Einstuerzende Neubauten ‘Lament’ tour live in Koko

Posted: 6th January 2015 by blaue-rosen in Live reviews,Interviews
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‘War is building itself up slowly in movements believed forgotten…’

3smallLately it is not uncommon for musicians to form their own narrative about the two major conflicts in the history of mankind. The task of reducing such a complex fact as a war to a few comprehensible and abstract ideas might seem like something easy to achieve. In fact, noise bands have already done this using their own often controversial way. However, when someone approaches this subject more wisely, showing a sincere interest for all the aspects of the subject as well as respect for the victims, then usually the result has a different quality. Zbigniew Preisner (i.e. ‘Diaries of Hope’), Max Richter (i.e. ‘Sarajevo’) and now Einstürzende Neubauten, are the musicians which, have interpreted interestingly and clearly, through music, such violent and shameful conflicts in the history of mankind
“First of all I have a problem with the term avant-garde because it’s military term, It means the guard that runs before the rest of the soldiers and if I want to see myself represented in military terms I don’t want to be part of that. I want to be one of the deserters. I want to be in the woods maybe…“(extract from an interview given by Blixa Bargeld to Andrew Lloyd Hughes of the University of Copenhagen)
Neubauten were commissioned by the authorities of Flandres to produce a music performance in order to commemorate the centenary of the beginning of WWI (this is quite unorthodox as commonly it is the end of wars that is celebrated not their beginning). This album was released a few days before the anniversary from the last battle of WWI and the band appeared live in the almost packed Koko, in London, 8 days later. Blixa Bargeld has openly admitted that he didn’t intend on been preoccupied with any of the wars and that he viewed this project mostly as a job that needed to be done. There was no support band but given the subject of ‘Lament’ and taking into consideration that this album is a complete music and theatrical performance, the presence of a support band would be a paradox. Unfortunately there was no dedicated dj for the evening and this didn’t help warm up the atmosphere during the two hours that we had been waiting for the band to appear on stage.

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Marianne Faithfull live at Royal Festival Hall

Posted: 1st December 2014 by blaue-rosen in Live reviews,Interviews
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Sieben,Fear Of The Forest, Lloyd James, Matawan live at Surya

Posted: 23rd November 2014 by blaue-rosen in Live reviews,Interviews
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A mini festival that had the cosiness of an intimate concert among friends

This was an evening that started by attending an open rehearsal of New Movement Collective at the recently RIBA awarded Rambert Dance School at Southbank. Having left from this FOTF1insightful event on time for the solo of Lloyd James I arrived at Surya, on time for Fear Of The Forest for reasons that were beyond my control. It was the first time that I was listening to Fear Of The Forest live and having been recently introduced to their music, I expected to listen to something similar to Louisa John Kroll. The final result meant to prove me wrong as the band’s positioning on stage, gave off a rather traditional feel. Coming from FOTF3Greece, the image of rebetiko bands is very strong in me, with members sitting next to each other forming a line or half a circle which opens to the audience. Fear Of The Forest had a very similar visual effect. The music, the positioning of Kate Arnold, her style and her voice, were the elements that differentiated this band from the almost old fashioned rebetiko bands of the 1950s. Jon Clayton, Nick Bieber,Chris Silvey and Mark Stefanicki,using a lot of instruments (cello, violin, dulcimer, daf) including some unusual ones (i.e. hurdy gurdy which is associated with the music traditions of Western Europe and Middle East) Fear Of The Forest played songs with soothing melodies and created a warm atmosphere that captured everyone’s attention. These melodies had elements from the music of Epirus and Crete in Greece, enriched with ethereal vocals.We listened to ‘Ordinary Man’, ‘Ruler Of Destiny, Thou Hast Spoken Words’, ‘Charlotte Anne (Julian Cope)’ before the setlist closed with a song that, sadly, referred to the singer’s own family and was called ‘Family ‘. This band’s appearance was registered with me as a very warm storytelling experience with music and I’ m looking forward to seeing them again in the near future.

