Category Archives: Ether

Ether column, January 2009

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Let’s start the year in barnstorming style with a concert by British soul and jazz singer Sarah Jane Morris, who will surely blow away your post-Christmas blues with her impassioned style of singing and resonant contralto voice. Morris has an impeccable pedigree. She first came to prominence in the early 80s as a member of The Happy End, a 25-strong musical collective who were energised by the repressive political climate of Thatcher’s Britain. They sang Bertolt Brecht songs, Maoist workers’ anthems and South African township jazz, and played endless benefit gigs for striking miners and the left-wing Greater London Council. Later, Morris found fame as guest vocalist with British gay pop duo the Communards, singing on their massive 1986 hit “Don’t Leave Me This Way.” She also gave a stunning performance in the role of the Chorus in the 1991 studio recording of Peter Hammill’s opera The Fall of the House of Usher. In recent years she has released a string of solo albums and collaborations with other musicians, always highlighting the richness of her voice, which she likes to describe as “Nina Simone meets Janis Joplin.”

Moving a little further into left field, say hello to American songwriters Mark Lanegan and Greg Dulli, a.k.a. The Gutter Twins. These guys have long and successful histories of involvement in the post-punk and grunge scenes, Lanegan with Screaming Trees, Dulli with the Afghan Whigs. Since their groups split up in the early 2000s, both Lanegan and Dulli have pursued idiosyncratic paths. Alighting on a polished and evocative brand of alt.rock, Lanegan has collaborated with former Belle & Sebastian waif Isobel Campbell and recorded a number of acclaimed albums under his own name. Dulli has recorded both under his own name and under the rubric of the Twilight Singers. Given their parallel paths, it was inevitable that Lanegan and Dulli would one day work together, and sure enough, the Gutter Twins emerged with an album, Saturnalia, in early 2008. Likened by Dulli to “the satanic Everly Brothers,” the Twins are a raw and confessional delight.

Finally, British art-punk legends Wire descend into the pleasantly distressed surroundings of the Fluc Wanne for an evening of uncompromising sonic attack. Wire have been an on-off concern ever since forming at the height of punk in 1976. Despite displaying many of the standard punk trademarks, such as short songs and a healthily anti-establishment attitude, their music has retained a sense of artistry that has seen them feted on the arthouse and festival circuit. Now without founder member Bruce Gilbert, Wire continue to make a strong impression with their enigmatic lyrical content and effects-heavy guitar-based sound.

Go Rapid!

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(A rare non-music piece…)

With my son and I having become regulars at the home games of Rapid Vienna this season, it’s my fervent hope and expectation that they will run out champions of the Austrian Bundesliga this year. The men in green and white have been in scorching form of late, with their recent run of scorelines telling its own story: 5-2, 5-1, 5-0, 8-1… At the time of writing they are a mere three points behind leaders Salzburg in the table, with plenty of time to make up the deficit before the end of the season.

There are of course two Bundesliga teams in Vienna, but Rapid’s deadly rivals FK Austria, who play at the Horr Stadion in the 10th district, need not concern us for long. Connoisseurs of the beautiful game are advised to head instead for the Gerhard Hanappi Stadion near Hütteldorf station, where around 18,000 committed fans make their way each week to see Rapid play their exciting, attacking style of football.

Rapid’s star striker, the 6’8” Stefan Maierhofer, has had a stunning season so far, scoring 18 goals in 20 games. He forms a highly effective partnership with the team’s captain Steffen Hofmann, who creates frequent chances in the air for Maierhofer and displays a Beckham-like precision with free kicks.

There’s a certain choreographed beauty to the activities of Rapid’s hardcore fans, the Ultras, in the west stand of the stadium during a game. They let off flares, sing intricate chants and display fiercely worded banners declaring their fervent devotion to the team. On match days the streets around the stadium are thronged with real Viennese; this is about as far from tourist Vienna as it’s possible to get.

(originally published in Ether Magazine)

Ether column, December 2008

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For once I don’t have any concerts at all to recommend in Vienna this month; there just doesn’t seem to be much going on here as the year draws to a close. Come with me instead, then, to Bratislava, where those willing to make the short journey across the Slovakian border will be rewarded with a festival featuring some of the key names in European experimental music.

