Category Archives: Live

Donaufestival 2011: Ben Frost, John Cale, Wildbirds & Peacedrums, Nadja

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My one and only visit to this year’s Donaufestival kicked off in the Minoritenkirche with a fine performance by Ben Frost, accompanied by pianist Daniel Bjarnason and the Krakow Symphony Orchestra. For this event Frost proposed a meditation on Andrei Tarkovsky’s film Solaris, with video projections created by the absent Brian Eno. Not having seen the film in question, I have no idea as to how either the music or the visuals related to it. The music itself, though, was beautiful: slow, thick melodies that resonated with exceptional clarity around the atmospheric old church, accompanied by Frost’s heavily treated guitar and Bjarnason’s unnervingly calm pianistics.

Over in the main hall later in the evening, John Cale was a severe disappointment. This was a straight-up rock and roll set that evoked none of the dark phantoms I normally associate with Cale. If it’s true, as J. claimed, that you can tell what kind of state Cale is in by the way he goes about “Heartbreak Hotel”, then I should have known the game was up from the way he opened the set with a tiresomely bouncy version of this old chestnut. The briskly competent band were augmented, entirely unnecessarily, by a gospel choir and horn section, while Cale himself was inadvisably clad in a kilt. There were no Velvets songs, no viola and no mystery. It could have been a bar band up there, and I frequently wished it was.

After that ordeal, it was a relief and pleasure to make the acquaintance of Wildbirds & Peacedrums for the first time. The Swedish trio cast a vivid late-night spell with their heady mix of out-there vocals, propulsive drumming and atmospheric washes of Hammond organ. In fact, that dreamlike Hammond-percussion sound put me in mind of another Swedish group, the irresistible Sagor & Swing (and weren’t they supposed to be reforming?). Strange, then, that the organist seems not to be a core member of the band, who generally consist of Mariam Wallentin on vocals and Andreas Werliin on drums. Rounding off the night, Nadja’s slow-moving, heavily treated guitar and bass drones brought an ominous edge of menace and dissonance to the proceedings.

A final tip of the hat to Lucas Abela’s Vinyl Rally installation around the corner from the second stage, a truly inspired and dotty piece of work. A winding racetrack had been set up with hundreds of old LPs covering its walls and floor. A remote-controlled car, which punters were able to control by turning a separate steering wheel, was placed on the racetrack. The car had a camera fitted to its front, the view from which the “driver” could see on a screen in front of him as he attempted to steer the car through the labyrinthine twists and turns of the racetrack. I’m not sure about this, but I think the car was also fitted with some kind of audio pickup so that bits of noise were picked up from the grooves of the LPs as the car drove over them. It was a brilliant idea. And no, I didn’t have a go on it.

Mats Gustafsson/Martin Siewert/dieb13, Vienna Rhiz, 4 April 2011; Frode Gjerstad Trio with Mats Gustafsson, Vienna Blue Tomato, 14 April 2011

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In my review of a concert by Fire Room last year, I bemoaned the fact that there is hardly any crossover between the scenes at the Rhiz and the Blue Tomato, Vienna’s kindred temples to electronic music and free jazz. The observation is no less valid now than it was a year ago. Despite the genial management of Herbie and Günter respectively, and despite the many obvious similarities between these styles of music, it’s rare to see either artists or audience members from one place showing up at the other. So it was a great pleasure to see Mats Gustafsson, who along with people like Ken Vandermark and Paal Nilssen-Love is by now part of the furniture at the Tomato, turning up for what I believe was his first ever appearance at the Rhiz. The gig cemented an association with Austrian guitarist Martin Siewert that goes back to at least last summer, when Siewert’s Heaven And played the closing set at the Gustafsson-curated Konfrontationen festival, and was bolstered last December when the saxophonist joined Siewert for a frenzied blowout at Heaven And’s gig at the Künstlerhaus.

