last tracks of the year, feat. BIG|BRAVE, BRUTUS, CHAT PILE and NERVER

Yeah, let's wrap this motherfucker up with a bunch of Bandcamp stuff!

Of course I expected a new digital release from Dead Neanderthals here, as it is annual tradition. But since that one is a tape this time, I'll just postpone the review to the next part of my cassette craze chronicles. Laziness wins. Yay!

BIG|BRAVE - Audiotree Live

Haven't watched or listened to any Audio Tree Session for a while, even though they always deliver a great production quality. That is until a couple of days ago, when I discovered that they had done a session with one of my favorite recent live bands, droning Noise Rockers Big|Brave. Their three songs here - all from the latest album "Nature Morte" make a great EP very representative of their crushing live power and emotional impact.

They could have cropped that interview sample at the end of the second track for Bandcamp though. Probably just an oversight.

BRUTUS - Audiotree From Nothing

Similar story, different band. Also three tracks, naturally a little bit shorter than the Big|Brave EP. But that's fine. Brutus are great, so this is a neat little piece of amazing Alternative Post Hardcore Post Punk Post Whatever Rock. With Stefanie's magnificient raw vocal and drums performance at its heart these around seventeen minutes absolutely slay.

CHAT PILE & NERVER - Brothers In Christ

Filthy brutal disillusioned Noise Rock deconstructivists Chat Pile are getting drunk in the afternoon and don't want us to know ("King"). Well you boys do you - as long as you keep yanking out tracks like this or "Cut"  from your gloomy Oklahomian desolateness, ok?

Their Brothers in Christ Nerver, who they share this EP with go further into a sludgy Post Metal direction and absolutely share Chat Pile's sentiment of being seriously pissed about something, oneself, everything. Nope, this split EP doesn't want you to be happy.

In this spirit let's all have a crushingly miserable new year!

BRUTUS und SONS live in Hamburg (19. November 2023)

Über achteinhalb Jahre bin ich schon nicht mehr in diesem Laden gewesen. Eigentlich würde der schätzungsweise um und bei tausendzweihundert Leute fassende Saal ein prima Location abgeben, wenn nicht so einige Kleinigkeiten im Ablauf eines Konzertabends dort komisch laufen würden, die sich zum mittleren Ärgernis addieren... Doch hier auf all dies einzugehen würde ja bedeuten zu riskieren, dass mir doch irgendwann der Name herausrutscht. Und nein, das wollen wir nicht.
Der norddeutsche Konzertgänger weiß ohnehin, dass es in Kiel und Hamburg diverse Kulturstätten beherbergende  Immobilien gibt, die sich zu Pandemiezeiten nicht gerade mit Ruhm bekleckert, sondern vielmehr mit rechtsdrehend paranoidem Verschwörungsgeschwurbel besudelt haben.

Inzwischen bemüht man sich zwar offensichtlich von verschiedenen Seiten um Reintegration in das hamburger Clubleben, doch auch bei Wechsel der Organisatoren haben sich die Besitzverhältnisse ja nicht geändert, so dass eine derbe Skepsis bleibt. Ich würde nach wie vor kein Ticket für Veranstaltungen in einem dieser Läden kaufen. Klar, im Fall von Brutus ist dies natürlich leicht gesagt, da ich sie ja wenigstens schon im April in Tilburg hatte erleben können.

Moment! brüllt der Leser jetzt, Du bist doch dort gewesen, Du Heuchler!
Ja, das stimmt. Aber auf meinem Ticket steht noch das Logo. Es war also ohnehin schon gekauft, noch bevor die Show in die größere Räumlichkeit hochverlegt wurde. Und da die Künstler ja auch nur dort hinfahren können, wo ihre Booker Ihnen eine Bühne besorgt haben, ist ihnen ja auch nichts vorzuwerfen. Von daher wäre es herzlich sinnlos gewesen, dem belgischen Tourpackage meine vorzügliche Anwesenheit zu verwehren. 