Regular readers of this column will not be surprised to learn that my top tip for the Next Festival is the German free improvising saxophonist Peter Brötzmann, here performing in his well established power trio with bassist Marino Pliakas and drummer Michael Wertmueller. By the end of this year Brötzmann will have played over 100 gigs in Europe, Japan, North and South America, a remarkable achievement for a musician of any age, let alone one of 67 whose performances are as high-energy and draining as this man’s are. But that is Brötzmann’s way: to play until he can play no more, because there’s nothing else for him to do.

Other artists appearing at the festival this year include Phil Minton, Ilpo Vaisanen and Hildur Gudnadottir. Minton is a great English eccentric, a free improvising vocalist who has spent the last thirty years exploring the possibilities of the human voice as a sound source. In Bratislava he will be presenting his unique Feral Choir project, a workshop followed by a performance with non-professional singers. As Minton says, “anyone who can breathe is capable of producing sounds that give a positive aesthetic contribution to the human condition.” Vaisanen is one half of Finnish electronic duo Pan Sonic, a forbiddingly loud and fierce unit who blend industrial-strength drones with ear-bleeding techno rhythms. When I lived in London in the early 90s I once spent a memorable evening watching them drive around an empty car park in an armoured vehicle which had been kitted out with a massive speaker system and was spitting out wave after wave of abstract noise. It made a lot of sense at the time.

Gudnadottir is a classically trained cellist from Iceland. She played on Pan Sonic’s most recent album and also arranged the choir that graced In the Shadow of the Sun, the live soundtrack to a film by the late Derek Jarman which was performed by Throbbing Gristle at the 2007 Donaufestival in Krems. She, Vaisanen and Dirk Dresselhaus (a.k.a. Schneider TM) will be performing together at the festival as Angel, a collaborative project which has so far released two albums on Peter Rehberg’s Editions Mego label. And that’s your lot for 2008.

Ether column, November 2008

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The Vienna Songwriting Association are a fine group of individuals who promote concerts of folk and acoustic music all year round in this city. As well as this, every November they put on a three-day festival of internationally known artists, the Bluebird Festival, at Porgy & Bess. There are some great names at this year’s event, such as Okkervil River playing almost a year to the day since their last appearance in Vienna. I raved about them in my November 2007 column, so let’s talk instead about one of my all-time musical heroes, American singer and songwriter Michael Gira. Gira initially made his name as the driving force behind Swans, a crushingly loud and formidable outfit who emerged from the creative ferment that was early ’80s downtown New York. When they first came to public attention, Swans presented a vision of rock music as a form of abjection, with bone-crunching percussion to the fore and lyrics that focused relentlessly on traumatic explorations of work, sex and the body. Over the years they gradually let the light in, bringing softer and more acoustic textures into their music. After Gira ended Swans in 1997 he began a new project, the Angels of Light, which placed even more emphasis on acoustic elements. In all of these incarnations, however, Gira has never swerved from an implacable belief in the atavistic power of the song. Straining with every muscle and sinew of his body, he sings with immense authority and commitment, every moment of his performance filled with tenderness and rage. This rare solo appearance by one of rock music’s most exceptional talents should on no account be missed.

Early next month, soulful British group Tindersticks stop off in Vienna on their first tour in several years. Like many others, I had doubted that they would ever return to active service. Over 15 years and seven albums, Tindersticks have perfected a literate and highly listenable blend of alternative rock, chamber music, soul and jazz, defined by rich string-laden orchestrations and the desolate croon of singer and lyricist Stuart Staples. Having released nothing new since 2003 and with rumours of a split rife, their story seemed on the brink of an end; to my great pleasure, however, they are back with an excellent new album, The Hungry Saw. Although three of the original members have now left, the new album is a worthy addition to the group’s catalogue and will no doubt be subjected to passionate live treatment. Staples is an enigmatic figure, rarely speaking onstage and often seeming to be transported elsewhere as he performs; he has remained tight-lipped about the reasons for the split. But the group bring a marvellously intuitive sense of drama and mystery to their songs, with violin, brass and organ enveloping the listener in a warm and tender embrace.

The sad story of the Sofiensaal

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Living near Landstraße station in the third district of Vienna, it’s a fairly common sight to see little groups of tourists clutching maps, gamely trying to navigate their way through the area’s quiet, densely laid out streets. It’s a safe bet that they’re on their way to that gaudy and fanciful construction, the Hundertwasserhaus. But if they’re lucky along the way, they’ll chance upon the remains of a building that has its own, sad story to tell – a story that resonates powerfully with the cultural identity of Vienna.

