MUSIC 2021: TOP 7 live shows

Maybe, in a couple of years - if you allow me to be uncharacteristically optimistic for a moment -, when we'll look back on 2021 in regards of live music, we'll be able to say that it was the first of two transitional years of things going back to normal.

It took me more than two thirds of it though, to visit a show again - seated and with masks, when you wanted to move, but a great show nonetheless. Until then pre-recorded session streams and actual live internet broadcasts had to suffice - and they sometimes reached an incredible level of quality.

And just like in "real" life there's no way to ignore Roadburn, because Roadburn Redux not only gifted us incredible live performances like a monumental set from Neptunian Maximalism and the incredibly moving commissioned piece "This Shame Should Not Be Mine" from Gold, or amazing prepared streams from Steve von Till, Nadja, Knoll and many more, but it also became a true collective experience through social media and its own website.

The most memorable other streams were Voivod's two Hybercube Sessions, in which they performed their classic albums "Nothingface" and "Dimension Hatröss" in full with stellar performances and an absolutely jaw-dropping sound quality. In 2020 I was still too sceptical, so I missed the first of those three sessions, but I really hope those will see a Blu Ray release or something similar in the future.

Technically a rather standard TV session, yet musically so spectacular that it would be a crime not to honour it here, was Magma's ARTE performance of "Mekanïk Destruktïw Kommandöh".

It's simple unbelievable how on top of their game the French legends still weave their zeuhl magic!

All this can of course never be a full substitute of the real experience, but if shows aren't possible, I'll gladly take it!

Luckily - and who knows how long it will last? -, after nineteen long months without "real" live music, there was finally a silver lining on the horizon in September and I began to make up for lost time. At least enough to justify a top 7 list... (no extra category for festival shows though, because I've only been to one of those)

TOP 7 LIVE SHOWS 2021:

1. FRA DET ONDE - Musikhuset Dexter, Odense
   
   

   

   The best things in life are for free. Like this show of the Norwegian avant-garde free jazz trio Fra Det Onde, mixed and manipulated live on stage by Emil Nikolaisen. Their unbelievable jams presented music at its most adventurous and free-spirited. I had an absolute blast witnessing this - undoubtly one of my best life choices of this year to add this stop to my Denmark trip at short notice.
   
   
   
2. DOOL - Prophecy Fest, Balve Cave
   
   
   
   After two years of pandemic delay Dool finally were granted the opportunity to play a proper release show for their second full-length album "Summerland", and the enthusiasm to be back on stage after that forced hiatus was the extra spice on top of an already ass-kicking masterclass in the dark side of rock'n'roll.
   
   
   
3. ARTHUR BROWN - Prophecy Fest, Balve Cave
   
   
   
   Yes, it was Him, the true "God of Hellfire"! Like many other attendees of the Prophecy Fest I've never really considered seeing Arthur Brown live. I didn't even know that the 79 years young psychedelic proto hard rock pioneer was even still around. And boy, how he was - what a crazy great show!
   
      
   
   
4. MYRKUR - Musikhuset Aarhus
   
   

   

   Even though this wasn't my first Folkesange show, Myrkur's performance in the Symphonic hall of Aarhus still felt like a new magical revelation, as Amalie Bruun and her singers, drummers and string players seem to have grown a deeper connection to the beauty, but also the elementary otherworldy power of her acoustic material.
   
   
   
5. E-L-R - Prophecy Fest, Balve Cave
   
   
   
   Sludgy and post-metallic doom, which hypnotized through its slowly building repetition and above all the dreamlike harmonic vocals of both frontwomen, made the performance of the Swiss trio another truly mesmerizing experience!
   
   
   
6. ANNA VON HAUSSWOLFF - Skt. Lukas Kirke, Aarhus
   
   
   
   Nothing to see at this show, as Anna and her bandmates played the pipe organ far above and behind the heads of the audience. So this concert was just about closing your eyes and wandering through the ancient haunted sound mazes of "All Thoughs Fly" in your imagination. A quite different, yet all the more memorable kind of show.
   
   
   
7. BADA - Hafenklang, Hamburg
   
   
   
   Call it drone, call it noise, call it purposely chaotic fun or majestic super heavy psych! It's all fine. What matters is that this Swedish group, which includes several members of Anna von Hausswolff's live band - including herself on keys -, is a mammothly morphing catalyst of decibel worshipping catharsis.

