Chain D.L.K. - All Reviews

The M.E.M.O.R.Y. Lab : "Modern Expressing Machine of Revolutionary Youth" [CD review]

9 November 2009, 12:50 am

Review by: Steve Mecca
Getting a new batch of CDs to review is always a treat, and gives me a bit of a tingle of anticipation, as well as trepidation for what delights and horrors await my thirsty ears. Thumbing through the pile, I saw some really cool and bizarre stuff, but no matter how tempted I was to take the easy way out and stay in my comfort zone, I knew I had to review this one first. A bit of background on this CD- it is a collaborative project of Marc Urselli (yeah, OUR Marc Urselli) and Nicola “The Old Nick” Curri of 90’s era black metal band, Funeral Oration. Curri went on to become an art restorer, set designer and artist. Now all I really knew about Marc up until this time is that he’s my contact at Chain D.L.K. (and also a fine reviewer) and every once in a while he call me up and asks me if I’m ready for more CDs to review. My shock and awe began when I discovered he’s a well-known audio engineer and remixer, and has several Grammy Awards under his belt for doing just that. (Somehow Grammys and Chain D.L.K. just seem like opposite ends of the musical spectrum.) Well, Grammys don’t necessarily give you cred in the Industrial music world, but those engineering and production skills come in handy when you want to put out a great album, and this is one GREAT album, all things considered. I’m not saying that because of my Chain D.L.K. connection with Marc, I’m saying that just because IT IS. The album was actually conceived (and mostly executed) nearly 15 years ago, but it has the power and presence to stand up to anything in the Industrial music realm today. I wondered why I never heard of M.E.M.O.R.Y. Lab back then, and apparently it was because they only made it on to a few compilations and released a very limited cassette demo. M.E.M.O.R.Y. Lab is an acronym for Modern Expressing Machine of Revolutionary Youth, something that summarized their philosophy of music back in Southern Italy in mid-90’s. Other members of M.E.M.O.R.Y. Lab included bass player Fabrizio Giannese and Dario Campeggio, but it’s Marc and Nick that are really responsible for this album. M.E.M.O.R.Y. Lab broke up in 1999 when Marc moved to New York to pursue an audio engineering career. The album might never have seen the light of day if Marc didn’t rescue the original recordings from a dusty Italian basement and digitally re-master them. So, what about the music on the album? Well, this is hard as titanium Industrial, something much tougher than Reznor and his Nails of Nine ever dreamed of. Urselli cites M.E.M.O.R.Y. Lab’s influences of a whole range of groups- Die Krupps, Young Gods, NIN, Pantera, Sepultura, Faith No More, Einsturzende Neubaten, Front Line Assembly, Skinny Puppy, Ministry, Fear Factory, Legendary Pink Dots, Current 93, Das Ich, Psychic TV, Sigillum S, Christian Death, Sisters of Mercy, Pink Floyd, etc., etc. and it shows. Some more than others. The first thing that impressed me about this album is the drum programming. Not your standard stuff here. It is varied and often processed to perfection; complex rhythms (Front Line Assembly/Skinny Puppy style), loops, odd Neubaten-ish percussion, manic drumming, you name it. The synth and sampling work is very good too; somewhat ‘old school’ because that was THE school n the 90’s when this was done. Nick has an interesting vocal style, multifaceted and often manic. When he’s not ranting and raving Manson style (Charles, not Marilyn) which he often is, he’s nearly whispering David Tibet/Edward Ka-Spel gibberings in the quieter passages. And there are a number of them to break up the sturm und drang, which is a very good thing. Actually, there are a whole lot of influences at work here; it is more an amalgam of everything these guys absorbed and put into one sonic H-Bomb of a package guaranteed to blow your mind. It will definitely take you more than one listening to absorb it all, and it has a high replayabilty factor. Even the one track I wasn’t wild about at first, “Another Nail into the Cross,” with its Christian Death martyr overtones seemed better the second time around. Nick reminded me a bit of the late mad magician Geoffrey Crozier. Few know of Crozier now (Google him, watch his YouTube video, and you’ll get the gist), but back in the late 70’s he was somewhat of a legend amongst the New York City underground music scene. I had the pleasure of experiencing his demented performances first-hand, and I tell you there is something of his energy and angst in Nick’s vocal on this CD. I think you need a certain kind of nutter on vocals to make this kind music work and leave the pack behind. ‘Modern Expressing Machine of Revolutionary Youth’ is a very strong effort which might have become a classic if it was released back in the day, but with the re-mastering, I’m sure it’s much better now than it than it might have been then. As with a lot of Industrial music then, there are sampled dialogue passages and sampled hard guitar, but they’re used sparing - no overkill. Not a lot of melodic content, but real Industrial music doesn’t need a lot of melodic content. If your complaint about so many ‘Industrial’ bands today is their music is geared more to club play and the dance floor, then this is definitely for you. There is so much meat on the bones here, and nothing gets stale. Nick’s vocals and Marc’s synth/programming/production work hand-in-glove together. A perfect fit. Who cares if sounds a bit old school in places. Do you still listen to ‘Hard Wired’, ‘Land of Rape and Honey’, ‘Too Dark Park’, ‘Tabula Rasa or ‘Embryodead’ and believe they’re brilliant albums? Then M.E.M.O.R.Y. Lab is for you. The only other thing I can say is, it’s about fucking time.
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{ Artist: www.memorylab.net }
{ Label: D-Trash Records }
{ Distributor: D-Trash Records }
Category: Industrial Music / Industrial Metal / Aggro Industrial / Electro Metal