There’s clearly an affinity between the two, then, and it’s fascinating to hear how Gustafsson responds to the presence of another, very different-sounding, lead instrument as opposed to the rhythmic core of double bass and drums he lines up against in The Thing and other groups. On this occasion the duo were joined by turntable and electronics merchant Dieter Kovačič (dieb13), whose malevolent drone-based activity formed a disquieting accompaniment to the guitar and reeds. It was a short set, only 40 minutes or so, but there was still a vast amount going on here. Gustafsson spent most of the set on the deep, resonant baritone sax, switching occasionally to the rare slide sax. Throwing himself into the performance with his usual relish, Gustafsson made the Rhiz his own, challenged only by the endlessly vital and inventive guitar work of Siewert. The guitarist was, as ever, a joy to watch as he moved fluidly between acoustic, electric and tabletop modes; he peels off sheets of squally, thunderous attack with the deranged instinct of Robert Fripp, but trades Fripp’s frosty demeanour for a wholly persuasive openness and sense of fun.

Just over a week later, Gustafsson was the unannounced surprise guest at a gig at the Blue Tomato by the Frode Gjerstad Trio, an all-Norwegian unit consisting of the eponymous Gjerstad on reeds, Jon Rune Strom on double bass and the ubiquitous Paal Nilssen-Love on drums. The first set consisted of the trio only, and it was a pleasure for me to hear Gjerstad play for the first time. Less cerebral than Vandermark, less visceral than Gustafsson or Brötzmann, the saxophonist eschewed a barnstorming approach in favour of clear, ringing lines on alto and clarinet that allowed the bass and drums plenty of space to work their magic. Nilssen-Love’s complex polyrhythms were as brilliant as ever, while Strom was a constantly forceful presence on the low end.

After the interval Gustafsson took up his tenor and Gjerstad immediately deferred to the guest, who laid waste to the room with a long and devastating solo. Things never really let up from that point on. The two reedsmen’s techniques and registers complemented each other beautifully, with Gjerstad’s light and nimble colourations set off against Gustafsson’s fearsomely powerful mid-range assault. This was my last visit to the Tomato before their well-deserved summer break; I’m sure, though, that there will be plenty more such mesmerizing evenings before 2011 is out.

Naked Lunch, Vienna Stadtsaal, 11 April 2011

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I was hoping this would be a proper Naked Lunch concert, but unfortunately it didn’t turn out that way. What we got instead was a kind of showcase for their latest project, soundtracking a new theatrical adaptation of Franz Kafka’s novel Amerika. The full production is currently underway in the group’s home town of Klagenfurt; I’m not sure what the deal there is exactly, but I assume they’re playing along to the action much as they did when they performed their live soundtrack to the film Universalove. Those of us in Vienna will have to make do for now with this curious hybrid, at which the group performed only the nine songs from the play, accompanied by a cast of walk-on guests and preceded by a lengthy reading from the novel.

It was great, of course, but it was also a touch insubstantial, and I really hope that after this second successive audio-visual project Naked Lunch get back to being a rock band again. It’s been four years since their last masterpiece This Atom Heart of Ours, and a new album consisting of full band versions of the new songs Oliver Welter premiered at the Radiokulturhaus last year is sorely awaited around these parts. A brief word with Welter after the gig confirmed that such a thing is on its way later this year.

Anyway, tonight’s performance confirmed my long-held view that Naked Lunch are a highly creative outfit with a spiky and uncompromising approach to songcraft. The opening song of the piece, “Let Me Walk Upon The Water”, sets the melancholy tone, with Welter’s haunting and troubled voice framed by Stefan Deisenberger’s desolate keyboard melody. “Fight Club” sees the group hit an angry and convulsive seam, Welter’s vocal swelled by urgent choral backing.

It’s that razor-sharp interplay between voices and instruments that makes this music so compelling, and this was never truer tonight than on “The Tramp”, with its smart lyrical flourishes and impertinently perfect chorus. I have no idea if the English-speaking world will ever wake up to the brilliance of Naked Lunch. As I’ve said before, though, their loss is very much Austria’s gain.

Lloyd Cole, Vienna Casino Baumgarten, 5 April 2011

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Lloyd Cole was one of those artists (Suzanne Vega being another; see here for that particular story) whose music accompanied me through my student years. This is no great surprise, of course, since Cole was one of the quintessential British student favourites of the 1980s. Along with groups like the Cocteau Twins, whom I also loved, and the Smiths, whom I greatly disliked, Cole’s three albums with the Commotions must have drifted from more cheap stereos, down more hall of residence corridors, than any other records from that era.

