Anna Vo & Peter Newman + Moon Wheel + Ill Winds + Justice Yeldham @ West Germany, April 18, 2012

This was another Noisekölln event, organised by Michael Aniser and Jack Dibben, and was the Berlin date of Justice Yeldham’s European tour. It was also the de facto launch of Noisekölln Tapes, the new label initiative Michael has started to go along with the various concerts and events held in the city. Nkt-001, a split between Ill Winds and Moon Wheel was on sale for the first time, and both bands played fantastic sets to celebrate.

The opening act for the night was the duo of Anna Vo and Peter Newman, who performed for the first time together at this event. Their set up combined a whole host of things, including what looked like a heavily effected table-top guitar set up and a laptop. Due to my position I wasn’t really able to see exactly what they were using, but their set was a pretty great start to the evening. Peter Newman has been in Berlin for about a year and a half, and some people may have seen him performing as part of The Holy Soul when they played with Damo Suzuki in October 2011, as well as at various other events. Anna Vo has performed and released as ANON and currently performs as The Condition. Their websites are linked at the bottom of this post.  Hopefully both will be playing together more in the future.

Next up was Swedish one man band, Moon Wheel. His set was a spaced out, fairly psychedelic affair, until near the end, where he threw down some drum samples and had the whole crowd moving. Again, because I was stuck near the back I’m not so clear on exactly what he was using, other than at least one keyboard. His track on nkt-001, “Two Chords,” is a super minimal drone piece, which clocks in at just over twelve minutes.  I really have to recommend people check out the track Four Formless Absorptions and it’s amazing video on Moon Wheel’s website (also linked at the end of this post).

Ill Winds, the duo of Australian ex-pats Jack Dibben and Jay Watkinson play a gritty kind of post punk, using bass, guitar and a drum machine. Their sound owes a lot to various aspects of the 80s punk and industrial scenes, and they write some pretty catchy songs. The last track of their set I think could well get a lot of play at my flat this summer, the rhythm is totally hypnotic and fantastic, but all of their songs had a really great, heavy groove to them. Their four tracks on the other side of nkt-001 are awesome too, well worth checking out. .

Justice Yeldham, for those who are not familiar, is an Australian artist who for the last few years has been touring the world with his visceral noise performances. Essentially, he plays a large glass shard, rigged with a contact microphone that’s run through various effects pedals. When I saw him for the first time in 2009, maybe five or six months before I left New Zealand, his set ended with him biting the glass shard he was playing into chunks before smashing the rest of it over his head. By the time it was all over, he’d almost given himself a Chelsea Grin and had blood all over his face and head. I get the impression that it’s become something of an unfortunate expectation from the audience that his set ends in bloodshed. If you listen closely to the recording, he actually asked the audience at one point who came expecting to see blood, telling those who cheered or raised their hands to go away. When I spoke to him before the show he told me that aside from giving himself some Stigmata like wounds in Paris, he hadn’t “bled on this tour yet.”

As far as I could tell his set that night kept to that theme, though it was no less intense or cacophonous for the lack of blood. His various vocal techniques combined with the pedals and even the way he moves the glass with his hands all give the impression of some sort of demonic brass player. On his facebook page, there is a pretty telling quote from Bruce Russell (of The Dead C/A handful of Dust etc. fame), ”the most exciting performer I have seen in the last three years – in fact, since I first saw Iggy Pop,” and it’s not hard to see where the comparison comes from. His interaction with the audience also reminds me of seeing the reunited Stooges play BDO a few years back, playing in the middle of the floor surrounded by the audience who all had their cameras and iphones out. My photos aren’t the best but hopefully they give you some idea of what was going on.

My thanks to everyone for letting me record and post their sets.