2JUNXION : "Acid Rock "The remixes"" [Download Only (MP3 only) review]

8 November 2009, 6:37 am

Review by: Maurizio Pustianaz
Personally I'm not that much into acid techno and neither into releases containing remixes of only one track. This 2Junxion release covers both the cases so I'll try to be honest as much as possible. Originally released for Acid Tracks label in 2005 as A side of a 12", "Acid rock" was a dancefloor hit and when played today, it still convince acid techno lovers. Based on 303 bass lines, acid sounds trained by filters' tweaking, the tune (which is available as closing track also on this digital download release) contains all the elements of acid techno: crazy bass lines, punching rhythms, hypnotic atmosphere and vocal samples used as instruments. During almost nine minutes, "Acid rock" is divided into three main parts based on three different melodies (this helped me a lot during the listening and I appreciated that 2Junxion didn't stick on two sounds for the whole time). The other tracks (the first three) you find here are remixes of the original tune reworked by Sorgenkint (this is a ten minutes sort of industrial acid techno version where drum and bass sound like an hammer) , Acid Junkies (they picked up the main bass line and repeated it for six minutes and half tweaking on filters and samples) and SynnyS (this is kinda minimal and it's focused on one bass line, a melodic line and rhythms but it's the one I preferred because it plays a little bit with melodies).
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{ Label: AJ Records }
Category: Techno / Trance / Goa / Drum'n'Bass / Jungle / Tribal / Trip-Hop

VV.AA. : "Songs for a Child - A Tribute to PIER PAOLO PASOLINI" [CD review]

