KTL, IV

This fourth album from Peter Rehberg and Stephen O’Malley finds the duo upping the ante considerably in terms of grim, hellish and agonisingly slow guitar- and electronic-led drones. Moonlighting from his day job as half of Sunn O))), O’Malley turns away from that group’s relentlessly sludgey twin-guitar attack in favour of more silvery, melancholy tones. Rehberg, for his part, makes scalpel-sharp electronic incisions to take the music ever deeper into uneasy listening territory.

The World That Summer

This summertime business is all very well, but I have to say that I prefer winter. Having spent most of the long and hot months of June, July and August in my office cubicle in Vienna, except for two weeks on the beautiful Greek island of Crete, the pleasures of winter seem all the more distant and all the more acute.

Landlocked Vienna is not, despite the occasional pleasures of the Alte Donau, the best place in the world to be in summertime. There’s a distinct lack of pleasant open-air bars and cafés, for one thing, and it would be nice to be able to walk the streets of the 1st district without having to navigate one’s way through throngs of uncertainly pacing tourists. This particular summer is also notable for the fact that large parts of the city are currently being dug up and then laid down again, making life even more difficult than usual for pedestrians. I’ve given up any hope that the dusty wreckage of Landstrasse station will return to some semblance of normality in my lifetime, but maybe before the year is out Graben and Kärntnerstrasse will lose their current resemblance to a vast building site.

I’m also vexed by the question of clothing. An office drone like me has little choice but to wear a suit and tie all year round, which at 32°C is no fun I can tell you. Especially when you leave the office at lunchtime and are seduced by – how can I put this? – the competing distractions of summer fashion.

Sleeping in summer, meanwhile, presents its own unique set of challenges. The night-time hours are riven by conflict: too hot under the bedcovers, too cold without them. Getting to sleep on holiday is no easier, as I’ve recently been discovering. You have a choice between lying awake sweltering in the night-time heat, or lying awake listening to the incessant wheezy hum of the air conditioning unit. All told, I sleep far better in winter than I do in summer.

For me at least, winter can’t come soon enough. Let me dream of going to Peter Brötzmann concerts wearing my old, baggy black jumper, and of walking the streets feeling the satisfying crunch of virgin snow underfoot. Let the coldness of the air freeze my breath and make my cheeks and fingers tingle. Let me part the deep red curtains that guard the entrance to Café F———r, and enter its warm embrace to settle down with the Guardian and the perfect melange. Let me dream of once again walking down Schönlaterngasse late at night and being the only person there.

Letter to The Wire, July 2009

Nick Richardson’s mostly excellent review of this year’s Donaufestival in Krems, Austria, made the curious objection that “local artists were conspicuous by their absence”. If ”local” were taken to mean from Krems itself, then Nick might have had a point; but the Donaufestival is really a Vienna festival in all but name, with the vast majority of its visitors (a record 13,000 this year) coming from the capital, shuttle buses running between Krems and Vienna, and so on. “Grassroots support” was indeed present, in the form not only of Fennesz but also of Martin Siewert’s appearance with freeform rockers Heaven And, not to mention a new performance piece by Fritz Ostermayer.

A shame, too, that Nick failed to mention the absolute highlight of the festival’s first week, a transcendent appearance by Spiritualized. Where Sonic Youth, as Nick correctly observes, were there strictly to take care of business, Jason Pierce and group delivered a set that frequently threatened to levitate the building, such was its gravity-defying intensity. In an avant rock scene that all too frequently and lazily relies on noise as a signifier of primal modes of expression, Spiritualized’s ecstatic fusion of garage, gospel and systems music feels more like the truth than ever.

In memory of G.E., 1 February 1931–30 June 2003

Six years ago today, my mother flew away.

I just want to reproduce the text from the Book of Ecclesiastes that I read at her funeral. I first came across this text on Current 93’s “Hitler as Kalki” EP, at the end of which there is a recording of David Tibet’s father reading it.