Doch von diesem unschönen Beigeschmack zu einer positiveren Nebensächlichkeit: Meine neulich auf dem Pink Tank Festival verstorbene Spielzeugdigitalkamera, welche die große Mehrheit meiner Konzertberichte der letzten Jahre bebilderte, hat bereits eine Nachfolgerin gefunden, welche blitzschnell zu mir über den großen Teich einflog. Da die Digital Harinezumi allerdings zu einem ziemlich kostbaren Sammlerstück avanciert ist, habe ich notgedrungen vom Modell 3.0 auf den Vorgänger 2.0 downgegradet. Bye bye, zehn verschiedene Farbmodi! Jetzt stehen mir nur noch Farbe oder keine Farbe zur Verfügung. Mag also sein, dass ich zukünftig ein bisschen mehr nachbearbeiten werde, falls ich z.B. verschiedene Auftritte eines Festivals optisch voneinander differenzieren möchte. Für den Moment bin ich allerdings froh, wie gut der Einstand mit ihr funktioniert hat. (Siehe alle quer- oder hochformatigen Bilder; die beiden Quadrate kommen natürlich aus dem Handy.)

Und jetzt hoffe ich, dass mir zur Musik des Abends wenigstens halb so viel einfällt, wie ich jetzt schon geschwafelt habe.. 

SONS

Es ja nicht ganz leicht, sich auf die Musik einer bisher unvertrauten Vorband zu konzentrieren, wenn einem anhand des knapp unter Kinnhöhe gespielten Basses ständig Bela B.s Forderung "Mach die Gitarre runter! Wir wollen deinen Sack nicht sehen." durch den Kopf jagt.

Zum Glück referierten Sons aber keine hirnschmelzenden musikwissenschaftlichen Dissertationen, sondern servierten dem Publikum eingängige, leicht nachvollziehbare Kost. So ganz einfach in eine Schublade zu stecken war das Quartett dabei allerdings auch nicht. Da fanden sich durchaus Spuren von traditionellem Rockstartum und Blues in einem Grundsound zwischen Alternative und Post Punk, zumeist im stimmungsorientierten Uptempo, welcher hier und dort ebenso recht psotrocktypische Leadgitarren beherbergte.

Ich muss aber zugeben, dass ich mich hier insgesamt nicht als Teil der Zielgruppe empfand. Die Gruppe war zwar nicht schlecht und störte nicht, aber ich würde mir auch kein Bein ausreißen, um sie noch einmal zu sehen. Ein etwas härterer und kantigerer Support - gerne auch im Kontrast zu Brutus' unschlagbaren Ohrwürmern - hätte mir hier wahrscheinlich besser gefallen.

BRUTUS

Ok, Brutus! Was soll ich zu euch noch schreiben, was ich nicht schon anderorts ausgeführt habe? Und das Trio tut mir ja auch nicht Gefallen, mich derbe zu enttäuschen, damit ich mal etwas Abwechslung hier herein bekomme. Nö, die bekräftigen einfach nur immer wieder und immer stärker meine Begeisterung.

Mit nur drei Alben auf dem Buckel scheint es bereits, als wäre jede beliebige Auswahl von Songs ein Best of. Ok, beinahe jede Auswahl. Ein paar Eckpfeiler wie der Opener der Show "War", mein persönlicher Topfavoritenkandidat "Chainlife" oder die das Finale bildenden Hits "Sugar Dragon" und "Victoria" erscheinen schon ziemlich unverzichtbar.
Dabei hatte ich es bis gestern am Merchstand ja sogar noch verschoben und verschlafen, mir die 2019er diskographische Mitte "Nest" überhaupt zuzulegen.

Vielleicht würden Brutus aber auch schon einigermaßen funktionieren, wenn sie das örtliche Telefonbuch (gibt's das überhaupt noch?) interpretieren würden. Solange Sängerdrummerin  Stefanie Manaerts es mit genügend Inbrunst verkauft, scheint es bei dieser immer überzeugender ihre ganz eigene lautleise Nische zimmernden Post-Allesmögliche-Band keine Grenzen zu geben. Wie sehr das aktuell betourte letztjährige Album "Unison Life" enthusiastischen Anklang quer über alle Genre-/Szenegrenzen hinweg findet, ist nur ein Indiz hierfür.
 