5 November 2009, 11:22 am

Review by: Vito Camarretta
Some Italian journalists have tried to make a great fuss about nothing related to this interesting issue and right and proper tribute by the Italian label Rustblade to the most prominent Italian poet and intellectual of the previous century, Pier Paolo Pasolini, whose death by mysterious homicide dated to back to 34 years ago (it was 2nd November 1975 when his body was found on the beach of Ostia, nearby Rome, being run over his own car by Giuseppe Pelosi, a 17yrs old hustler, even if the way events occurred is still substantially unexplained) has been recently remembered by some media (sometimes inaccurately). The uselessness of the above-mentioned polemics being about the presumable lack of suitability between a collection of songs belonging to the so-called avant-garde music scene and the poet’s hostility towards some futile excesses of some avant-garde forms of art and literature consists in the “genetic” defect some reviewers show when they didn’t manage to contextualize expression as they look too self-confident in arguing that contemporary musical languages are just a product belonging to our days. Are they so sure that Pasolini would not have appreciated this tribute as well? As I’d like to exclude the hypothesis those reviewers act like mediums chatting with the souls of dead bodies (requiescat in pacem!), I think these polemics are quite fruitless. It’s even longer sensible to them asking what should be the ideal arrangement of Pasolini’s thinking (in particular his ardent critic to consumerism running side-by-side to the one against bourgeois values and ambitions standing behind the picaresque neo-realism, standing out among his flunkey contemporaries) nowadays. An elegant artwork with images provided by the portrayer Saturno Buttò and the painter Alessia Catanuto for a selection of 14 tracks (hurry up if you’re interested in it as it’s another strictly limited edition…just 696 copies issued…) signed by an interesting roster of European underground scene, ranging from the renowned Coil - whose track Ostia (The Death Of Pasolini) propelled by an entrancing string session composed by Billy McGee, a sort of musical epigraph on the death of this illuminating as well as troublesome intellectual , was already issued in their intriguing apocalypse-inspired Horse Rotorvator - to the foggy dark-ambient by Bahntier - project by the label head of Rustblade, Stefano Rossello -, from the touching and crystalline folk-pop by Spiritual Front to the lopsided fractured drops of diapasonic guitar of Les Mille Et Une Nuits by Ah Cama-Sotz to the corrupted string sonata on the subliming vocal samples by Pasolini himself reciting the so-called “civil poems” propelled by the creativity by Alio Die, from the electrified oddities by Teatro Satanico in Ppppetrolio and the esoteric choirs combined with ritual sound hooks by In Slaughter Natives, from the stinging dark pulsations of the obsessive downbeat by Condanna to the grand droning with some famous samples by the poet attacking fascists depicted as criminals thirsty of power by Sandblasting and so on… And even if the Supplica by Black Sun Productions could not easily be compared to the most famous one by Diamanda Galas, we have some evidence to say that maybe Pier Paolo Pasolini could appreciate it if still living as one of the most intriguing musical memorial and summary of the highlights of his scathing thought…
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{ Label: Rustblade }
{ Distributor: Masterpiece }
Category: Industrial Noise / Power Noise / Harsh Noise
Ambient / Electronica / Ethereal / Dub / Soundscapes / Abstract
Experimental / Avantgarde / Weird & Wired / Odd / Field Recording
Dark / Gothic / Wave / New Wave / Dark Wave / Industrial Gothic

MAX BONDI : "M" [CD review]

5 November 2009, 6:01 am

Review by: Maurizio Pustianaz
Boss of London based label Tartaruga Records and experimental musician, Max Bondi is releasing on his own label his debut album titled M. Recorded in one week in a North Spain small flat, the album opens with "Aleph, bet", an track based on minimal variations of organ sounds with the add of xylophone like sounds. During only its four minutes, "Aleph, bet" is already able to built a cinematic atmosphere and musically it reminds me of "Lucifer rising" soundtrack. "Morendo" has a suspended/tense atmosphere thanks to a treated bass guitar (it sounds like noises coming from a cave) with sparse snare drum beats. "Volante!" is a tribal tune based on percussions, guitar distortions and organ drones. "In such seeming all things are" creates a similar effect to some Glenn Branca guitar orchestrations (the ones without rhythms) with its organ sound mixed with guitar high pitched drones. "Alina" has a dramatic touch because is based on violin melodies which are delayed and repeated. "A desperate threnody" is a 15' long suite where organ drones, tiny bells, distorted guitars sounds grow reaching their top just to silently fall turning into a rarefied melancholic piano moment then a noisy distortion starts and step by step it become a giant monster that eat everything else and from its sound it seems to contort on itself. The closing "Elenco" is based on minimal melodic repetitions where a windy noise after three minutes is replaced by a noisy guitar drone which becomes louder and louder just to stop at the end of the suite. Personally I found the first six tracks enchanting and convincing (they are able to sound fresh because of the kind of sounds chosen by Max and because of the atmosphere they create) and this last one less interesting because more "conventional" if paragoned to other experimental albums I listened during the last twenty years. The album is available as a limited 200 copies CD edition and as digital download at the major online stores like iTunes, Amazon, 7digital, etc.
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{ Label: Tartaruga Records }
Category: Ambient / Electronica / Ethereal / Dub / Soundscapes / Abstract
Experimental / Avantgarde / Weird & Wired / Odd / Field Recording