 

Anna Vo

http://annavo.wordpress.com/

Peter Newman

http://peter-newman.com/

Moon Wheel

http://www.moonwheel.org/

Ill Winds

http://illwinds.bandcamp.com/

Justice Yeldham

http://dualplover.com/abela/

Noisekölln

https://www.facebook.com/Noisekolln

Noisekölln Tapes

https://www.facebook.com/NoisekoellnTapes

 

 

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Iku Sakan + Supermelle + Muneomi Senju & Iku Sakan Duo @ Sowieso, April 4, 2012

This was a special show as it marked Iku’s first show back in Berlin since he returned from his tour of Asia in February and March. He quietly told me it was already show number 24 for 2012, which is a pretty good batting average for so early in the year. His tour took him through Japan, China and Malaysia, and he said he has a whole lot of recorded material from the shows which he will hopefully put up somewhere for us to hear.

His solo set was a beautiful and noticeably confident affair, using an array of sound makers through a laptop/effects rig. Several people commented that he seemed very comfortable and relaxed up on stage, almost certainly a testament to how hard he has been working, particularly in the last six months to hone his solo performances.

Supermelle is the alias of Danish artist Anders Lauge Meldgaard, who also performs as Frisk Frugt. Under the Supermelle moniker he performs on a home-made flute organ, which had people crowded around it before the show had even started. I tried to take some decent photographs to show how it worked. He explained that the keyboard worked as a sort of controller for the block of flutes and pipes he had put together, all operated by an air pump quietly whirring behind the stage curtain. His frenetic but muted performance is uploaded here for your listening pleasure.

The final set of the evening, and I know I have a habit of saying this, was one of the best concerts I have seen in a long time. The duo of Iku Sakan on laptop/processing and Muneomi Senju on percussion (whose resume includes performances with Boredoms, Merzbow, Bill Laswell and Arto Lindsay among others) played an incredible show. I’m not even going to try and write something sensible about it, just listen to it and you’ll see.

Thank you, as always, to all the artists for an amazing show and for their kind permission in letting me upload their performances here.

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Brabrabra + Futaba Nakayama & Tatsumi Ryusui @ Ä-Bar, March 28, 2012

“You have NEVER seen a real rock show until you see Brabrabra play live…”

On a chilly Wednesday night at Ä-Bar, a large crowd came to see two amazing but very different groups play at Ä’s regular Wednesday night concert series. While watching soundcheck, a friend told me that this night usually fills out the performance room, and it seems to be emerging as a great night of music for a whole variety of different sounds.

First up was the power trio of Federica Rossella (guitar, bass, vox), Susanna Trotta (keys, bass, vox) and Saiko Ryusui (drums/percussion) with their band Brabrabra, who ripped through an awesome set of shameless pop gems. Their set closer “Lack of God,” an ear-splitting atheist anthem was the perfect end to a very special set. As Federica herself so aptly put it…. “it’s our first concert without glasses.”

The second set of the night was the remarkable duo of Futaba Nakayama and Tatsumi Ryusui. While Futaba played miniature guitar and sang, Tatsumi accompanied on electric guitar and effects (including adding effects to Futaba’s vocals at times and looping percussion). For some ridiculous reason, I set the recorder up wrong and so my recording only captured the first couple of tracks. Should I be able to track down any more audio I will upload it here.

Additional video of Brabrabra:

Braces

Cauliflower is nothing but Cabbage with a college education

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Istanbul Part II: Will Gresson + Tatsumi Ryusui + Du Champ @ Deform Müzik, March 16, 2012

Having had such a crazy time getting to the first show in Istanbul, we figured getting to the second show would be fairly easy; that was until we realised that all three of the addresses that we had for the record store were totally wrong and got lost on the main Boulevard of the city for about 40 minutes, gear in tow. The super friendly guy running our hostel told me quietly that at this time of year it’s pretty quiet, and only about 4 million people go through the main street every day, as opposed to the usual 6 million in summer (when I pointed out that there are only about 4 million people in the whole of Aotearoa, he thought it was hilarious).

That being said, we did eventually find Deform Müzik; an awesome little record store tucked away down a little side street, and stocked with the kind of spoils that made me desperately miss my days as a record collector. Ozan, the man in charge, was incredibly cool and made us feel right at home in Deform’s cosy little performance space. We also realised that he used to flat with a good friend of ours who is now based in Berlin as well, and has appeared several times on this archive. Small world.