As always, I was playing catch-up. I didn’t cotton on to Cole until 1987’s Mainstream, doubling back later to Rattlesnakes and Easy Pieces. Mainstream seems to be the least regarded of the three, but it’s always been my favourite, being the one where Cole cast off much of his hipster jangle and turned towards a more mature, sombre form of songwriting. And in “From The Hip” and “29” Cole produced what I still think are his two greatest songs. Wistful, troubled and achingly tender, they flagged the direction in which his music would go in later years.

The 1990s was a decade of two halves for Cole (he would no doubt prefer a golfing metaphor to a footballing one, but I know little and care less about the sport). After putting out four fine albums in the first half of the decade, he then released no new material at all in the second half of it. Those four records, though, make up a body of work that for my money is even stronger than the Commotions records. The wit and sparkle were still there, but they were tempered by a certain melancholy and by a leaner, more organic sound that I found, and still find, immensely appealing.

I’ve never exactly got on with Lloyd Cole live, though. The first time I saw him would have been in 1990, when I took my then girlfriend to see him at the Dome in Brighton. I made the mistake of booking front row tickets at this seated venue and was expecting to be able to sit there and watch the gig in tranquillity, not bargaining on the entirely understandable and predictable behaviour of the majority of the audience to rush to the front. I remember thinking that while the performance itself was fine Cole suffered from a distinct lack of onstage charisma, something I’ve also felt every time I’ve seen him since.

The late 1990s must have been a lean time indeed for Cole, as I recall seeing him play a lacklustre solo set to a non-paying crowd of pissed-up expats in an Aussie bar in west London around that time. Thankfully, matters had improved by the next time I saw him on the Commotions reunion tour in 2004, when they played the whole of Rattlesnakes to a large and appreciative audience. Cole managed to elude me from that day until earlier this week, when he rolled up in Vienna with his Small Ensemble.

Once again I had no problems at all with the performance. Cole is a beautiful singer; his voice has this amber quality that, in the pinsharp acoustics of this space, was immediately and deeply affecting. His texts lift the songs away from the humdrum confessional sphere and towards profound emotional territory, while his guitar and those of his two bandmates (who occasionally turned to banjo or mandolin) sparkled like sunrays on calm water. Between songs, however, he was dutiful and perfunctory, only getting really animated when sharing some private joke with the other two. The old routine about having a new album out (“and it’s available just over there!”) was dusted off numerous times and quickly became tiresome, while other attempts at humour fell totally flat: “we could have brought someone on tour with us to tune our guitars, but then we’d have to sit down and eat with him every night” – yeah right, Lloyd, whatever.

At the end of the day, then, it’s a good thing that Lloyd Cole is a singer and not a stand-up comedian. His songs have that rare, precious quality of being beautifully crafted yet fizzing with warmth, energy and good humour. And with a total of 28 songs receiving an airing tonight (although nothing from Mainstream, sadly), no-one, least of all me, could complain of being short-changed.

Godspeed You! Black Emperor, Vienna Arena, 25 January 2011

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The return from a lengthy hiatus of Godspeed You! Black Emperor was both completely unexpected and incalculably welcome. Like many others, I suspect, I had assumed we would never see them in active service again, especially since sister project A Silver Mt Zion has taken on more and more Godspeed-like properties in its most recent records. I should have had more faith, for here they were, all eight of them (wasn’t it nine before?), once again forming themselves into a loose semi-circle and pounding out the most beautiful symphonies for the end of the world.

I saw Godspeed at least twice in London, I think, before they disappeared in 2003 or so. I remember very well a gig at the Embassy Rooms, a short-lived and now defunct basement venue on Tottenham Court Road (later a strip club, I believe). Later, after my fellow accountants had discovered them, I saw them at the Royal Festival Hall as well; I recall the gig starting late due to their delayed arrival on the ferry from Dublin, or was that some other group? Whatever the facts of the matter, it’s clear that not much has changed chez Godspeed since those early days. They’re picking up where they left off, essentially, which is something that the most successful reunions (Van der Graaf Generator, Swans) have taken pains to avoid doing. But when the place you left is as noble and thrilling as Godspeed’s was, you can be forgiven for them wanting to return there.

What we got at the Arena, then, was well over two hours of disciplined, multi-layered and engrossing music. Forming the oceanic core of the group’s sound, the guitars, cello and violin would pick out an achingly sad melody, gather solemnly around it and shepherd it gradually towards the blinding light of crescendo, while the thunderous drumming blasted the whole spectacle into the kind of alternate and better reality you feel Godspeed know has to be out there somewhere, if only they could find it. For Godspeed are above all idealists and romantics, finding in post-industrial trauma and decay not the horrors that Throbbing Gristle found, but imagined correlatives for the good, the pure and the hopeful.