Brillig : "The Red Coats" [CD review]

4 November 2009, 7:36 am

Review by: Vito Camarretta
From the virginal land of Australia, it comes another interesting and genuine musical proposal, the one by four folks artistically and humanly grown in Adelaide fond on playing instruments, singing songs, old stories and fairytales, good company and some appropriate beverage (something not so dissimilar to what Irish people usually term craic!). These wizards founded a band called Brillig (a word invented by Lewis Carroll in Jabberwacky - one of most famous nonsense poem, in the English literature -which according to the explanation of the fictitious character Humpty Dumpty was used to name that moment of the afternoon around four’ o’clock during which some people use to begin preparing dinner by broiling recipes…) and after they spread this album entitled The Red Coats on various music journalists’ desktops, they deservedly gained enthusiastic reviews for their enchanting way of combining dark-tinged folk freak hybridized by storytelling, some gentle Celtic inhalations and even a certain gipsy scent filtered through a somewhat gothic mood, which is not so pervasive or depressive. The plucking tones of a banjo and a relevant verse (“This is how the story starts”) in Death At Sea (a song with a refrain sentencing “A Band Of Constant Sorrow” which seems to our musical memory something like a quote of Man Of Constant Sorrow, a famous traditional American folk song by the half-blind fiddler Dick Burnett) the listener in the sputtering and pleasant warmth of Brilig’s music, giving to him a sort of visit card to collect in his/her pavilion. Entrancing ballads alternates to tales which seems to be sung in an old bad-smelling tavern where all the elements of the magical musical textures are interwoven and always find a sort of meeting point in the finger-plucked guitar emotionally played by Matt Swayne and the background but precise drumming by Ben Macklin and a slight sense of tragedy in the lyrics are just some of the key notes of their guessed formula. Have a careful listen to The Old Captain (a sort of funereal march with a funny touch of buccaneer’s collective imagination hooked by the great performance by The Drunken Bastard Choir), the lovely melancholy dropping from The Frozen Lake and the gloomy Absinthe Makes The Heart Grow Fonder in order to understand that the influences by Leonard Cohen, Nick Cave, Neil Young, Johnny Cash, The Decemberists and even The Cure (undeniable the similarities between the use of vocal chords by Matt to the one by Mr.Smith) are anything but influences as their retro style looks paradoxically original! All the lucky people which have seen them performing don’t hesitate in testifying their skills in evoking the old-fashioned smell of their music even on the stage increasing our desire to see them perform out of Australian boundaries. They’ve begun their short European tour in Leipzig in Mat 2009, but some rumors say they’ll come back touring the planet in 2010. In the meanwhile, enjoy the warmth of their Red Coats to protect from the cold breezes of the forthcoming winter, folks!
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{ Artist: www.brillig.com.au/ }
{ Label: Black Rain }
Category: Dark / Gothic / Wave / New Wave / Dark Wave / Industrial Gothic

Kenny Wollesen's Wollesonic Laboratories - live on September 15 2009 [Small Club Concert review]