MUSIC 2021: TOP 7 live shows

MUSIC 2021: TOP 7 live albums

MUSIC 2021: TOP 7 non-album releases

MUSIC 2021: TOP 21 albums

BADA live in the Hafenklang, Hamburg (27.10.2021)

Bada

Step by step normality returns and oh boy, I'm so here for it!

I've already been to a couple of not-yet-completely-post covid events, but Bada's show in Hamburg's Hafenklang venue was the first club show which felt complety like in the before-times. The only difference was that you had to show your ID and proof of vaccination at the entry. But after that it really felt like coming home, even though I couldn't even remember when I was there the last time. (Conveniently I have a blog to look stuff like that up. It was for Kanaan back in June 2019.) 
And one can only speculate whether the attendance for a newcomer band on a weekday would have been as high as it was yesterday.

On the other hand not every young group has almost the same personnel as Swedish phenomenom Anna von Hausswolff's live band, so that alone surely has stirred some interest. For me also the familiarity with their debut album, the Roadburn Redux performance and the recent "Live in Rolfstorp" tape helped to make this an absolutely unmissable occasion.

Six people shared the small stage, with the drummer on the left side, facing bass and guitar on the opposite right side, and the two keyboard players including Anna in the back, where you could nearly see their silhoettes once the stage smoke came into play.
The main visual focus point of my attention however was the guy responsible for weird noises in the center, who moved a small pickup on the stage floor and other surfaces, sang with tons of effects and also spent a good amount of time with a fucking Korg Monotron mini synthesizer! Not the same model as mine (as used in the performance "Druturum IV: The Science Behind Angel Encounters") - but still that whole package was enough to make the man my spirit animal here.

There was a certain chaotic note in Bada's whole show, but that was intentional and juxtaposed by moments of enormous grandeur, cathartic drones, unresistable robotik psych rock energy and layers and layers of bass and noise up to ridiculous levels.
At one point the band even had to finish a track earlier, because they had lost control over a deep disturbing ripple signal. Another moment which confused me a little is when I was distracted between songs and the bass player suddenly asked me for my Fritz Cola bottle. Want the rest of my drink? Weird, but you do you. Of course he just needed it to brutally slide on his instrument, haha.
Speaking of: when the bass was looped and played on top of itself, there was a certain passage when I think I could feel my nasal septum vibrating for a while! Ok, that frequency was something.

The whole show was something. Just the right mix of rawness and determination, a heavy drone psych noise masterclass.

Can't wait to see Anna and I guess at least some of the boys again in not even three weeks with a totally different musical framework...

cassette craze chronicles IX (feat. BADA, JAH CUZZI, LANA DEL REY and TIBETIAN MIRACLE SEEDS)

Tapes, tapes, tapes! And this time it's only recently released stuff, starting with one which combines two of my favorite things to write about on this blog: Roadburn and anticipation for coming live shows!

BADA - Live In Rolfstorf (2021)

After Of Blood And Mercury's live album this cassette from Bada is the second recording of a Roadburn Redux performance in my collection. Or at least it is closely related to that.
Unlike the duo the Swedish band, which features several musicians of Anna von Hausswolff's group - including herself on keyboards - didn't actually play live in an empty room in Tilburg, but recorded and edited a live session in an attic in the southern Swedish countryside. The four tracks on this tape are cut from those same sessions, so there are overlaps, but it's not entirely the same.
It still is absolutely mind-bending stuff though. A rousing but eerie jam of dark psychedelic rock with strong ties to drone, doom, noise and post rock, which - like almost everything Hausswolff is involved in - couldn't possibly more impactful and substantial.
The design of this limited tape is very simple, but it comes with a sticker that's a pretty great commentary on unreadable death metal band logos.
The best thing however is that two days from now, I will finally have the opportunity to experience Bada live in Hamburg. My bada is so ready for this!

JAH CUZZI - Chainsmoker (2021)

It's not the biggest step to get from Bada to the jam of the Romanian trio Jah Cuzzi on last year's split tape with Raw Deal. On their new album "Chainsmoker" however their sound slowly moves into a different direction. At its heart this is still a rather dark blend of psychedelic improvisational music, but they are adding a few nearly contradictatory flavours to it.
The organ (which generally compensates the lack of a bass player so good, that you don't even realize that it's missing) in the opener "Dick Tator" could almost be from Archive, until it gets too skew and dirty for that comparison. Other tracks like "Jahcometti" seem to incorporate elements from electronic music and there's a smack of dub all over the place. But everything Jah Cuzzi incorporates seems to be in a rather raw, unfinished and dirty state. And this is exactly what makes it so potent: there's no filter reducing the impact. This shit hits, just like the primitive album artwork very impressively succeeds in making me cough inside. Bottom line: "Chainsmoker" is a pungent heavy psych highlight!