Natürlich läuft man immer Gefahr, den immensen Beitrag von Gitarre und Bass, die Arrangements und die Chemie der gesamten Band etwas zu gering zu würdigen, doch es ist ja, wie es ist:
Die Bühnenrand-rechts-vorne-Frontfrau ist in ihrer nach wie vor selten gesehenen Rolle bereits jetzt eine Ikone. Wie viele andere Bands verkaufen T-Shirts, auf den die Drummerin von hinten zu sehen ist und jeder weiß bescheid?
Wer schreit so ehrlich rau und schön? Wer zündet mit so viel Seele Dynamit über den Trommelfellen? Die ganze Performance scheint um Manaerts's aufbrausende und abflauende Gefühlsflut herum aufgebaut zu sein, vom sanften Ambient-Fluss zum gnadenlosen Hardcoresturzbach läuft alles irgendwie wieder bei ihr zusammen.

Nein, dass der Saal proppevoll war, kommt keinesfalls von ungefähr. Brutus zählen zu Recht zu den relelvantesten Bands der Stunde. Und tatsächlich fällt es mir trotz des locationbedingten Beigeschmacks schwer, mir das ganze Spektakel inklusive des mitgebrachten Illuminationsgeschirrs in der flachdachigen Logo-Sauna vorzustellen. Das wäre auf jeden Fall nicht nur ein Gefühls- sondern auch ein unfassbar müffelndes, glitschiges Schweißbad geworden.

Eins, zwei Stücke mehr hätte die Menge durchaus noch vertragen können, zumal die Band auch auf das übliche Wir-sind-dann-mal-weg-und-huch-da-sind-wir-wieder-Theater vor der Zugabe verzichtet hat. Doch typisch für Konzerte rund um die Reeperbahn wäre das wohl gar nicht drin gewesen. Das Publikum muss schließlich so schnell wie möglich rausgekehrt werden...

Aber ich sagte ja, dass ich diese Art Ärgerlichkeiten in diesem Bericht eigentlich außen vor lassen wollte. Also Klappe zu! Muss ja auch ein bisschen Pause haben. Denn bereits morgen steht bei mir das größte Konzert des Jahres auf dem Programm. Die Künstlerin beginnt auch mit einem B.

BANDCAMP Friday haul November 2023 feat. BRUTUS, LINGUA IGNOTA, SLIFT and THE LORD & DANIEL KUBINSKI

A new owner yet again, half of the employees laid off, among them curiously not only many responsible for editorial content, but also those running their union - there's definitely a process of enshittification going on over at our beloved Bandcamp, because it's the internet in the year 2023, so the last good things can't just stay that way.

That being said there haven't been any of the feared big potential changes for users of the platform... yet. Buying music on Bandcamp still is a thousand percent more moral than the streaming scam of Spotify, it still remains the last standing safe haven with global reach for independent artists to release digital music and sell merchandise, a place where they don't get completely ripped off and receive most of the earnings themselves. And on several first Fridays of the months during the year they can even keep the full revenue. As of now it seems that Bandcamp Fridays are still a thing, like the one that just ended proved.

I bought a couple of things. Here's the haul of my strictly digital purchases:





LINGUA IGNOTA - The End: Live at Islington Assembly Hall (2023)

The final release of Kristin Hayter under the moniker of Lingua Ignota? If she doesn't unearth or reissue some older material this will probably be it. A recording of the last show, where she played Lingua Ignota songs. It's already a different beast than the performances which supported her work until "Caligula". The music is all based on piano, there are no other noises, drones and samples, she doesn't scream as unhinged and unhealthy as when I saw her the first time at Roadburn 2019. The heart-wrenching emotional intensity of her lyrics and versatile voice, which wanders between intimate crying, operatic wailing and terrifying screeches however hasn't changed a bit.
So of course the songs all sound distictly different than their studio versions. More bearable perhaps, but definitely also fantastic, with the added feeling of relief as Hayter leaves some of the personal pain they carry with them behind.

Witnessing the fifteen songs of this show in London live must have been a unique experience - and I will admit I am an envious, because the cancellation of her previous European tour robbed me of the chance to have this goodbye in Copenhagen. (I ultimately ended up changing my Colossal Weekend visit, so that I also went on Friday instead of Sunday as intented, seeing many good shows. So ultimately I've actually made my peace with it.)

It for sure is great that we at least have this live album now. It ends with an encore of her most famous (?) cover versions: Chris Isaak's "Wicked Game" and Dolly Parton's "Jolene". What more do you need? This surely is also a great spiritual companion to hear in a row with Emma Ruth Rundle's "Engine of Hell - Live at Roadburn". 