In 1826 Franz Morawetz commissioned a new building from the architects August Sicard and Eduard van der Nüll (who were later to design the Vienna Opera House together – van der Nüll being so distressed by criticism of its sunken appearance that he committed suicide). Located at Marxergasse 17, it was originally a steam bath and known as the Sofienbad – named after Princess Sophie of Bavaria, the mother of Emperor Franz Josef I. The Viennese, however, did not take to steam bathing as those in Budapest had done, and between 1845 and 1849 the Sofienbad was converted into a concert and dance hall and renamed the Sofiensaal. Johann Strauss I performed there regularly and conducted at the opening ball in 1849. Later, many of the Strauss family’s waltzes were first performed there. In 1886, a second smaller hall was added, the Blauer Salon.

The building’s origins as a steam bath – principally its large, vaulted ceiling and the pool beneath the floor – gave the hall excellent acoustic properties. For this reason, Decca Records adopted the building as its principal European recording venue from 1956 to the mid-1980s. The senior producer of classical recordings for the company for much of this time was John Culshaw, who revolutionised the recording of opera. Culshaw’s innovation was to make the singers move about in the studio as they would onstage, in contrast to simply putting microphones in front of the performers as was common practice at the time. Notable recordings made at the Sofiensaal during this period included the first complete studio recording of Wagner’s Ring Cycle, conducted by Georg Solti, which was received with great acclaim.

In later years the Sofiensaal fell into disuse as a recording studio and was used for discos and parties. The last recording made there, in 2001, was of the Russian pianist Arcadi Volodos playing solo piano works by Schubert.

In early 2001, the building’s owners announced plans to redevelop the Sofiensaal as a conference centre. However, it was destroyed by fire in August the same year, apparently due to careless routine maintenance work. The fire burned for more than eight hours and completely destroyed the main ballroom, although the facade and walls of the building survived. Some of the decorative stucco work on the walls survived the fire, as did the Blauer Salon. There were no reported deaths or injuries.

Unprotected from the elements since the fire, the Sofiensaal has been in a sad state of gradual decay. Earlier this year, after much legal wrangling, plans were finally announced to redevelop the site and turn it into apartments [December 2008 update: the latest plans are for a hotel]. It’s a shame that in a city so full of cultural activity, it’s apparently out of the question that this once glorious building could return to its former use. What’s even more poignant is that the collective experiences of music and dance are to be ceded to the demands of contemporary urban living. Let’s hope that the shades of Strauss, Schubert and Wagner will one day float over the new Sofiensaal, bestowing upon its fortunate occupants the melodic echoes of its past.

Making a Szene

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As regular Vienna rock and pop concert-goers will know, there are few better places to experience live music in this city than the Szene Wien. This year, however, has seen a change of management and a clash of cultures at the Szene that raises questions about the city’s commitment to alternative forms of artistic expression.

Over the past 20 years or so, this 500-capacity hall in the far-flung environs of the 11th district has established itself as the most reliable and respected medium-sized rock venue in the city. The Szene received a shot in the arm in 2000 with the extension of the U3 eastbound to Simmering. Before then it was a pain to get to by public transport, requiring a lengthy journey on the snail-like tram 71. But even in those days audiences would make the effort to get there, attracted by the friendly alternative vibe of the place, the excellent acoustics in the hall, the simple but reliable home cooking available at the bar and the large unkempt garden at the back. Above all, though, people went to the Szene because of the music, an eclectic mix of indie rock, avant-garde noise, world music, hip-hop and reggae. The Szene was controlled from City Hall and given generous levels of funding which allowed its defiantly uncommercial programming to continue. And the city operated a light-touch policy, enabling the local management team to concentrate on building a remarkable level of loyalty and goodwill among audiences.

One kind of music that was rarely heard at the Szene was heavy metal. However, fans of this eternally unfashionable genre were happily catered for across town at Planet Music in the 20th district. Even more of a challenge to reach by public transport than the Szene, Planet Music was by any standards a dingy and unattractive place – the only venue in Vienna that conformed to the British model of ugly, smelly halls covered in sponsorship logos, with unfriendly staff and crap, overpriced beer served in flimsy plastic glasses. For years the place subsisted on a diet of metal gigs, tribute nights and battle-of-the-bands contests, with occasional forays into alternative rock and pop. Those few exceptions were invariably poorly attended, unsurprisingly so given Planet Music’s image and reputation. When experimental folk pioneers Six Organs of Admittance played there earlier this year, no more than 50 people turned up; had they played at the Szene instead, the place would have been bursting at the seams. Ironically, these two diametrically opposed venues were set on a collision course.