LANA DEL RAY - Blue Banisters (2021)

Nope. There's no smooth transition from a Romanian band published on a Czech underground label to Lana Del Rey. There may or may not be some common smoking preferences. And of course Universal runs on a tighter budget than Stoned To Death Records. If it weren't so they would surely give you a download card with your cassette, right?
But let's not dwell on the big bad pop machine too long, but talk about the artist! Lana Del Rey has quite a prolific year, as "Blue Banisters" is already her second full album in 2021 after "Chemtrails Over The Country Club". And damn, that was a good one!
The first singles suggested that its successor would be a more nostalgic affair, and in part that's true, with some sounds that could have been on "Born To Die" and deliberately washed-out production choices reminiscent of "Ultraviolence". Several of the fifteen tracks have also been intended for previous albums, indeed going as far back as 2013/2014. But don't worry! This doesn't come off as a collection of rejected leftovers at all.

On the contrary "Blue Banisters" presents itself as equally manifold and balanced as "Chemtrails". It's still obvious that Lana is the master of her musical choices, does this from her heart and constantly works on herself as a singer. And she's clearly having fun with it here. She takes her voice to new places we haven't heard from her like this before, including some severe belting or even imitating a guitar solo. Which may be a little bit silly, but come on, who gives a fuck? Especially since the musical arrangements urrounding her are once again so flawless.

TIBETIAN MIRACLE SEEDS - Inca Missiles (2021)

For the last tape we go back to the world of psychedelic rock and from a possible future pop classic to an established hippie music classic from the late 1960s. Well, at least in some parallel universe.
I truth Tibetian Miracle Seeds is a modern-day Scottish project specialized in time travelling, because "Inca Missiles" gives you the sitar, the wah-wah, the flutes, the relaxed jam bass, the spaced out vocals and fab four harmonies... all that in spades. And don't think that the occasional lap steel guitar, harp or didgeridoo makes this any less  flowerpowery! No, multi-instrumentalist Jack McAfee, who stirs this boat, doesn't aim for any innovation trophies. Apart from very few details like the heavy fuzz guitar of the title track you could sell me this whole thing as the remaster of some obscure treasure from the past. It's the authentic quality and the sheer love for the genre put into the eleven tracks (including one digital only bonus track), which make these weapons of love so irresistable.
Admittedly it's a little much of this sound for me to sit(ar) through in one session, but for one-side-at-a-time consumption it's the sweetest dream soundtrack.
And am I already tripping too much or are they really citing the old Spider Man theme in "Ideas Reprise"?

MIDYEAR TOP 12 : my favorite albums of 2020 (so far)

I've shared this on my profile and several groups on facebook yesterday, so why not also here?

Half of 2020 is almost over, so as one does these days here are my TOP 12 favorite albums so far, short and sweet, without further ramblings and not seperated by sub-categories like studio / live albums, boxes or whatever yet.

1. LAIBACH
   Laibach Revisited
   
   
   
2. TRIPTYKON with METROPOLE ORKEST
   Requiem (Live At Roadburn 2019)
   
   
   
3. DOOL
   Summerland
   
   
   
4. BILL LASWELL
   Against Empire
   
   
   
5. BOHREN & DER CLUB OF GORE
   Patchouli Blue
   
   
   
6. THE NECKS
   Three
   
   
   
7. ORANSSI PAZUZU
   Mestarin Kynsi
   
   
   
8. BADA
   Bada
   
   
   
9. INSECT ARK
   The Vanishing
   
   
   
10. CAMEL DRIVER
    \ /
    
    
    
11. RADAR MEN FROM THE MOON
    The Bestial Light
    
    
    
12. CIRITH UNGOL
    Forever Black

BADA - Bada

Wenn es dieser Tage eine Künstlerin gibt, der sowohl auf Konserve als auch live (wir blenden die Pandemie jetzt mal aus) niemand in Sachen dröhnender Allmacht und andersweltlicher Herrlichkeit das Wasser reichen kann, dann ist es die Schwedin Anna von Hausswolff, von deren letztem Album "Dead Magic" ich immer noch nicht loskomme, und die auch das Roadburn Festival 2019 mühelos gewonnen hat.

Angesichts des emotionalen Gigantismus ihrer Konzerte und ihrer daraus wachsenden Popularität, aber auch der Selbstverständlichkeit, mit der sie sich nicht nur im Vorprogramm von Acts wie Swans oder Sunn O))) bewiesen, sondern auch mit diesen Gruppen auf Augenhöhe kooperiert hat, muss man schon staunen, auf welchem übersichtlichen Level sie noch mit ihrem eigenen Label Pomperipossa Records operiert.

