Today I picked up some friends to ride to Karlsruhe, again. It was time for GOD IS AN ASTRONAUT – a show I was looking for since weeks. Some friends told me that they would prefer DATURAH but I guess they did not know the main act well enough to judge about them or maybe they were not expecting this kind of eruptive music.
Anyway as we came to the venue it was almost sold out with 300something people so they moved it to the bigger hall of the venue. The stage had a quite low ceiling but was very wide. The bands made the decision easy to buy some merchandise and records – very nice prices (CD = 10 EUR, Shirts = 10 / 12 EUR) – too bad I managed to forget my wallet at home because Droste (from AHAB) called me to ask something about their gig in Stuttgart (they are touring with DORNENREICH) just in the moment I was leaving. Well – shit happens – and it can get even worse – a friend of mine bought the last copy of the “Far From Refuge” vinyl version from GIAA…
So let us turn over to better things: the shows of two great bands. DATURAH started with three guitars, bass and drums, screening pictures in vintage look. One guitarist played the keyboards at some parts. The result was an overwhelming intense sound with very explosive moments emerging from synthetic intros. They played a very tight set and most of the crowd was nodding with the rythm. Convincing me with a really representative cross-section of their releases DATURAH put a lot of emotions in their songs and a decent level of honesty so you could simply not resist their music.
Speaking of honesty – I did not know what to expect from GOD IS AN ASTRONAUT as some songs are really soft in the recorded version. But fortunately the guys had the courage to put up a really heavy set which was hightlighted by deeply unsettling videos of atmoic bomb detonations, spacecraft take-offs, caged animals, screaming people or praying priests. It was amazing to see and hear that a three piece constisting of drums, bass and guitar can bring up a dense wall of sound like this. Calm parts followed by eruptive heavy guitar parts getting to a climax. The precise drums were one part of it but the diversified guitar work was what made all the people dive into an own world of sound. And believe me – noone on this concert would disagree with this point. Sometimes I believed that I could even feel myself flying through the space. Just one word left: adorable music! Not to forget a very down-to-earth band with likeable announcements.
After the show everyone was trying to get some merch or some records … well … except me of course.
GOD IS AN ASTRONAUT: MySpace – Homepage – Last.fm
DATURAH: MySpace – Homepage – Last.fm
My friends from YASMINE TOURIST have sent me three tracks which are taken from “The Blue Moon” EP which will be uploaded on MySpace as final version on Monday, September 14th. I know these guys since my school days, especially mastermind Dominik Gerwald, so it was a pleasure to write something about their new songs. The version I had a chance to listen to is still the unmastered version. But anyway it sounds almost perfect due to Johnny Park from Submarien who was acting as recording engineer.
The first track is the title track “Blue Moon” with a very positive attitude – just guitars, voice and brushes. This is an approach to country music which I did not expect but without loosing the alternative music basis. The lyrics are very encouraging, the steel guitars give the feeling of freedom. To the end the song is somehow getting to a climax. First there are hardly drums but in the end there is a groovy and driving rythm and a piano / steel guitar solo with a typical country ending. “Pour yourself” is quite different with a very unique vocal line which is emphasized by a piano from time to time. Yearning lyrics are expressed by the music – again becoming more and more heavy with even electric guitars at the end and uprising vocals. But this time the song has a kind of break which ends in a great guitar solo before the song tranquilly dies away. The last song with the amazing title “Neon coloured” is spreading a melancholic mood with just a little percussion in the back. This could be a soundtrack to a Tarantino movie. I can see a man walking a road – lonely but still with strength. Again, the song is escalating. After a calm break which is making room for sentimental vocals, kettledrums are dominating over underlaying ambient synthesizers and voices whispering in the background. Crescendo – and it is over…
Conclusion: A unique alternative / songwriter band is coming the way with really outstanding piano parts, steel guitars and some unique vocal lines. So if you are interested in quite unconventional alternative music you should check out their MySpace page on Monday.
YASMINE TOURIST on MySpace: http://www.myspace.com/yasminetourist
I will put up another review fom this genre the next week – FLORIAN OSTERTAGs “The Constant Search” (Jens from Maria Records was nice enough to send it to me the last days).
Third time is a charm. Finally I had the possibility to see IRA live. It was really nice to go there after work (first usual work then mailorder work), first have a nice chat with some friends in front of the club in a warm night in late summer. A really relaxing atmosphere and a small club with a very personal setting.