This show is a little difficult for me to write about, because it was the first solo set I had played in just over two years. In fact, it was the first solo set I’d played since I met Federica and we formed Fausto Maijstral together in February 2010, so I have to confess I felt a degree of pressure about the whole thing. Sadly, the recording didn’t come out so well, but I have included here anyway; a short guitar tribute to Roy Montgomery (a guitar hero of both Federica and myself).

Whereas Tatsumi’s first set at Peyote was a meditative, ambient one, his performance here was a noisier and much more raw affair. The recording came out nicely, though watch out for the odd feedback burst if you happen to be listening on headphones.

Du Champ’s set was one of the best I have heard her play, a totally cohesive flowing soundscape performed with baritone guitar and voice. She is busy recording for her first tape, and has some other exciting shows coming up in the future which I seriously recommend you check out.

The evening was capped off with stuffed and fried mussels at a little place on one of the bustling alleys which come off from the main drag in Istanbul. In our quest to find a good nightcap, Federica insisted we check out a bar upstairs from the main street, where a local band was tearing through songs (I couldn’t say if they were originals or covers as they were all sung in Turkish) in a style which I can only describe as Creed-lite. I managed to miss the highlight of the night because I was in the bathroom, but somehow Tatsumi knocked over Scött Stäpp’s music stand as an overenthusiastic bar maid tried to deliver him a Tequila shot, resulting in a pretty awkward situation where for a moment the tipsy bar maid/fan looked like the culprit. Tatsumi says it was an accident, but I think he was trying to do us all a favour.

Once again, I want to express my gratitude to Federica, Tatsumi, Susanna, Saiko and Ozan for an amazing night.

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Istanbul Part I: Tatsumi Ryusui + Fausto Maijstral @ Peyote Club, March 14, 2012

This two-part entry is the result of a small tour which took place between March 13-19, when Fausto Maijstral, Tatsumi Ryusui and two other close friends took a much needed break from Berlin and travelled to Istanbul, Turkey. Along the way we took advantage of the opportunity to perform outside of our usual haunts, and two shows were organised at Peyote Club and Deform Müzik.

Peyote Club is the famous home of experimental music in Istanbul, and it’s a fantastic venue. The crew are a very dedicated and professional group of people helping to foster the small scene in Turkey for the sorts of music documented here, and the venue itself is a really well organised space with great sound and a really comfortable stage set-up. With that said, there is virtually no way for me to write this entry without breaking the fourth wall a bit and explaining that getting to Istanbul from Berlin is not as easy or stress free as one might imagine, despite the multiplicity of links between those two cities…

Our initial plan was to travel via Riga on Air Baltic, which would save us a bit of cash and get us to the city at around 3pm, plenty of time to take a nap and get settled before soundcheck at around 8pm or so. (When I say ‘our’ I mean Federica and myself, the other three flew a day earlier and had no problems at all). Due to a delay in Berlin however, we missed our connection in Riga by about 20 minutes, and found ourselves stranded in Latvia with no other flights heading to Istanbul until the next day. Joining us briefly was an elderly gentleman from Germany who told us he was supposed to be in Istanbul to meet someone, and was then meant to drive 300km out of the city that same evening. He was whisked away by a member of staff not long after however to collect his baggage which fortunately had also missed the connecting flight, and we didn’t see him again after that.  After much confusion and delay, and completely thanks to the fearsome and heroic negotiating of Federica, we were able to secure another route…..via Moscow.

I have always wanted to go to Russia, and there was something amazing about seeing the Kremlin out of the plane window, although sadly we only had an hour in the airport before jumping on our connecting flight. Federica did manage to eat some authentic Russian airport food though. After catching a nap and another weird flight (complete with drunk passengers singing loudly despite being told repeatedly to shut up), we finally arrived in Istanbul (late again, I might add) to a flurry of nervous texts asking us if we would make it to sound check in time. The last part of our ridiculous adventure came in the form of a mad dash in a taxi from Atatürk Airport on the western outskirts of the city to the district of Beyoğlu, almost on the very edge of the Bosphorus Strait where Europe meets Asia. Federica and myself are both guilty of the same tendency of switching from English into German as soon as we meet someone who clearly isn’t an English speaker, which is fine in Berlin but obviously totally useless in Istanbul. I felt a certain degree of pity for the poor, clueless taxi driver, who clearly had no idea where or what Peyote was (at one point he looked at our small Google Maps print out and asked desperately: ‘hostel?’).