16 September 2009, 1:29 am

Review by: Marc Urselli
[ concert pictures available online ] very once in a while someone comes along and does something so extraordinarily out of the order that it blows your mind away and shatters whatever preconceived notions you might have. Kenny Wollesen was that person for me tonight. I knew how talented he is from having seen him play drums and vibes with John Zorn many times and I knew he had manu other side projects as well (some of which I’ve seen and some I have not yet). When he told me about this event, it sounded so interesting that I couldn’t pass it up, so even though I was at a rooftop dinner party, I just left for an hour to go check out Wollesonic Laboratories’ “Touchless Kaleidophonic Sonic Massages”. It was sooooo worth it!Held at the new Gallery 151 on the Bowery (co-curated by the talented urban/pop singer Miz Metro), the free donation-supported event basically consisted in two opposite rows if yoga mats where you would lay down, close your eyes if you wanted to (if you didn’t there was a psychedelic light show being projected on the ceiling) and absorb all the sounds created by Kenny’s populous crew (dressed in official looking white lab coats with woven names). For about 30-45 minutes I laid there relaxing and breathing in and out silently while the crazy professor and his assistants shuffled from one end of the gallery to the opposite making some kind of sound. Rain carousels, hellophones, sleep grinders, wind wands, rotorifics, magic cat boxes, rubber band contraptions, spinning baloons and other crazy looking things… If you can imagine it in your wildest dreams, Kenny probably built it! The sounds were pretty subtle, but every now and the there would be a subsonic rumble that you could feel in your spine through the wooden floor. I was terribly torn between wanting to keep my eyes closed to focus on the sounds and wanting to take a peak to satisfy my curiosity about what object on earth would produce such cool sounds. For those on the receiving end, if you let yourself be transported by this sonic massage you could pretty much enter an outlandish Tim Burton-esque parallel fantasy world where huge bugs hover over your head, mysterious creatures surround you and other amorphous sounds contribute to the creation of this dreamy sonic realm (which I bet might sound pretty scary if you didn’t have the comfort of knowing that they were created by friendly humans from planet earth). The spatiality and movement of the sounds makes it so much more special… Here’s an example: while you are feeling the air and focusing on the sounds of a giant butterfly flapping its wings above your head, suddenly a cricket-type sound punctures the silence from behind you on the left and when you least expect it dog comes up really close to your right ear and breaths… the Wollesonic touchless crew is pretty tactful and quiet while they run up and down the gallery and if they were even more silent it would be scary!It was a blast. I highly recommend anyone interested in experimentation with found sounds and new sonic experiences in general not to miss this event if/when it comes around again. I know I won’t.
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{ Venue: Gallery 151 }
{ Promoter/Organizer: Miz Metro }
Country: United States

Todd Durrant : "Trigger" [Paperback review]

24 July 2009, 11:08 pm

Review by: TG Mondalf
Trigger is the first complete novel by Todd Durrant, owner of A Different Drum record label. While A Different Drum is known for great modern Synthpop, Todd Durrant will quickly be known for great and philosophically thought provoking science-fiction. I was extremely impressed with this as a first work by him and anxiously look forward to more. The story was riveting and I couldn’t put it down! It is the type of story with many interesting layers of plot revelation that keeps the reader on edge waiting to see what will happen next. I loved that it was not overly predictable as I find many stories both written and filmed to often be. Instead, this just seemed to get more curious with every page turned.The most difficult thing about writing this review is that I really don’t want to include too many, if any, spoilers as the greatest fun about reading it was the interesting turns the plot took as more information was revealed. Basically, the story takes place in two different timelines. In one, you have a group of human exiles from Earth who are trying to make their way in space after forcefully leaving the planet due to a an invasion by mechanical “lifeforms”. In this timeline, there are divergent political perspectives revolving around either going back to retake Earth by force or expanding further into space and pioneering further development and growth. In the other timeline, which is pre-invasion, the focus revolves around a major corporation, scientific development, and a secret project to help prevent human annihilation by creating a device which is only activated after the calamity has occurred by using a trigger backwards in time to activate it. The only criticism I have at all about this work is that I think more development could have been done on the desperation that humans faced in the future on these remote space colonies. However, in many ways the author did make it obvious and other readers may likely disagree with me on this one as much of the first part of the book does have quite a bit relating to this in it. However, I have to admit, character development is probably the most difficult aspect of writing a fiction novel and a marked improvement was shown as the story developed. Overall, I think Todd did a great job and I really liked the characters he created. They are all unique and interesting, no carbon copies, archetypical or stereotypes here except maybe where The Admiral is concerned but that is at it should be in my opinion. I also like that he has strong female characters and sensitive male characters. He also shows many situations where their actions are very human indeed, sometimes logical and sometimes purely emotional, but most often a combination of both as their plight is very unique and unusual. I also like the tech in this book and how he stuck to realistic descriptions regarding the physical dynamics of space, unlike the hollywood movies where you see and hear great explosions and flames in space. Overall, the book has great technological ideas, interesting philosphical questions, multiple timelines, fairly well developed characters, mostly unpredictable plot lines and a very compelling story!
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{ Author: todd-durrant.com/ }
{ Publisher: Outskirts Press }
{ Buy here: }
Category: Music Industry (Biographies & Memoirs, How To...)
Fiction (Historic, Sci-Fi & Fantasy, Vampires)