Back at the Szene, the city funders were getting worried. Audience numbers were down from 32,000 in 2004 to 27,000 in 2007, a decrease of 15%. Only 44% of the Szene’s available nights were being utilised. Hard commercial realities were beginning to intrude, and in May 2008 the city took drastic action. They brought in the Planet Music management team, led by experienced music industry insider Josef “Muff” Sopper, to run the Szene. Under Austrian employment law, the new management would have been obliged to retain the Szene’s existing staff for a period of time; however, the existing staff chose not to work with the new management, and instead resigned en masse. Planet Music the venue closed down (a loss that few will mourn) and transferred its operations to the Szene.

As a result the Szene’s programme is changing significantly, and with it the character of the venue. There has been an influx of heavy metal and local-type gigs at a venue that rarely used to book them. The City Hall and the new management undertook not to abandon the Szene’s existing style of programming, insisting that the utilisation of the venue would increase to 80% and that alternative/world/indie gigs would be retained alongside the kind of gigs that were previously the stock-in-trade of Planet Music. As Alfred Wihalm of Planet Music points out, the programme for the rest of 2008 is split roughly one-third each way between alternative/indie/experimental, world/ethnic/reggae and hard rock/metal gigs. And certainly the new bookers of alternative and world music, Wihalm and Claudia Köstl, have a wealth of knowledge and experience in their respective fields. But the alternative and experimental music schedule contains fewer internationally recognised names than it did before the takeover, an ominous trend given that autumn is normally a very busy time for high-profile touring bands from the US and UK. Some of those artists are instead appearing at the WUK in the 9th district, a venue that seems to be raising its game in response to the changes at the Szene.

Quite apart from the apparent marginalisation of avant-garde and alternative music signalled by the takeover, it is the manner in which it was carried out that has upset many. A petition calling for the old Szene team to be reinstated has attracted 3,700 signatures, a remarkable number for a minority issue of this kind. Vienna-based photographer David Murobi, one of the signatories, points out that there was no open competition for the management of the Szene – the city handed the job to Sopper without giving anyone else a chance to apply for it. Alfred Wihalm says that Planet Music never wanted the old Szene team to resign, and in fact expected to retain their experience and expertise in running the venue. As well as being entitled to keep their jobs for a certain period (an entitlement they chose not to take up), the old team were offered jobs elsewhere within the city’s entertainment arm.

Murobi adds that the appointment of Sopper, who also runs the Gasometer venue and the annual Donauinselfest, further feeds an undesirable monopoly of music booking in Vienna. After the ill feeling generated by the takeover has died down, people will be looking carefully at the programme of the Szene to see whether Planet Music sticks to its promises not to sell out the special character of the venue. The problem for the new management is that in taking over the venue, they are faced with the daunting task of measuring up to public expectations based entirely on the standards set by the previous team. The new management faces a difficult challenge in trying to convince Vienna’s concert-goers that the future of the Szene is in safe hands.

(This article was originally published in the October 2008 issue of Ether.)

Ether column, October 2008

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The autumn gig-going season gets into full swing this month. Silver Mt Zion (or, to give them their full name, Thee Silver Mt. Zion Memorial Orchestra & Tra-La-La Band) kick things off with an anguished howl, playing for the first time in Vienna since their appearance at the 2006 Donaufestival. From Montreal, Canada, SMZ began in 1999 as a side-project to the legendary post-rock collective Godspeed You! Black Emperor, allowing some members of that group to explore song-based music with a more stripped-down feel than the sprawling instrumental epics in which GYBE specialised. With GYBE in semi-permanent hibernation, however, SMZ has become a group in its own right, while their music has taken on something of the epic quality of the parent band. SMZ’s songs are long, intense and emotionally devastating; the seven members often sing in unison, their lyrics telling of personal hurt and political injustice, Meanwhile the extended line-up of guitars, strings and drums creates powerful dynamics of tension, release and crescendo.