Our bizarre travels completed, we arrived in time to do a muddled but actually quite professional sound check. Tatsumi then played what I personally think is one of the most beautiful sets of music I have heard him perform, and Federica and I managed to get through our show in one piece. For both sets, Peyote had a dedicated video artist doing live video mixing behind us, which you can see in some of the photos. There is also a small, and slightly one-sided video edit on Vimeo which is linked at the end of this as well; the cameraman was clearly captivated by Federica’s commanding stage presence.

I personally want to thank Federica, Tatsumi, Susanna, Saiko and the people at Peyote for one of the strangest but also most enjoyable shows I’ve ever been part of.

 

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Krapoola + Fausto Maijstral @ Madame Claude, February 13, 2012

Madame Claude’s Experimontag night is possibly the best show to get in Berlin for an emerging band/solo artist making the kind of music which is featured on this archive. The regular crowd are always open to strange approaches and it has the added bonus of being one of the better paid gigs in the city.

When I first moved to Berlin, I was able to secure a show there within a couple of weeks. It was not only my first performance in the city, but also my first solo set ever. Halfway through, a power surge momentarily cut the electricity to my pedal board, meaning the huge, multi-layered loop which I had been building through the first half of the set was wiped and the room was thrown into silence. Fortunately for me, most of the room seemed to think it was intentional and started applauding, with only my close friends noticing my concern. That being said, at the end of the night, I walked away with a handful of cash and some pretty useful insights into performing shows in this city.

Since then, I have played three more shows at Madame Claude, all of which have thankfully gone a lot smoother than the first attempt. This particular evening was interesting not only because of the two different sets, but also because it again showed how the community within Berlin functions, with only a degree or two of separation at most between performers.

Krapoola is a one-man project from Spain, who I have seen twice before; once in 2010 playing at Staalplaat’s basement space, and then again last year playing alongside Iku Sakan at Loophole. Both times he used a custom built instrument which essentially seemed to consist of an old office fan with various pieces of metal and wire coming off it, and obviously with some sort of contact mic/delay pedal rig built in.

For this show at Madame Claude however, Krapoola appeared with a different instrument, although obviously similar in conception, and a whole different set. Gone was the harsh metallic squall, instead replaced by a more broken, percussive and almost rhythmic pallet of sounds, which was totally engaging and dynamic. This new set up was built into a small suitcase, with various wires and springs hanging off which could be manipulated and amplified with some fairly unexpected results. Rather than try to describe the sound in detail, you should listen to it, and as always my thanks go to Krapoola for his permission to post his set.

The second set of the evening, and Fausto Maijtral’s second set in almost as many weeks, received some of the most interesting feedback I think I have come across. One friend was overheard telling the band the following:

Essentially she had been standing to the left of the stage, when she felt a strange movement to her right. When she looked next to her, through the darkness, she could make out a couple locked in a fairly heated embrace, kissing and grinding up against each other. Deciding that this was a little too enthusiastic a response, she moved to the right of stage to stand next to another friend of the band, only to realise that further to her left was another couple doing the exact same thing, sweating profusely and lost in the throes of passion. She concluded that the deep bass sounds were obviously driving these young, lustful crowds into a furious passionate frenzy and has since announced plans to write an essay for the next edition of her publication on the romantic consequences of experiencing a Fausto Maijstral show.

Bless.

As a special bonus for this entry, I have also included four photographs of Fausto Maijstral taken by Tanya Mar, an amazingly talented friend of the band’s who is responsible for most of the live images of the band since the beginning of 2012.