Die vierhundert Exemplare des vorerst nirgends in digitaler Gänze herunterladbaren Debütalbums von Bada waren jedenfalls blitzschnell vor offiziellem Veröffentlichungstermin ausverkauft, und ich bin heilfroh, dass ich noch eines der letzten dreißig ergattern konnte.
Noch erleichterter war ich, als das Paket zu einem U verbogen bei mir eintraf, die Platte selbst trotz deutlich eingeknickter Hülle aber wundersamerweise keinen Schaden genommen hatte.

BADA - Bada (LP) (2020)

Doch wer steckt eigentlich hinter dieser Gruppe, zu deren Identität die Plattenhülle an sich sich komplett ausschweigt? (Ich bin übrigens auch glücklich, dass meine wochenlange Sehstörung nach Beginn der Insulinbehandlung vorüber ist, denn als ich das Album bestellt habe, konnte ich mir das Cover absolut gar nicht ohne Kopfschmerzen anschauen.)

Bada ist eine Instrumentalgruppe, welche zu großen Teilen personalidentisch mit Anna von Hausswolffs Liveband ist - inklusive ihr selbst an der Orgel. Meine hohe Erwartungshaltung sollte damit hinreichend begründet sein.

Und nachdem sich der Opener "Början" zunächst geduldig langsam aus dem Nichts herandröhnt, um direkt in den Bombast von "Klander" überzugehen, ist das Grundvertrauen auch bereits gerechtfertigt, klingt dieses Doppel doch zu hundert Prozent nach nicht benutztem Material der "Dead Magic"-Aufnahmen, was vielleicht nicht der originellste mögliche Einstieg ist, aber qualitativ natürlich sofort überzeugt.

In "Ett Gammalt Ansikte" schlägt die Band dann allerdings andere Töne an, die mehr in Richtung schwerer, elektronisch angereicherter Psych-Kost der Marke Gnod geht und Bada als mehr als "Anna minus Gesang" etabliert.

"Roj Fridberg" ist ein mechanisch pumpender und lebendig atmender reiner Drone-Track, der den Hörer ein wenig einlullt, bevor die A-Seite vom im swansartig stampfenden Noiserocker "Avslag" kurz und mächtig abgeschlossen wird.

Auch die B-Seite wird von "Fogden" wieder mit purem Drone eingeleitet, welcher sich hier noch klerikaler, orchestraler präsentiert und in seinem Monumentalismus kurz davor steht, die Grenzen des Fassbaren einzureißen, stattdessen jedoch einen persisch eingefärbten, meditativen Ausklang findet.

"Dött Kluster" ist dött längste und atmosphärisch dichteste Stück, welches noch einmal mindestens einen Kopf über den von "Fogden" vorgelegten Riesenwuchs hinwegschaut.
Vom Geiste her fühle ich mich hier ansonsten an die Sunn O))) / Ulver-Zusammenarbeit "Terrestials" erinnert. Meisterhaft!

"Träslöjd" überrascht dann zum Ende noch mit einem treibenden Robotik-Beat, über dem sich ein lupenreiner, dicht und bunt blühender Krautrockstrauß entfaltet. Zwar gibt auch dieser Track die melancholische Schwere des Bada-Grundsounds nicht auf, beendet dieses großartige Debüt jedoch auf einer unerwartet hellen Note.

Insgesamt kann ich an dem Album gar nichts beanstanden. Es ist dunkel und erhebend, abwechslungsreich und voller Charakter. Es löst komplett ein, was die beteiligten Musiker versprechen, und von daher sortiere ich es im Gesamteindruck innerhalb der diesjährigen Veröffentlichungen direkt mal in unmittelbarer Nachbarschaft von Insect Arks "The Vanishing" ein.

Falls nächstes Jahr tatsächlich wieder Konzerte stattfinden sollten, kann man wohl spätestens zu den Live-Nachholterminen von Bada (u.a. auf der MS Stubnitz und auf dem Roadburn Festival) davon ausgehen, dass dieses Werk - ob digital oder in Nachpressung - zur Steigerung des Momentums erneut komplett auf die Welt losgelassen wird.

Das ist selbstverständlich nur meine persönliche Spekulation. Ich sage nur: Falls dieses Ding irgendwann wieder zu haben sein sollte, nicht lange überlegen - zuschlagen!