BRUTUS - Love Won't Hide The Ugliness (2023)

A band I very much will see live again soon in its current form is the Belgian Post Hardcore trio Brutus.

They already released this new track from the "Unison Life" sessions in September, and now I finally got it too. Lively drumming, Stefanie's raw and beautiful vocals, rumbling bass, epic Post Rock guitars... this has all the qualities and can live up to anything of the album. If you love Brutus - and who doesn't? - you'll love this track, too. Even if it won't hide the ugliness.

SLIFT - Unseen (2022)

A release I slept on last year is this EP by the wild French Psych Rock trio Slift, whose coming new album you can already pre-order. "Unseen" however is an outtake from their last masterpiece "Ummon", which probably just was already full enough. Good that this Space Rock track has been published later in this way. Same thing as with Brutus: just as good as the album stuff. Maybe the vibe is a little bit different.

The B side "The Real Unseen" is a Noise improvisation, which they spontanously played directly after the song while the recording was still running. It's basically like the finale of real long and great live show, where the band just doesn't want to leave the stage. That would surely have been a little too much for the album, but here it's cool. So why not?

THE LORD & DANIAL KUBINSKI - Palliare (2023)

We're ending this haul with another single track. Drone Metal grandmaster Anderson from Sunn O))) has released yet another collaboration, this time with Die Kreuzen vocalist Daniel Kubinski.

When The Lord slows down time with the tectonic tone of his guitar you already know you have a killer foundation. Kubinski's layered vocal performance on top of it is eery, haunting, pained. All in all nothing ouside the realm of what we've come to expect from Anderson, so yes, this is of course a great tune. Brrrzzzt.

Roadburn 6x6

Maud The Moth / Brutus

Yes, I'm not done with festival content yet!

Last year I revived the Roadburn 6x6 series (=me taking 6x6 cm live shots with an Adox Golf folding camera on Ilford Delta 3200 film). This year I continued the tradition - and next year I'll probably bury it. 

Why? Well, last time I stopped after Friday, because my shutter cable was broken. This time I just wasn't feeling it enough.*
It's just a bit too much of a hassle. You always have to consider whether a show can be shot with it, then you get the thing out, you have to fumble the shutter cable out of your pocket without losing any of all the other stuff you keep in there in the process... Then you don't want to contemplate an eternity when to take your precious picture - and right after you have taken it something visually more interesting happens.

You forget to spool to the next frame after Maud The Moth, which leads to an actually very cool double exposure with Brutus. (see above) But then in a brain fart you're so determined to not do that again that you spool forward twice and waste one of your only twelve  frames.

Nah... of course I like some pictures, but I think I will rather shoot smaller shows on medium format again instead of Roadburn. Already got enough stuff on my overstimulated mind there anyway.

But that being said here's the rest of the bunch of pictures I took:

The Shits

Poison Ruin

Yrre

Judasz & Nahimana

Esben And The Witch

Julie Christmas

Bo Ningen

France

Ad Nauseam

Bell Witch

Under the Surface & White Boy Scream

* What I only realized the next morning was that after I had decided to quit shooting with the Adox I probably dropped and forgot my shutter cable in the Paradox anyway.

 

ROADBURN FESTIVAL 2023 • DAY TWO: Friday, April 21st

- Redefining Eternity:
A Journey Through Timelessness -

feat. AD NAUSEAM, BELL WITCH, BRUTUS, MAUD THE MOTH, POIL UEDA and UNDER THE SURFACE & WHITE BOY SCREAM

On Friday Roadburn began early, and as always the first band starting on one of the Koepelhal stages made the decision to see them easy, because there wouldn't be any parallel shows in the other venues clashing with it yet.

And in this particular case it was even more of a no-brainer, since my favorite album of 2021 was on the menu in The Engine Room!

Given that I still love the album like on the first day I've heard it, I naturally had no doubts that I would enjoy Ad Nauseam's full performance of "Imperative Imperceptible Impulse". Little did I know that I somehow was still underestimating the Italian band. It's a mild understatement that the uniquely tuned Dissonant Death Metal arrangements of their masterpiece are challenging, but the perfection with which the quartet pulled it off was just staggering!