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Of the Wand And The Moon, Black Light Ascension, Lloyd James (Naevus) -Live at Our Black Heart, Camde

Posted: 5th October 2014 by blaue-rosen in Live reviews,Interviews
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Songs are many headed hydras and everytime one of their ‘faces’ is cut off, another one takes its place so that another aspect of the lyrics can be revealed and stressed…

Lloyd JamesStarting at 8.30pm as it was announced, Lloyd James included 10 songs in his set list.10 hydras presented different faces compared to the recent live at Electrowerkz where Naevus as a full band, supported Kirlian Camera. This time, the set was acoustic so naturally the rhythms and the energy were lower permitting the audience to focus more on the lyrics than the performance itself. After ‘Frozen‘ and ‘Idiots(Let Me In)‘ the audience was totally absorbed by the atmosphere, almost hypnotized, but engaged in the performance. Lloyd James seemed to have intentionally removed all the passionate and dynamic elements from his singing in favour of a more detached performance. During the previous full band live at Electrowerkz, each word seemed to be dramatically significant at a perslloyd5onal level for Lloyd James.This time the lyrics were performed with a different energy, almost as if they were narrated to us by somebody who was completely detached from their meaning.This created a different setting for their listening and I personally  didn’t realise how it was that I found myself feeling  as if I was at a dead end in a seemingly suffocating environment…

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Kirlian Camera, Naevus, Rome live at Electrowerkz

Posted: 25th August 2014 by blaue-rosen in Live reviews,Interviews
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I can only begin this text by admitting that it’s almost revealing to experience a live gig which challenges and invalidates any negative preconceptions. In the 7 years that I’ve been attending live gigs in Slimelight this was the first one with such a good sound that didn’t compromise the bands’ music! I had to keep reminding myself that I was actually in Electrowerkz and not somewhere else.

RomeThis was more evident during Rome‘s performance which must have posed the biggest challenges since it was based on the acoustic guitar. As I’ve mentioned in the introductory text, it has been proven challenging for sound engineers in the past, to stress the positive elements of Rome’s music in various spaces so this time the careful sound engineering created a warm atmosphere that captured the whole audience. The sound was very clear without losing its warmth or the emotional strength of Rome’s music . The sound engineer took into account all the melodic changes within each song as well as the acoustic character of the music. The final result achieved a great balance between Jérôme’s voice and his sensitive melodies so everyone had a unique chance to enjoy and appreciate his music. Jérôme enjoyed the positive feedback and the audience found it difficult to accept the limited duration of his setlist asking him to ignore the allocated time and play more.

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Fire+Ice, While Angels Watch, Knotwork live at The Underworld

Posted: 8th August 2014 by blaue-rosen in Live reviews,Interviews
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2014 has been a year full of great live events and the list of forthcoming gigs is growing by the week. It seems as if the two mini festivals that were organised by Sowilo Media and Pax Romana Promotions at the Underworld and at The Electrowerkz, were just the beginning and my decision not to go to this year’s WGT and stay in London, was justified.

Fire+ Ice, While Angels Watch, Knotwork live at The Underworld

Even though doors opened a bit later than expected, stage times were respected and we had the chance to enjoy the music of Knotwork as they opened this mini festival. As I’ve mentioned in the introductory text, Knotwork is the side project of Michael Moynihan, Annabel Lee and Robert Ferbrache which also form Blood Axis. Knotwork have veryKnotwork_4 recently released the EP entitled ‘3×3’ which makes reference to the quarternary celtic knot. The central artwork at the cover of this LP combines forms which allude to the triskelion  and to different versions of the triple spiral at the same time, therefore its meaning could be a combination of things. However it should be taken into account that the use of circles around Celtic knots (as is the case with this artwork) seem to represent spiritual unity with the devine. If you attempt to look for the significance of celtic knots independently, you will probably conclude that they are open to interpretation even though they seem to have something in common; they signify a spiritual journey, so this would be a nice question to ask the band sometime. Listening to Knotwork’s set list I realised that their music is directly influenced by traditional Knotwork_1Irish sounds. The essence and warmth of Irish music can only be revealed during a live performance as is the case for acoustic folk music, country, blues and jazz. (more…)

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Wovenhand live at Bush Hall

Posted: 22nd June 2014 by blaue-rosen in Live reviews,Interviews
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Wovenhand photoTo be honest with you this was more an initiation ritual rather than a live gig and I enjoyed it so much that now after almost a week I still can’t stop thinking about it!

I’ve always believed that the only direct way to connect with a band is to attend at least one live gig and this live gig didn’t prove me wrong.

When it comes to Wovenhand, listening to their albums in any other way than ( during a live) only tells half the story about what this band is really about. But let me take things from the beginning…

It was the first time that I went to the Bush Hall  and the first time I was seeing Wovenhand live. The Bush Hall is a surviving example of Georgian architecture with great acoustics and it seemed to be an ideal place for the dynamic music of the band which has played live there four years ago. Unfortunately the tube’s delayed schedule didn’t allow me to arrive on time for Desert Mountain Tribe which played very briefly. This is a new and promising group and having listened to their debut EP ‘Desert Mountain Tribe’ it is obvious that their sound is classic heavy rock with an emphasis on electric guitar solos. I will be waiting to listen more from them in the near future.