LIQUID BROOM opened up. The band lately evolved from parts of the local scene. You could describe the music as typical nowadays post rock mixed with some electronic parts and a few straight-forward rock parts. Playing with a decent sound, the band often trys to sound “very post rock” but these moments are not what makes this band special. Their particularly strong moments are the erupting parts when the guitars are playing a doubled melody, but also the calm electronic moments. Maybe the band should try to combine these parts even more with their post rock sound. Anyways, painted with uv color which was emphasized by black light, they did a great show which made me dream at some points. They finished off after approx. 50 minutes when I wanted to escape the stuffy concert room for some minutes. But I will see them again for sure…
After a short gasp for breath IRA started with their set which consisted mainly of songs from their upcoming album “Visions of a Landscape” which are a bit wind down compared to older material. The sound was brilliant. If only other post rock based bands would use vocals like IRA but this is surely something that makes them very unique. Singer Tobias did a great job this night singing very emotional and nevertheless musically correct. The rest of the band did a great job as well transporting all sorrow, from time to time exploding in anger. With only six songs, each of them lasting almost 10 minutes, they built up a very own sound scape with great harmonies. I could not resist closing my eyes from time to time and simply savor the pictures the band was drawing with their songs. The sometimes very heavy guitars are often dubbed with a fragile lead melody, be it by the vocals or by one of the guitars. This was simply electrifying. After the song entitled “encore” which you can also see as live video on their MySpace site the band left the stage but came back for what this title stands for – an encore. So they played “Long live the parts”, an older song which was very very heavy in the live version. This was a felicitous finish for a great gig! I will surely come to your next show when you are around, guys…
IRA: MySpace – Homepage
Liquid Broom: MySpace – Homepage
Next live event I will be reporting from is GOD IS AN ASTRONAUT and DATURAH in Karlsruhe / Jubez, September 13th…
Feel free to comment or rate this live report! Express yourself, demand what you are missing!
Now off to bed, reading some lines and then finally sleep…
This is not only a blog which is about music – it is more about the extreme music experience in my daily life. And there are always things to write about because I have to deal every day with a huge amount of different artists, music and everything that goes along.
I wanted to put up the OPETH interview on tuesday but failed. Integrating an eBay interface into the shop system was not easy but then something went really, really wrong. I actually can’t even tell what happened. But suddenly there was only one item (DAMNABLE‘s Completely Devoted CD) all over the shop – about 35’000 times. It was meant to be updated with a price of 3.90 Euros but updated the whole database. So I had to restore the database this evening and to prepare for similar scenarios. I put up a new backup system for the web database (for those who are interested – the shop runs on a MySQL 5 database and is now backed up with MySQL Dumper, the backup is downloaded the same night to my local server). Unfortunately half of the items were still in the shop for 3.90 Euro after restoring the title etc. information. So I had to update all the date and the shop went back to normal status early in the morning (I had some hours of sleep – the update took some hours, but had to check something in the mid of the night). This is the reason why there is still no OPETH interview on the blog. I will add it the next days – be sure!
Today I was busy with a lot of other shit but also talked to some nice people which resulted in booking BLACK SHAPE OF NEXUS (post hardcore / funeral doom) for the NIGHT OF DOOM – finally, and fixing a date for CHEENO (alternative rock / metal) together with NOCH NE BAND (alternative rock) in January 2010. And with the singer of BLACK SHAPE OF NEXUS I am still trying to organize another live event – so be prepared for some news about this.
Also Stefan of GRAVEART gave me an idea about what the MySpace page of SCR will look like in the future. We started a collaboration and are now working on this as our first project we do together – and it will be great! You will hear of that guy in the future…
An old friend of mine, Dominik, just gave me some new tracks of YASMINE TOURIST for a listen. I think a will post a short review about these tracks on Friday…
Tomorrow I will be at the ZWÖLFZEHN in Stuttgart to check out IRA and LIQUID BROOM. Markus (A&R of SCR) was enthusiastic about IRAs live performance earlier this year so I am really excited about seeing them live, finally! I know the guys from LIQUID BROOM from different bands with totally different music. Of course I will report from this evening filled with finest art / alternative / post rock…
Black shape of Nexus
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