I know that the acoustics of both Koepelhal stages have always been the cause of many debates, but actually most of that just sounds like people parroting what they've heard other people say. In a place that's not even designed for live music, there'll always be bad spots, but in my experience the occasions where the overall sound was actually sub-standard have been very rare so far.
I'm writing this because I've read complaints about the sound at this particular show, to which I can only say: Dude, you picked the wrong spot in the crowd! Because from where I was standing this was easily in the top five of best-sounding Death Metal shows I have ever seen!

No detail in this dynamic and complex maelstrom was missing - and even though I've praised this album over and over, I only now realized how much singer / guitarist Andrea Petucco not only utilzes Death growls, but also a traditional throat singing approach, which especially live really lends this ferociously brutal music a surprisingly introspective meditative element.
There was no need for a big stage show, because these guys just shredding through this amazing music was spectacle enough.

When the slow Avantgarde Jazz outro  of "Human Interface To No God" had ended, I realized that the unimaginable had happened: I don't still love the album like on the first day I've heard it - I love it even more now.

CLASHBURN:

Planning this day's schedule had been both easy and hard at the same time, because there were a couple of shows that were so mandatory for me, that there wasn't even a real choice. Of course it still hurt to miss Elizabeth Colour Wheel, J. Zunz, the highly laudated Backxwash show  or the complete Hall of Fame programme including - yet again! - Alice Cotton.

Until two days before the festival my plan had been to stay in the Koepelhal until the evening to watch the commisioned project Trounce and then Ashenspire, Oiseaux-Tempête, maybe Teeth Of the Sea (dropped that to be closer to the following Main Stage show)... but then - bam! - everything fell apart, because Funeral Doom Roadburn legends Bell Witch dropped their new album and its exclusive live premiere would of course be here! So that huge empty space on the Main Stage schedule was suddenly filled with far over an hour of my required attendance without discussion.

I still went to the Next Stage to catch a bit of Sangre de Muerdago with Judasz & Nahimana, but I very soon realized that between the aftermath of Ad Nauseam and the anticipation of Bell Witch I just didn't have the ease of mind for this rather folksy music and rather secured a central front row spot in front of the Main Stage, which was shielded from view with a curtain. 

When the curtain opened it revealed... a quite empty stage. On the left Dylan Desmond played bass and far over on the right Jesse Shreibman was locked into a cage of drums, percussion (including a gong) and electronic devices. So most of the stage belonged to a free view onto the dark atmospheric imagery on the screen behind them.

The 2018 performance of their 83 minute song/album "Mirror Reaper" has an extremely special place in my heart, so the Funeral Doom duo surely had a lot to live up to. And they didn't even bring a third man with them this time, because "Future's Shadow Part 1: The Clandestine Gate" is the first Bell Witch record, which doesn't feature regular guest singer Erik Moggridge aka Aerial Ruin.
As the title suggests they appearantly still haven't followed their concept to its maximum consequence, because once again the album ist one giant 83 minutes composition, but it's also just the first part of a cyclic trilogy, which will end where it started. If that means that a couple of years down the road there'll be a four hours Bell Witch show somewhere in the world, the band would really deepen their already incomparable imprint on Metal and ascend to a seldom reached plane of musical myth.

But over two-hundred or "only" eighty minutes like now, what difference does it really make for a performance, which makes you question the very concept of "now" and the steady flow of time?
Desmond and Shreibman have all the time in the world. One can play minutes long clean bass interludes before breaking out in crushing melancholy again, the other can evoke eternity with creeping organ interludes played with his feet.
Vocals - both the clerical chants and the guttural growls - have become rare in "The Clandestine Gate", yet still enough happened in this epic contemplation on stillness to keep the audience invested. The sonic and emotional depth, the world-crushing scope of Bell Witch's movements once again transcended its supposed genre. This wasn't just a Funeral Doom performance. It was a direct intervention into the laws of space and time.

As expected I needed my longest break between shows during the whole festival to process the Bell Witch experience. Finally some time to actually sit down to eat something! Nourishment becomes such a negligibility during these days...
So to my own astonishment I had only watched two shows so far after five and a half hours. But that's part of the fun: Every Roadburn day is different and unpredictable. And despite all those clashes I actually didn't feel like I was missing anything at the moment.