When a setlist starts with such a dynamic and perfect song like ‘Hiss’ you can only expect that this will not be an ordinary live!

Wovenhand, respecting the announced stage time, appeared at 9.15 and played with a remarkable energy and passion for 1 hour and 45′. Bush Hall was almost at its full capacity and from the moment David Eugene Edwards started singing in an unknown and incomprehensible language coupled with capturing gestures, he gained everyone’s attention.

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Xiu Xiu, Blood Music live at Birthdays, London

Posted: 8th June 2014 by blaue-rosen in Live reviews,Interviews
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Blood_Music_BirthdaysStage lighting in cold electric blue tone gave no indication of what were going to experience during this gig especially from the set of Blood Music. Personally, I was utterly unprepared for the sound and emotional vibrations that the support group would spread inside the venue. With two releases so far ‘Orphee/Sea of Leaves‘ and ‘Blood Music EP‘, Blood Music’s performance seemed to fulfill a personal goal for the band and their inventiveness when it came to playing instruments in unconventional ways seemed to impress everyone. They gave their all while playing. With abstract and hypnotic vocals they created a ritual atmosphere which echoed tribal ceremonies making them sound like a combination of Haus Arafna and Mind Necrosis Factor. However, as their inventiveness developed further the band found different ways of incorporating vocals with a hip hop aesthetic to their songs. It was a pleasure watching Simon Pomery handling so many instruments and switches while also singing, even though I found myself wondering whether the electric guitar would ‘survive’ his experiments. I will be expecting to see them live again soon as they created a feeling of eagerness in me.

Xiu Xiu appeared on stage in order to set up their instruments and already Jamie Stewart seemed on edge after throwing an empty beer bottle that was left on stage right next to a person in the audience. Respecting the announced stage times, Shayna Dunkelman and Jamie Stewart begun their show by performing some sort of salute to each other at the back of the stage. (more…)

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Zbigniew Preisner/Lisa Gerrard ‘Diaries of Hope’ Live at the Barbican, London

Posted: 8th June 2014 by blaue-rosen in Live reviews,Interviews
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This concert aimed at presenting to the audience the latest album of Zbigniew Preisner and Lisa Gerrard entitled ‘Diaries of Hope’ which contains the following songs:

Front1.From the Abyss/2. Lament/ 3. Dream/ 4.In a Dark Hour/ 5. Epitaph

It was the beginning of the ‘90s when Preisner and Kieslowski visited Yad Vashem Museum in Jerusalem to see an exhibition dedicated to the children who were victims of the Holocaust. The interior was candlelit as a way of showing respect to the fragile lives of the victims. The childrens’ names together with their places of torment were heard through the song of a Cantor. The atmosphere of the place had a dramatic emotional impact on Preisner so Kieslowski encouraged him to translate these emotions and thoughts to music. (more…)

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Red Sun Revival, And Also The Trees, Eden House live at the O2 Academy Islington, 8/2/14

Posted: 8th June 2014 by blaue-rosen in Live reviews,Interviews
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A musical trip through emotional and spatial labyrinths and imaginary worlds

This was a promising gig with Red Sun Revival, And Also The Trees and Eden House sharing the stage of O2 Academy Islington. Even though I was too late and didn’t see the whole show of Red Sun Revival, I have recently listened to the band supporting Diary of Dreams at The Purple Turtle club and I must admit that I like them a lot. This is a promising band which focuses on traditional gothic music in terms of aesthetics and vocals. The electric violin, which is an instrument not commonly used in gothic music, is a very welcome addition and enriches the sound of the band while making it unique.

…when I came to your house there was noone around so I went to your room…

It’s been five and-also-the-trees-hunter-not-the-huntedyears since I last saw And Also The Trees live at the Luminaire in Kilburn. That was a more intimate concert since the space was more theatrical than O2 Academy Islington and the band didn’t have to perform between groups which were completely incompatible in terms of aesthetics and music genre.

Nevertheless, And Also The Trees are excellent musical narrators and have the unique capacity to make the audience focus solely on their music and transfer us magically to the worlds of their songs; and everybody was ready and in the mood for such musical and spiritual trips. I found myself wanting to draw sketches for each song, as the lyrics stimulated my imagination! (more…)

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