Those in search of a more “entertaining” evening out could do worse than to check out Bermudan singer-songwriter Heather Nova. A gifted and beautiful performer, Nova has always been way more popular in Europe than in North America; their loss is our gain. Over six albums and supported by relentless touring, she has perfected a blend of rockish swagger and bruised sensitivity. Her tremulous warble of a voice is equally at home with soaring ballads and crunchy chord progressions. Unlike many of her contemporaries Nova is no waif-like minstrel, but a songwriter who takes the familiar idioms of rock, pop and folk and infuses them with a beguiling sense of mystery and abandonment.

Come with me now to Brooklyn, New York, where The Hold Steady are blasting out their infectious brand of classic American rock for a new generation of audiences. Singer and lyricist Craig Finn has made no secret of his liking for the wordy storytelling of Hüsker Dü and Bruce Springsteen, while fans of the Pixies should also find much to admire in the dense weave of guitar textures that the five-piece band lays over Finn’s rousing and confident voice.

Finally, there are not many cities that would give part of a major music festival over to a composer specialising in lengthy solo violin pieces. But Vienna is no ordinary city, and this year’s Wien Modern festival will be enriched by three concerts featuring the innovative avant-gardist Tony Conrad. Best known for his ’60s collaborations with minimalist guru La Monte Young, Conrad also made an album with Krautrock legends Faust and in recent years has composed many works for solo amplified violin. His music explores, to often mesmeric effect, the transcendental properties of the drone.

Ether radio show

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The Ether radio show that I appeared on as a guest (thanks for having me, Katie and Rian!) is now downloadable from the Orange radio website here. These are the songs I played:

Okkervil River, “Black” (from Black Sheep Boy, 2005)

Peter Hammill, “The Spirit” (from A Black Box, 1980)

Kathleen Edwards, “The Cheapest Key” (from Asking For Flowers, 2008)

Leonard Cohen, “A Bunch of Lonesome Heroes” (from Songs From A Room, 1969)

Peter Brötzmann/Mats Gustafsson/Paal Nilssen-Love, “Bullets Through Rain” (from The Fat Is Gone, 2007)

Ether column, July 2008

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Thank goodness for the Arena. While most of Vienna’s rock venues shut down for business over the summer, this old warhorse keeps going throughout the hot months by simply going outside. Just like the rest of us, in fact, but their backyard has the advantage of being big enough to play host to acts of the calibre of Sigur Rós and Patti Smith.

Sigur Rós hail from Iceland and play an intriguing kind of post-rock with quasi-classical leanings. Active in their native land since 1994, they achieved worldwide recognition in 1999 with their second album Ágætis byrjun. With this album and the lovely single “Svefn-g-englar”, the group found their signature style of music defined by ethereal strings and the swooning falsetto style of singer Jón Birgisson. Birgisson often plays guitar by bowing the strings with a cello bow, adding to the dreamlike delicacy of the group’s sound. Writing their songs in Icelandic was never likely to bring Sigur Rós mainstream appeal, but they took themselves even further out with their next album (), which was sung entirely in their own invented language, Hopelandic. Their music has an unfortunate tendency to be used in film and TV soundtracks, reflecting its soothing and widescreen nature.

Patti Smith has been an important figure in alternative rock for over thirty years. She was energised by the American wave of the punk explosion in the mid-70s, playing regularly at New York clubs like CBGB and providing a strong female counterbalance to the male-dominated world of punk. Not that Smith was any kind of shrinking violet; her début album Horses was a fearsome statement of intent from the opening words “Jesus died for somebody’s sins but not mine” onwards. She recorded three further albums of jagged, obstinate rock in the 70s before retreating from public view for most of the 80s and 90s. In recent years she has continued to write and record, and has taken up a number of activist causes including green politics and anti-Iraq war protest.

Moving back indoors, the Arena also plays host this month to American neo-progressive rock outfit The Mars Volta. Rising phoenix-like in 2001 from the ashes of At The Drive-In, the Mars Volta quickly abandoned that group’s earthy hardcore approach in favour of a more complex stew containing elements of punk, jazz and Latin American styles. Their recently released fourth album The Bedlam in Goliath is their most dynamic and persuasive statement yet. Apparently written in response to a series of experiments the group mde with a ouija board while on tour, the record is a concept album about the power of the occult. Lest that put you off, I should add that it’s also loud, energetic and downright funky.