I’m sure Godspeed probably played most of their greatest hits tonight, but I’m afraid I can’t tell you what they were. Although I’ve listened to the albums dozens of times, I still have no idea what individual tracks are called; and although I recognized most of the pieces they played, I couldn’t identify any of them by title or tell you which album they come from.

My inability to retain such trainspotterish details doesn’t come as a big surprise to me, it must be said. More than any other group I know, Godspeed operate at a macro rather than a micro level, an approach restated by their steadfast refusal to acknowledge the audience with anything more than the most cursory of nods. Like Test Department (and I hereby call for a Test Department reunion in 2012), another large and faceless collective who used visual projections in their shows, Godspeed understand the seductive power and strength such anonymity bestows. And in deploying that anonymity in the service of such thrilling and beautiful music, Godspeed evoke a timely reminder that all is not yet lost.

Peter Brötzmann & Fred Lonberg-Holm, Vienna Blue Tomato, 21 January 2011

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Peter Brötzmann turns 70 this year, but despite this milestone is showing no signs of easing off on his famously prodigious work rate. In the spring he’ll tour once again with his Chicago Tentet; no Vienna date for that massive big band this time, alas, but then again we were rather spoilt by the three-day Tentet-fest that took place here last November. In the meantime, here he was in a duo setting that was new to me, with American cellist (and Tentet member) Fred Lonberg-Holm. Sounding unlike any Brötzmann gig I’ve ever seen before, it proved a fascinating face-off.

What Lonberg-Holm brought to the party was a somewhat cerebral avant-garde sensibility that marked him out from Brötzmann’s usual collaborators from the worlds of jazz and improv. The cellist spent much of the time crouched low on his chair, reaching down to manipulate his arsenal of effects boxes. He also exhibited a fondness for extended techniques such as manipulating sticks which he had placed between the strings of the cello. Other sections sounded more composed, flowing, romantic even, while at odd moments Lonberg-Holm also showed himself not to be averse to a bit of fuzz-heavy rocking out as well.

Brötzmann responded to this variety of approaches with his customary adroitness and sympathy. Switching from tenor sax to tarogato in the first set, then to alto for the second, he graciously allowed the cellist to set the agenda for the music and was at times unusually restrained as a result. I got the impression that Brötzmann’s playing was vexed by its surroundings, struggling to work itself free from the structures imposed by Lonberg-Holm. As a result, the German’s signature volcanic eruptions were slower to come than usual. When the moment called for it, though, Brötzmann didn’t hesitate to reach deep inside and produce a solo of staggering incandescence and vitality. He’s still the master at 70, and if anyone is insolent enough to ask how long he can continue like this, these words (taken from a 2000 interview) should provide all the answers they need:

If I said at the time and if I still say it today, that we’ll just play until we drop, it’s not because we’re heroes. We have to. There isn’t much else for us to do but to carry on playing. You don’t make a fortune playing this kind of music. I just hope that I’m aware of it when my head and my body aren’t fully there anymore and that I can afford to say, Brötzmann, that was it – the rest I’ll keep to myself.

Swans, Vienna Arena, 7 December 2010 and Berlin Volksbühne, 13 December 2010

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In 1998 Swans released a live album called Swans Are Dead, a double CD from the group’s 1995 and 1997 tours. That title carried with it such a sense of finality and certainty that there seemed no prospect whatsoever of Swans getting back together again. In truth this wasn’t something that overly bothered me, even though Swans were then, and remain now, the most important group of my life. I had lived through every second of that marathon final 1997 tour of Europe, working the merchandise table every night on my own and travelling with the band and the rest of the crew in a big black tour bus. (See here for the story of how I came to be doing this.) Night after night I had heard the show begin with the crushing tumult of “Feel Happiness”, Michael Gira’s deeply affecting valediction to the band. The infernal chords of the introduction would fade away, leaving Gira to intone the words “I’m truly sorry for what I never did, and I forgive you too for your indifference”; and it seemed to me as though the sorrow and forgiveness he was singing about were universal, and that I was wholly and unavoidably implicated in them.