More of her photography can be found here: http://www.tanyamar.de/

 

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Black Vacation + Fausto Maijstral + Drekka + Canid @ The Zone, January 22, 2012

This event was organised by Michael Aniser through Noisekölln, and was the Berlin date on Drekka and Canid’s 7 week European Tour. This was my first experience at The Zone, a newish venue located on Reuter Strasse in Neukölln, and it is easily one of the best spaces I have come across in Berlin. The people working there were super enthusiastic and supportive, Michael and Australian sound-guy extraordinaire Jack Dibben ensured that everything about the night ran smoothly, and Gaia’s Korean chicken wings hit the spot at THE crucial moment during soundcheck.

Opening up the evening was Black Vacation, a one man project from Brisbane, Australia, who performed three fantastic, haunting little numbers using guitar, voice and one lone line-6 delay pedal. Sadly due to my poor judgement in positioning the recorder, the sound quality of the first two tracks is a bit rough, but the third track came out much better. Look out for more shows in Berlin in the future, Black Vacation is definitely worth seeing.

The second performance of the night came from another Berlin based act, Fausto Maijstral, who are gearing up to play in Istanbul in March. As usual I don’t have too much to say about this band, but I will say that as far as the band was concerned, this show was one of their favourite gigs since forming…or so I was told….anyway…

Drekka, the alias of Michael Anderson of Bloomington, Indiana, performed third utilising an intense collection of samples, pedals, found sounds and objects, to create a pretty incredible set. Michael had earlier confided that the day before he had suffered food poisoning, and that as a result the ensuing show was going to be a more sedate affair. Sedate seemed fairly accurate but it was certainly no less engaging for the tone he set.

Colin Jenkins’ one man project Canid provided the final set of the night, using a slightly smaller array of tapes and pedals, but delivering no less of an engaging cacophony of sounds. He told me before his set that it would be the first appearance with his new micro Korg and in my opinion, his use of it near the end was the highlight of the set. Apparently I wasn’t alone in this as I saw a close friend of mine start dancing and waving her arms around in time with the music, and she was understandably keen for an encore when the set came to an end.

I have to say a huge final thank you to everyone involved in the event. The artists were fantastic, the crew behind the scenes were brilliant and the audience was really receptive. Definitely a good start to the year.

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Proto Hills @ Ä-Bar, January 18, 2012

As I have said before, I generally only post shows that I have been to myself. With that said, I was particularly disappointed that I couldn’t make it to the second ever Proto Hills show, particularly since the first show last year as part of a Noisekölln event is still one of the most memorable nights of live music I have ever experienced (and actually one of the best nights I have had since I moved to this city… ).

For this second show, Proto Hills appeared as a two-piece featuring Theo Rahkun from I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream and Jaike Colour Teevee from A History of Colour TV. Both bands are known for their guitar-heavy, shoe-gazing tendencies, and this set at Ä-Bar on a chilly Wednesday evening was a marked departure from their visceral, performance-art-leaning first show.

Sadly I have no images for this set, only a link to Theo’s soundcloud which he very kindly gave me permission to embed here.

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Utku Tavil – Northern/Central European Tour, January, 2012 (Solo and w/ NOTR)

Some of you may recall that last year I posted a couple of shows from Utku Tavil, a young Turkish nomad who plays in a variety of constellations throughout Europe. This past January he was involved in a massive tour performing solo and with his trio NOTR, and he has very generously given me a huge collection of recordings and videos to share through the archive. Most of the information below is from Utku himself.