One of the most delicate, pristine performances of the weekend awaited me on the Next Stage, where Amaya López-Carromero played under her moniker Maud The Moth. Just synth/piano, and often beautifully looped and layered angelic vocals carried the audience far away into escapist bliss. I wish I could have seen the full show, because her dramatic Ambient ballads with Neoclassical and sometimes also jazzy influences where yet another instance of time magically standing still.
But at least I could leave with a very pleasant anticipation for her show as singer of the band Healthyliving the next day.

A lot has happened since the festival first tried to book the Belgian trio Brutus. We'll never know on which stage they were supposed to play on the Roadburn edition hat never happened, but with their recent album "Unison Life" their popularity surely has exploded and now they definitely ranked among the "big names" in the line-up. And rightfully so!

Brutus' Post Hardcore Indie Rock songs alone are already fire, but they are propelled far beyond their inherent merits by the explosive and emotional force which is singer/drummer Stefanie Manaerts. What a presence! The unconventional light show also helped to put a special stamp on this performance. Definitely a band I would love to see again rather sooner than later.

You missed the Paradox Jazz club in my Roadburn reports so far? Me too, me too. For the second year this special location was part of the festival, even though it sadly didn't have a four day programme this time, but only enriched the line-up on Friday and Saturday.

My first encounter there was the Artist in Residence Under The Surface with a purely improvisational show. The first piece was performed by the trio on drums/percussions, guitar and vocals alone, and especially the warm versatile voice of singer Sanne Rambags, who even in the context of this weekend was capable of acrobatics I hadn't heard before, set the tone for a dreamlike experience between modern Free Jazz and dramatic mystical Arabisms. Absolutely mesmerizing!

But those fifteen minutes were only the warmup for the much more out there following fourty minutes, for which the band welcomed upright bass player Nathan Wouters and experimental vocalist Micaela Tobin aka White Boy Scream on stage. And what a fantastic journey they took us on!

Even though there luckily exists decent video material on YouTube to relive the experience, this show is easily in the top three on my wishlist for "Live at Roadburn 2023" album releases. 

Afterwards I went outside and had a quick senseless walk powered by the idea that I could maybe glimpse a little bit of the Offroad action in the Little Devil, but I soon realized that this wasn't realistic if I wanted to be back in time for the next show. Plus me being unsure of the direction and my roaming in Tilburg being horribly bad the whole weekend helped to immediately return to the Paradox to close this night.

PoiL are a French Prog Rock band. Junko Ueda is a Japanese singer and satsuma-biwa (a traditional lute instrument) player. So that explains the group's name, but it doesn't even come close to answering the question how on Earth this wild combination of stunning, often polyrhythmic instrumental madness and ancient Japanese folk tales is supposed to work. Spoiler: You may never know why. But it works more than impressively!

My first contact with this group was the pre-Roadburn research for last year, when I immediately decided that I had to see them no matter what else was happening. Then they had to cancel last minute, paradoxically a relief, because it allowed me to see other great shows. But now they were booked again and I'm very glad that I stuck to the promise that I made to myself and witnessed this fascinating and also completely bonkers performance.

The combination of ancient storytelling with over the top Zeuhl-ish King Crimson Prog was a completely different grab for timelessness than what Bell Witch, Maud The Moth or Under the Surface had showcased before - and it was absolutely mind-blowing and unlike anything I've seen before.

One could gush endlessly about every band member here, but let's just keep it to 1. props to the keyboardist for playing his instrument turned towards the audience, so you could see what he was doing and 2. a big fuck yeah! for the bassist. Don't know if I've ever seen someone rock that hard on an acoustic bass before. Probably not.

I had been disciplined concerning merch the whole day, but their self-titled LP just had to go into the bag now.

reviews of the other festival days:

ROADBURN FESTIVAL 2023 • THE SPARK: Wednesday, April 19th

- Canned Beer, Chlamydia and Digestive Disaster! -

ROADBURN FESTIVAL 2023 • DAY ONE: Thursday, April 20th

- Hold Christmas Sacred! -

ROADBURN FESTIVAL 2023 • DAY THREE: Saturday, April 22nd

- Resources of Suffering, Means of Catharsis -

ROADBURN FESTIVAL 2023 • DAY FOUR: Sunday, April 23rd

- A Constructive Criticism of Jesus and Other Brave Sunday Musings -