Jojo Mayer's Nerve - live on May 19 2009 [Small Club Concert review]

20 May 2009, 11:05 am

Review by: Marc Urselli
[ concert pictures available online ] I'm not a drummer but I know good musicians and Jojo Mayer is one of the few drummers I get really excited about, still. I probably looked like a drummer-geek standing in first row and watching in awe (a facial expression shared by many surrounding me) as Jojo delivered his ultra precision handwork with the swing of a jazz drummer and the soul of a funk drummer. After the legendary Prohibited Beatz parties at Shine (now called Canal Room) in the late nineties we all had to wait a long time before we got to experience this again, but it was worth the wait and it was an amazing gathering with new faces and all the peeps from then (down to the organizer Alex Dj Small Change who made it all happen for us again!).The musicians where the same as well, with John Davis building the pulse with his ultra-low saw-y and sweepy gut-felt room-filling bass lines and Takuya Nakamura sprinkling the throbbing madness with embellishments and melody lines on keyboards and trumpet, accents, pads and other assorted angel dust.The last time I went to a concert and ended up watching the drummer 90% of the duration of the show was when I saw Julio Barreto doing his cuban thing, but Jojo is probably the fastest player I can think of. His left hand does snare rolls that other drummers need two hands for and his right hand is so beyond eyesight-range that while you blink it'll hit something several times and can create momentum with a ride pattern while doing a three tom drum fill in the space of a bar. The sheer speed and relentless energy are jaw-dropping (another popular facial expression while he played) but what is more amazing is that he can build and drive his shows home with changes in dynamics and and with what I think are some of the most creative fills I've seen in a while from drummers. The two snares, multiple hats, weird looking cymbals and addition of some creative delays that he triggers, all do contribute to the variety of sounds produced by his prototypes-enhanced instrument. Jojo pretty much invented live drum'n'bass and keeps reinventing and putting his spin on modern drumming while some other drummers out there are too busy improving their pocket and don't even contemplate contributing to the evolution of the art. In the end Jojo plays two sets of live drum'n'bass/dub step/more without ever playing a solo and still manages to leave any drummer wanting to retire and any non-drummer (like me) wanting more!
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{ Live Act(s): www.jojomayer.com }
{ Venue: APT }
{ Promoter/Organizer: $mall hang }
Country: United States

Zeromancer - live on April 2 2009 [Small Club Concert review]