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Heaven And, Vienna Künstlerhaus, 15 December 2010

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My last concert of 2010 neatly tied together a couple of strands from the previous two. Like Tortoise, Heaven And have two drummers; like Broken Heart Collector, one of them is Didi Kern. Kern’s presence in the line-up tonight no doubt came about due to the no-show of regular Heaven And drummer Tony Buck, although it’s unclear to me whether Buck has left the group for good or whether his absence on this occasion was merely temporary. Since a large part of Heaven And’s prior appeal rested on the churning impact of Buck and Steve Heather’s twin percussive attack, restricting themselves to just one sticksman for this concert was clearly not an option.

Heaven And impressed me enormously when I saw them at Nickelsdorf this summer, their pulverizing guitar-and-drums racket providing the Konfrontationen festival with an appropriately confrontational late-night finale. If this appearance didn’t quite reach those dizzying heights, it was only because of the sparse attendance and also because of the bizarre set-up of the performance space. In front of the stage was a standing area and, beyond that, a few rows of raked seating. The audience were always going to gravitate towards those seats, leaving a yawning gap between group and audience which was plugged only by a few stumpy pillars, whose only conceivable function seemed to be to rest drinks upon. Since no-one was standing anyway, they looked rather forlorn.

None of which prevented Heaven And from turning in an utterly convincing performance, with Martin Siewert’s regular and tabletop electric guitars blasting into overdrive against Kern and Heather’s constantly shifting patterns and Zeitblom’s relentless bass groove. And, of course, the group had an ace up their sleeve: a special guest appearance by Swedish (and surely, by now, honorary Viennese) saxophonist Mats Gustafsson. Tearing great strips out of the air with his awesome lung power, Gustafsson matched Siewert all the way for sheer audacity and verve; a rare and precious instance of white-hot rock and world-beating free improvisation, colliding and fusing in their own light and heat.

Short Cuts 5: Tortoise, Broken Heart Collector

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Tortoise, Vienna WUK, 21 November 2010

The last time I saw Tortoise it was through a haze of sleep deprivation and alcohol at the 2008 Donaufestival, when they (or, more likely, the event organizers) made the audience wait until 1.30am before coming onstage.  November’s altogether more civilized appearance kicked off at 8pm and was over by 10; other than that, it was business as usual for the Chicagoans.  That’s not in any way a criticism; it’s actually rather miraculous that Tortoise are still with us after all these years, still serving up their effervescent and irresistible blend of jazz, funk and instrumental rock.  There’s an unflappable confidence to what Tortoise do, a sense of quiet authority that is reflected in the ease with which the group members take over each others’ instruments and carry on playing.  Mapped out by the meshing interplay of the drums, vibraphone and keyboards, Tortoise music resembles an endless highway, teeming with interest and pleasure at every turn.

Broken Heart Collector, Vienna Rhiz, 30 November 2010

The Rhiz was packed out for this appearance by what, as far as I can make out, is a fluid unit consisting of fun-loving improv-noise-rock trio Bulbul together with Maja Osojnik on vox and devices and Susanna Gartmayer on reeds.  Bulbul seem to relish being fronted by slightly unhinged female singers: cf. 2008’s gig at the Rhiz at which the group gave repeated depth and colour to Carla Bozulich’s angular vocal interventions.   Osojnik was, if anything, an even more arresting presence than Bozulich had been, while her dramatic and surreal texts were thrown sharply into focus by Bulbul’s splintering sonic constructions and Gartmayer’s restlessly agitated reeds work.

David Murobi took his customary great photos of the gig which you can see here.

Concerts of 2010

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Here’s some kind of list of the concerts I enjoyed most in 2010, with links to the reviews I wrote at the time. In no particular order…

1. Peter Brötzmann Chicago Tentet, Martinschlössl, Vienna
2. The Swell Season, Museumsquartier, Vienna
3. Ken Vandermark/Paal Nilssen-Love/Lasse Marhaug, Blue Tomato, Vienna
4. Swans, Arena, Vienna
5. Naked Lunch, Arena, Vienna
6. Suzanne Vega, Konzerthaus, Vienna
7. Peter Hammill, Posthof, Linz
8. Heaven And, Konfrontationen Festival, Nickelsdorf
9. Oliver Welter, Radiokulturhaus, Vienna
10. The Thing XL, Konfrontationen Festival, Nickelsdorf