17 days / 16 performances / 15 cities

10.01 Utku Tavil AV + Fyst @ Sound of MU (Oslo, NO)
11.01 w/NOTR + Britt Pernille Frøholm @ Pir 6 (Kristiansand, NO)
12.01 Utku Tavil AV + Fyst @ Cafe’ Humbug (Stavanger, NO)
13.01 Utku Tavil AV + Fyst @ Nobel Bopel (Bergen, NO)
14.01 w/NOTR + Britt Pernille Frøholm @ Kunstlåven i Seljord (Seljord, NO)
15.01 Utku Tavil AV + Fyst @ Telemarks Galleriet (Notodden, NO)
16.01 w/NOTR + Britt Pernille Frøholm @ Buskerud Folkehøgskole (Heimtun, NO)
17.01 Utku Tavil AV + Fyst @ Risøy Folkehøyskole (Risøy, NO)
18.01 Utku Tavil AV + Fyst @ Fairbar (Aarhus, DK)
19.01 w/NOTR + Britt Pernille Frøholm @ Loophole (Berlin, DE)
20.01 w/NOTR + Britt Pernille Frøholm @ AZ Kalk Köln (Cologne, DE)
21.01 Utku Tavil AV feat. G.Dilek Acay + Fyst @ Gallerie Eigenheim (Weimar, DE)
22.01 Utku Tavil AV + Fyst @ Transporter (Vienna, AT)
24.01 w/NOTR + Britt Pernille Frøholm @ Dokapi-Kunst Universität Linz (Linz, AT)
25.01 Utku Tavil AV + Fyst @ Sucked Orange Gallery (Berlin, DE)
26.01 w/NOTR + Britt Pernille Frøholm @ 1000fryd (Aalborg, DK)

Utku Tavil AV, Stavanger, Norway, January 12, 2012
Excerpt from solo AV performance at Cafe’ Humbug.
Filmed by Letitia Lehner

NOTR, Seljord, Norway, January 14, 2012
Excerpt from the concert with NOTR at Kunstlåven i Seljord.

NOTR, Berlin, Germany, January 19, 2012
Full concert recording of NOTR performance at Loophole.

NOTR, Cologne, Germany, January 20, 2012
Excerpt from the concert with NOTR at AZ Köln Kalk
Filmed by Sigurd Ytre-Arne

Utku Tavil feat. Gokcen Dilek Acay, Weimar, Germany, January 21, 2012
Excerpts from Utku Tavil AV feat. Gokcen Dilek Acay at Gallerie Eigenheim.

Utku Tavil AV, Vienna, Austria, January 22, 2012
Excerpt from solo av performance at “Well Gedacht 4″ at The Transporter.

NOTR, Aalborg, Denmark, January 26, 2012
Amateur footage shot at 1000fryd.

Utku Tavil AV
Solo audiovisual improvised performances.
The video footage was shot by Utku Tavil and manipulated on stage.
The audio is generated by using computers and some DIY hardware.
http://www.vimeo.com/utkutavil

G. Dilek Acay, who joined Utku in Weimar, is a classically trained violin player, vocalist and conceptual artist, who is about to finish her diplom degree in Free Art in Bauhaus University, Weimar. She is a former member of one of Turkey’s most important free improvisation ensembles, Islak Köpek, and a member of Limbo (a trio with Giray Gürkal and Utku Tavil).

NOTR is a trio comprised of:

Bjørn Strand: Baritone Guitar, FX
Sigurd Ytre-Arne: Electronics, Synths
Utku Tavil: Drums

NOTR was born before Bjørn Strand and Sigurd Ytre-Arne had even met Utku Tavil in person. After a virtual encounter between Utku Tavil and these two Norwegian musicians, who were already involved in several projects together (Tonulenul, kAOS, Telemark Lydkammer etc…), they decided to work together and form NOTR, and shook hands for the first time at the soundcheck of their gig at Café Mir in Oslo. After this first real encounter, NOTR was ready to move forward. Since then, they have played in several cities in Norway, Denmark, Germany, Austria and Italy.

Strongly influenced by the Norwegian improv. and noise scenes, their music moves between extremes; from the buzzing sounds of the amps and the whispers of the audience to something that even harsh noise musicians can’t handle for a very long time.
http://www.utkutavil.com/music/notr

 

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Tatsumi Ryusui @ Madame Claude, January 16, 2012

Two days after his performance as half of Tatsemme at General Public, Tatsumi performed a rare solo set at Madame Claude’s legendary Experimontag night. Using a collection of pedals (including a special phaser borrowed from a friend), small objects, contact microphones, electric guitar and bowed saw, he performed a beautiful ambient set, ably assisted as usual by the fantastic Madame Claude sound man behind the mixing desk.

Due to my position in the room, the photos don’t really show how interesting Tatsumi’s equipment set up was, but frankly the sounds were so good it doesn’t really matter.

Oh, and as an added bonus, it was also Tatsumi’s birthday. Happy birthday Sir!

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