Spherical Disruption, The [law-rah] Collective and many more! - Summer Darkness 08-08-2009

Saturday was filled to the brim with great acts! A first this year was the integration of an edition of the Noise Central Festival into the Summer Darkness program, with no less then 10 consecutive acts on three stages! I did visit six of them.
Obviously starting off early, at 13:00, the opening sounds were to be heard in the nice little dungeon of SJU Jazz. Excellent room for the two acts there, the session being opened by Spherical Disrupted.

Spherical Disrupted is a one man act from Germany in Mirko Hentrich. An impressive deep, dark ambient/industrial act that really warmed up the good and dark cellar! A very good hardware setup with racked synths and controller but also there was a table with assorted metal objects that were mic'ed. Impressive dark drones and beats were the result, and i must say the SJU sound system is fantastic. The playing of the metal objects got a bit lost; i couldn't make them out at all on the sound system. And maybe it was a bit too tentative in comparison to the strong backing. But a fantastic show that really opened up an hypnotic state. I bought the cd 'Null' by Spherical Disruption, which was also great on a first listen!


Spherical Disrupted

Next, the floor was to a home player team in The [law-rah] collective from Utrecht. The collective was Bauke van der Wal and Martijn Pieck and a table plastered with electronics ;) They did a really well worked out piece, with awesome, gut wrenching deep dark drones and loops. It was a dense forest of colorful sound that stretched across the entire frequency spectrum. Maybe it was a bit too busy at times; a little difficult to get a good appreciation of singular elements. But for sure the renewed co-operation of Bauke and Martijn is growing by leaps! (And big thanks to both for the new 'Live in Münster' cassette! Awesome beautiful drone piece; highly recommended!)

The [law-rah] collective


Then it was an easy stroll over to Ekko for the next part of the program. It took a while for Ekko to open it's doors, but with the fantastic sunshine, it was a joy to sit on the canal side. No less so then to share it with an ever growing collection of fellow visitors; which grew to an odd mix of exuberantly dressed Goth and Neo-Folk fans.
Time for what was dubbed 'The X-Rated Stage'. This due to the fact that the breaks in the program were filled by DJs Arjen Grolleman and Bob Rusche, who do a joint three hour radio show on KinkFM on Sunday nights. Always fixed listening pleasure in my week. This afternoon, and into the evening they spinned the darkest cobwebbed music; brilliant!!

And this all to weigh down the acts, which opened with :Golgatha: from Germany. :Golgatha: is a threesome neo-folk group with guitar, drummer/percussion and lead singer. It was a varied set that drifted through styles like ambient and neo-folk. But it was in all not too strong; it all wavered a bit. It sounded a bit tired and it didn't capture my attention.

:Golgatha:


More so with the next act Brighter Death Now. It's two members did an exemplary dissection in sound and imagery. Growling noise, loops and glitch were causing havoc on the sound system. (Which to my taste is not too well suited for this kind of act). In the darkened room, the visual stood out most prominently. It was an ongoing nightmare of the hauling of human bodies and the clumsily hacking and sawing of corpses. Ieech! Strong stomach required! I got a bit mixed feelings about it in the end.

Brighter Death Now


Up next was a strong switch to Triarii, a strong neo-folk act. Triarii draws strongly on the Roman and German imperialistic; as is common with the neo-folk genre. Their set was energetic and strong. But with the close constricts of the genre...to me it became a bit much of the same in the end.

Triarii

By now i had regained a strong appetite again and went for dinner back home; which is just a stone throw from Tivoli de Helling, where i dropped in to see Klangstabil late at night. Arriving at Tivoli de Helling i found the place already in a steamy IBM mood. The place was packed with dancers and the DJs did their best to fry the compressors of the sound system.
But then it was to Klangstabil. Strong danceable music, at least when they got properly psyched up, which Boris May took a long time to accomplish on stage. He and Maurizio Blanco took turns in operating the electronics and singing. It was a fantastic raw and varied show and the dancing hordes were well served!

Klangstabil

Fully saturated by the day i drifted back home; what a day!

More later on the Summer Darkness Sunday; stay tuned!

Thanks for reading!
Bas.