5 April 2009, 4:59 pm

Review by: Andre Wiegand
[ concert pictures available online ] That was the first time Zeromancer ever played in Frankfurt, which is fairly surprising, considering that the band toured Germany quite a number of times and Frankfurt being one of the largest German cities. My first impression of the venue was “oh, my gosh. It’s so small! I gonna have to stand on the ceiling”. It was rather unexpected to see that a band of Zeromancer’s caliber gets to perform in a venue where 300 people could not comfortably fit in. The reason was that Batschkapp, the larger club usually hosting Gothic & Metal concerts in Frankfurt was booked by The Rasmus on the very same day. A very unfortunate co-incidence, not only because Zeromancer got to play in an undersized, for their standards, club, but also for a reason that the bands may very likely share some fan base. Another disadvantage on the club’s behalf was the lack of air conditioning (at least on that night). One would grow sweaty before the first song was over, if he/she were to rock there in a manner appropriate for a rock concert. I did not envy the bands; those were just soaked before anybody else in the club. A further shortcoming was that due to the small size of the stage Zeromancer had to give up their own lighting. But the sound was good and this is what counts first and foremost! Besides, with so little audience it was no prob to see the band, it's just pity that the photos did not turn out very well. The choice of the supporting act may have caused some brow rising among the fans of the Norwegians. The Berliner gothic rockers Scream Silence are well known domestically and even abroad, however looking for industrial elements in their compositions will prove fruitless. What the two bands do have in common is that they both broke their years-long abstinence from playing live by this common tour. Zeromancer never grow tired to mention in their interviews that their music appeals to rather diverse people and the Frankfurt audience was a living proof for these statements. The vast majority were gothics of ages ranging from the early twenties up to chaps in their fifties. But quite a number of people really did not fit into a gothic “type”. Some appeared to be yuppies, some looked like common working class people you really would not expect to meet in a gothic club. This is great when music can do something to unite people from various social circles and ages.After the intro the Norwegians hit the stage opening with Sinners International. The response was lively and warm. Zeromancer played nine out of ten titles of the latest album with their older “greatest hits”, if you may call them so which included Cupola, Need You Like a Drug, Geisha etc. Clone Your Lover surely belongs to an obligatory Zeromancer set and it rocked the venue. After the band left the stage the fans shouted “Zugabe!”, the German equivalent of “we want more!” insistently and the boys did not make them wait too long launching three additional songs. For the second encore an old killer Dr Online was played. The band proved their ability to play small clubs and not only huge venues like the New Opera in Oslo, where Seigman wrote history last year and made the audience move, which is not to be taken for granted in this part of Germany. Though the venue was far from sold out the vibe was truly great.
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{ Live Act(s): www.zeromancer.com }
{ Venue: Nachtleben, Frankfurt }
Country: Germany

Moldover - live on March 5 2009 [Small Club Concert review]

5 March 2009, 10:57 am

Review by: Marc Urselli
[ concert pictures available online ] My favorite recurrent NY electronic music party Warper (check out their new site and amazing monthly line ups) has been going on for years and continues to serve up fresh as well as established talent. Now back at The Delancey (which I vastly prefer to the Williamsburg location) I decided to make stint to see Moldover, the founder of Warped party, the founder of the art of controllerism and the founder of the art of playing the electric guitar with a sock (his own for that matter) over his hand.Moldover has evolved and is walking new grounds and reaching new hights. He abandoned the concept of live remashing popular rock/pop tunes in favor of remashing his own electro/rock/pop mixture of influences and sounds. I've heard an advance copy of his upcoming record and it sounds very interesting (a blend of electronica, some industrial, rock, pop and metal that at times reminded me of the latest Skinny Puppy or KMFDM and other times of Tool or some progressive rock bands). His music is now as original as the music's treatment itself and the live processing is taken to a new level through the use of his latest self-built usb/midi controller (a light weight horizontal MPC-sized metal box crowded with multiple ribbon controllers, old arcade videogames fire-type round buttons, MPC-type velocity-sensitive pads, DJ-type sliders, big vintage-analog-type knobs, small infinite-type knobs, good old faders and a big trackball). The once shy Moldover who would barely even look up to the crowd from his bent-over-the-controls position is now making more eye contact and not afraid of letting the light shine on his noteworthy guitar playing chops (can you imagine how many chicks he must get now?) and even on his vocal abilities!The genius of Moldover always resided in his skills as a real-time sonic manipulator of beats, sounds and music but just as noticeable and remarkable is his willingness and ability to reinvent himself and evolve, effectively moving on to a new chapter and corageously showcasing his own songwriting/production. Great show!
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{ Live Act(s): www.moldover.com }
{ Venue: The Delancey }
{ Promoter/Organizer: Warper }
Country: United States