Tuesday, May 22, 2007

Back from Riga


Last couple of weeks have been a busy time in terms of travelling, meeting friends and partying.

First of all, the festival of avant-garde and contemporary music Skaņu Mežs took place in May 11 & 12. Lots of good music, lots of good people. I'd say that at some moments it was even too crowded to enjoy music properly.

My biggest discovery was Planningtorock — a singer with strong, distinctive and beautiful voice singing on top of electronic hip-hop and electro beats and grotesque orchestral strings. Imagine Janis Joplin produced by M.Herbert and you will be on a half way there. All that accompanied by wierd outfits and simple yet effective background videos that interfere with her stage performance. No wonder that she was having gigs together with LCD Soundsystem and The Knife.




Probably the kickiest band was The Killl from Norway which performs a kind of electronically manipulated extreme metal music. The psychedelic lights and the intense sound wall was amazingly effective.



Another merciless sonic attack was carried out by the breakcore hooligan Venetian Snares, who did a DJ-set. I was probably expecting something more "intelligent", but nevertheless people was jumping around and even performing some stage diving. However, he was unstoppable — after playing one hour more than supposed he boldly ignored requests for stopping and letting other acts perform. He reacted by hitting a monitor speaker aside. Eventually the promoters somehow managed to get him away to the backstage.

The highlights of the other day were The Books and Mouse On Mars. While I didn't see much from The Books, I really enjoyed MOM. They were playing surprisingly dance-floor orientated stuff, not really experimental. But it was good.

Meanwhile, me and my DJ-friends (ZeDmitry, Android, FXZ, Kone) were rocking hard at the Space:Garage, where an unofficial after-party was on. The venue was full of friendly dancing people and the vibe was cosy. Thanks everybody who came and supported. By the way, now the Space:Garage is officially open, for more info check www.fuckforfriendship.com.

The last but not least, it was a pleasure to play records together with Kone at Pulkvedis on the following Tuesday. Thanks for inviting over, and long live Riga scene! See you next time.

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