no other choice than to powerwalk really fast. And there I was, perfectly in time, ready to be thrown into a completely different emotional state once again one last time.
Many of my now ten Roadburn Fetsivals have ended in this room and it's pretty much guaranteed that the last Next Stage performance will send the audience off into their bleak normal lives outside of this special sphere with a giant party. And Gros Coeur from from Belgium were not going to be an exception from this unwritten rule!
The quartet's sound could be hypnotically psychedelic or an excessively rocking freak-out. But their music also was extremely funky, sometimes in a tight in-the-pocket groovy way, sometimes evoking a Seventies disco fever vibe with Afro-Beat and Asian influences and a sunful of infectious positivity. More than once this show reminded me of the fantastic Dutchploitation of Yīn Yīn, with more focus on the Karkara / King Gizzard / Kikagaku Moyo Psych Rock elements. In other words: a perfect closer! Similar to JeGong it felt es if the show had only just started when the fifty minutes were over way to soon.
Why did this have to ever end? How am I even coping in a daily routine without Roadburn for over almost three weeks now? Questions Gros Coeur can't and didn't answer. But they did their very best in providing a happy goodbye.
The quartet's sound could be hypnotically psychedelic or an excessively rocking freak-out. But their music also was extremely funky, sometimes in a tight in-the-pocket groovy way, sometimes evoking a Seventies disco fever vibe with Afro-Beat and Asian influences and a sunful of infectious positivity. More than once this show reminded me of the fantastic Dutchploitation of Yīn Yīn, with more focus on the Karkara / King Gizzard / Kikagaku Moyo Psych Rock elements. In other words: a perfect closer! Similar to JeGong it felt es if the show had only just started when the fifty minutes were over way to soon.
Why did this have to ever end? How am I even coping in a daily routine without Roadburn for over almost three weeks now? Questions Gros Coeur can't and didn't answer. But they did their very best in providing a happy goodbye.
As I said earlier, no long essay about my final thoughts. As much as this will spin around in my head there will never be final thoughts anyway - ir at least until next year.
But here's for all the ranking freaks out there my recent feeling about what moved and enthralled me the most, just like last year with the special rule of only including each stage only once. I give you... *drumroll*
my TOP 6 favorite shows of Roadburn 2024:
- FULL EARTH (Hall Of Fame)
- NEPTUNIAN MAXIMALISM (Next Stage)
- a tie between THE KEENING and BLOOD INCANTATION "Timewave Zero" (Main Stage)
- HEDVIG MOLLESTAD TRIO (Paradox)
- BODY VOID (The Terminal)
- KNOLL (The Engine Room)
- DÉJÀ VU OFFROAD BONUS: YANTRAS (Cul De Sac)
reviews of the other festival days:
ROADBURN FESTIVAL 2024 • THE SPARK: Wednesday, April 17th
- Laser Jaguar Sex Vampire Rebellion! -
ROADBURN FESTIVAL 2024 • DAY ONE: Thursday, April 18th
- Nothing is safe, only ecstasy and obliberation -
ROADBURN FESTIVAL 2024 • DAY TWO: Friday, April 19th
- Where will you be when paradoxes burn the timewave? -
ROADBURN FESTIVAL 2024 • DAY THREE: Saturday, April 20th
- The truth is a grave under a knoll, fully covered in earth and blood -
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