Tuesday, September 23, 2008

exit is open










Good evening, ladies and gentlemen, freaks and clowns!

Exit has been relaunched again. Although the main opening party was on Saturday, there were some events on Thursday and Friday as well. For instance, on Friday Gangpol Und Mit performed (don't ask me why it sounds German, actually they are two guys from Bordaux, France). They own music + they own videos. That was outstanding indeed! Very cartoonish, baroque, creative, funny and sick at the same time. But you have to see it yourself.



Now a short review of the main event. The night took off with a live performance by Bass Clef - a very fine and interesting dubstep producer from UK, Bristol I guess. A little detour: first I found out about this guy on Tape blog few years ago, a couple of his tracks were put there. He was practically unknown yet, at least internationally, and his artist's nickname was RLF. That time most of dubstep was very dark and monotone, but his tracks were surprisingly different and fresh - more subtle, daring to experiment and with some electronica/IDM influence, I'd say. Sounded good to me. Since that time he has released a critically aclaimed album (as Bass Clef) with a very cute title - A Smile Is A Curve That Straightens Most Things - and some other 12 inches on his Blank Tapes imprint. Check also his blog. Alright, now back to the party. He played his tracks from CD, adding some samples, mainly percussion, tapping on a sapmpler and effects, such as delay. Besides, Bass Clef used a mic for playing trombone, cowbell, whistling etc. Interesting rhythmic patterns, sometimes just loosely related to the clasic dubstep. For instance, there was one kuduro rhythm, some other sample palettes were reminiscent of Rio's baile funk etc. Altogether it sounded as intelligent and electronic dubstep yet having some ghetto music roots. It was freash and enjoyable, just wished the sound system had more bass, but this was just a technical detail.

As the next one, Max Tundra tooked over the stage. He had an impressive set of gears. Music was quite different, a lot of singing and guitar, quite funny and funky, sometimes even a bit too cheasy and not enough groovy for my taste, but no doubt he is a diverse and talanted musician. I wish people danced more, especially when he fired some ravey cover version (was it KLF, huh?). But, well, that's a typical Luxembourg's crowd - it takes ages (and quite a few drinks) to get them moving. No pun intended though, that's just the way it is over here.














The last guest artist was Rodion - a guy who makes quality nu school italo disco for Gomma Records. And he is actually Italian. Although before seeing him I quite liked some of his tracks and there was one worthy his mix in my possession, his live performance turned out better than I expected - it was very groovy and entertaining. Rodion played together with a bass player, and due to the fact that he used analogue synths and vocoders it sounded as a proper underground italo disco. Whatever he did, sounded just cool avoiding beeing too cheesy - even a cover version of Supertramp's song was a kicker. Finally, people were dancing.

Some more photos here.

It was a realy good start, and there are some other goodies to come. The next event will be the DFA night on October 3 with a live performance by Prinzhorn Dance School (a real live band)and DJ sets by Mock & Toof (also released on Tiny Sticks and Mule) and Tim Sweeney (of Beats In Space radioshow fame). Gotta be sweaty!

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

nice post report, great pictures, wrong date for dfa night! It's on the 3rd october ;-) best. Marc

::: hencha a.k.a. neon b. ::: said...

sorry for this, gonna correct right away!