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

Danske Nætter (4/4) • FRA DET ONDE feat. EMIL NIKOLAISEN live at Musikhuset Dexter, Odense (Nov 19th 2021)

 

Fra Det Onde feat. Emil Nikolaisen

ALL FOUR PARTS OF MY DENMARK DIARY:

Danske Nætter (1/4) • SOEN and OCEAN HOARSE live in club Train, Århus (Nov 16th 2021)

Danske Nætter (2/4) • ANNA VON HAUSWOLFF live in Skt. Lukas Kirke, Århus (Nov 17th 2021)
Danske Nætter (3/4) • MYRKUR live in the Symfonisk Sal of Musikhuset Aarhus, Århus (Nov 18th 2021)
Danske Nætter (4/4) • FRA DET ONDE feat. EMIL NIKOLAISEN live at Musikhuset Dexter, Odense (Nov 19th 2021)

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After the relief of finally having figured out how the shower in my bathroom worked and eating those under-spiced scrambled eggs for the last time (hotel breakfasts are among the things which really suffer when you have diabetes), the day had a couple of unpleasant surprises in store for me. After checking out as late as possible I was on the middle of my over 20 minutes walk to the car (free parking is hard to find in Århus), when the holder of my shoulder strap broke and my travel bag smashed to the ground. After I got everything into my car I took a look at the near sailing harbour, where I discovered that the sole of my - not very old! - shoe was beginning to detach. Fuck.

Well, at least I was going to make a little detour and visit another Danish city anyway. So why not buy a couple of new shoes?

I think it was on Tuesday, between my personal church secession, buying provisions and packing, when I was first becoming aware of the Norwegian jazz trio Fra Det Onde having a gig in Odense. And since I absolutely love their debut EP, the idea of maybe adding this as another extra stop, didn't leave my head from then on. It meant maybe an hour of driving more, but then it was announced that the show was for free and it became an absolute no-brainer to go there.

And as soon as I arrived in Odense, karma was on my side again. If you just google for "free parking odense" you are shown one very specific street with maybe a dozen free parking lots at the wayside. I didn't even get there, because the last crossing was blocked by a construction site, but just before it there were a couple of free spaces, too. Not bad for the centre of the fourth biggest city of Denmark (Århus being the second biggest by the way).

 

Unfortunately I missed almost all of the good daylight for taking photographs, while I was driving, shoe-shopping and dining, so this was yet another day on which I didn't shoot many frames on film at all. So my main concern was just to take it easy and relax, until my mind and body were ready for the final show of this diversified week.

The Musikhuset Dexter is a cozy cool blues and jazz club, which didn't seem to even have a stage - until the middle wall of the room was folded together and a lot more little round tables plus the platform for the musicians appeared.
I took a front-row seat and noticed that the setup alone told you that this show was going to be a little different. Not only the drumkit was unorthodox and showcased drummer Olaf Olsen's complete trust in his cymbal stands, but what madman staples his bass gear like an upside-down pyramid?
Also a Rickenbacker bass isn't exactly the most common association which comes up when you think about jazz.

But when the show, which was split into two seperate sets with an intermission, started, it very quickly became undeniable, that there's a lot more insanity going on with Fra Det Onde than the eye can see.

Imagine an extremely free free jazz trio - drums, electric bass and trumpet, which most of time plays beyond the edge of what most people would perceive as "still music" and is mainly held together by very pronounced bass lines, while the drums just wildly swoosh around them (there's not much leading kick, which the miniature bass drum could provide anyway) and the trumpet floats and storms above both of them.

But now also imagine that those guys are just the marionettes of Emil Nikolaisen, the puppet master who live-mixes everything on stage, while manipulating the signals heavily and also adding synths here and there. It was a brilliant unhinged mess!
The long jams had moments of drone, sections of complete tohubohu, but also of unexpected smooth clarity. It was complete commitment to a creative headspace beyond any conventions, performed in a breathtaking, stunning and extremely entertaining matter.

It felt a little like applying the whole process of creating Miles Davis' electric phase albums in the mixing room to a live situation. And it also occured to me that Anna von Hausswolff's pipe organ show on Wednesday had an astonishingly similar concept, also with three players, whose signals were altered by a fourth man. What a specific coincidence!

Don't let my words be diminished by the fact that my live music year only started in September, but yes - Fra Det Onde played my favorite show of the year!

After this whirlwind the ride home was a good occasion to slow down with some funeral doom. I so seldom sit in the car long enough to listen to the whole Bell Witch "Mirror Reaper" song / album.

Afterwards I crossed the border with Clipping., refueled with Emma Ruth Rundle, and that was it. My four shows in a row November vacation. Because why not?

Tak Danmark!

FRA DET ONDE - feat. the Legendary Emil Nikolaisen

Shortly after (or in my case purchased together with) the Martin Rude & Jakob Skøtt Duo's wild melange of jazz, kraut rock, folk and electro on "The Discipline Of Assent" El Paraiso Records follows up with another session recording, which is absolutely on fire.

It's a rather short affair spinning on 45 rpm, but fuck yeah, what a jam...

FRA DET ONDE - feat. the Legendary Emil Nikolaisen (LP) (2020)

At first it seems almost unbelievable that aforementioned fire was lit surrounded by a truly Norwegian outer temperature of minus sixteen degrees Celsius.
On the other hand thinking about it a little bit longer, the need to shake off the bone-chilling cold could be a critical explanation for the relentless drive of this recording.

But don't let yourself be fooled by the powerful rawness of the drums and the thickly snarling Rickenbacker bass sound into believing that this EP has a rock music ratio even remotely comparable to the Rude / Skøtt release!

No, at it's core ninety percent of this is pure jazz! Or electric free jazz, if you want to be more specific.

And the trio of Olaf Olsen (drums), Rune Nergaard (bass) and trumpeter Erik Kimestad Pedersen plays it hard and fast and passionate, but without stepping over into hard rock territory, even though the musical backgrounds to pull that off are there. Fra Det Onde however stay very much true to the spirit of the later, "harder accessible" works of the John Coltrane Quartet and its music-historical spawn.

The production is extremely hands-on in openly affecting the music through excentric mixing choices and tickling the equipment to resound and moan. It's hard to grasp what exactly is happening here, but it is of such important that producer Emil Nikolaisen's name is in the freaking title of the EP.

The overall result at the same time exudes a traditional familiarity and an adventurous modern excitement. I can easily see myself spinning this gem back to back with the likes of Miles' "Dark Magus" oder Trane's "Meditations" without being let down in the slightest.

Or in other words: This free jazz fusion blizzard is a complete ripper!