“Remember now thy Creator in the days of thy youth, while the evil days come not, nor the years draw nigh, when thou shalt say, I have no pleasure in them;

While the sun, or the light, or the moon, or the stars, be not darkened, nor the clouds return after the rain:

In the day when the keepers of the house shall tremble, and the strong men shall bow themselves, and the grinders cease because they are few, and those that look out of the windows be darkened,

And the doors shall be shut in the streets, when the sound of the grinding is low, and he shall rise up at the voice of the bird, and all the daughters of musick shall be brought low;

Also when they shall be afraid of that which is high, and fears shall be in the way, and the almond tree shall flourish, and the grasshopper shall be a burden, and desire shall fail: because man goeth to his long home, and the mourners go about the streets:

Or ever the silver cord be loosed, or the golden bowl be broken, or the pitcher be broken at the fountain, or the wheel broken at the cistern.

Then shall the dust return to the earth as it was: and the spirit shall return unto God who gave it.”

Ether column, May 2009

When I was 13 years old and just getting into “proper” music for the first time, most of the kids at my school were huge followers of heavy metal, in particular the short-lived phenomenon known as the New Wave of British Heavy Metal. As a quieter and more bookish type (don’t laugh), I was the only person I knew of that age who worshipped instead at the altar of electronic music, in particular the German group Kraftwerk. I’m tempted to say I had the last laugh, for while the NWOBHM quickly floundered, Kraftwerk are still a formidable proposition. It’s unfortunate, though perhaps inevitable, that their rare concert in Austria this month takes place at a dance music festival, since Kraftwerk are still more often thought of in terms of their supposed “influence” on hip-hop and techno than their own music itself. Kraftwerk music is possessed of a shimmering, crystalline beauty, the simplicity and urgency of their melodies utterly beguiling. Although founder member Ralf Hütter is the only one left from the classic Kraftwerk line-up, in this case it hardly matters, since the individual personalities were long ago subsumed into a group identity that represents itself onstage in a stunning multimedia show including, at one point, the appearance of the legendary Kraftwerk robots. Impossibly dry and funny, at times sinister yet strangely hopeful and touching, Kraftwerk are the sound of the future turning back in on itself.

Just sneaking in under the wire this month is a welcome return to these shores by experimental drone metallers Sunn O))). Although the duo of Stephen O’Malley and Greg Anderson have played with a bewildering variety of other artists, their strongest music undeniably emerges from their work together as Sunn O))), a group originally conceived as a tribute to Earth, another band in this field. Yet in recent years Sunn O))) have outstripped Earth with their dark, mysterious and resonant music, which consists of deep, agonisingly slow guitar lines played amid a welter of feedback and the occasional anguished vocal. Live, they present an intriguing spectacle, playing at deafening volume, dressed in long, hooded robes and filling the room with industrial quantities of fog that add to the ritualistic aspect of the performance. Arrive early to catch the support slot from Vienna laptop maestro Peter Rehberg aka Pita, who plays with O’Malley as KTL.

Finally, I could hardly end this column without mentioning another Vienna concert by the German saxophonist Peter Brötzmann, this time performing with his celebrated Chicago Tentet in the elegant surroundings of Porgy & Bess. This awesomely talented and expressive big band is now at the height of its powers, merging the delights of way-out jazz and free improvisation into an extended and delirious whole. Not to be missed.

Easter Quiz – winner and answers

I’m delighted to announce that the winner of my Easter picture quiz is Walter Robotka of (where else?) Vienna. Walter will be receiving a small pile of CDs (some of which he probably already owns, one or two of which he probably even put out himself) in the next few days.

In case you’re interested, here are the correct answers:

1. Neil Young
2. Einstürzende Neubauten
3. Heather Nova
4. Dead Can Dance
5. Okkervil River
6. Gillian Welch
7. The Band
8. Dido
9. Lloyd Cole
10. Albert Ayler
11. Lucinda Williams
12. Steven Stapleton (Nurse with Wound)
13. Esbjorn Svensson
14. The Dirty Three
15. Jarboe
16. Marissa Nadler
17. Douglas P (Death in June)
18. Ultravox!
19. Jandek
20. Kathleen Edwards

Many thanks to all those who sent in entries.

Man assaulted by police dies on the streets of London

I’m not in the habit of making this kind of post, but I’m sickened by this film of a man being assaulted on a London street by a so-called police officer. This vicious and unprovoked attack took place in the middle of a demonstration which the man himself was not taking part in. A few minutes later the man died of a heart attack, leaving a woman without her husband and a man without his father.

Easter Quiz 2009

Undeterred by the total lack of interest in my 2008 Easter quiz, I’ve decided to set another one this year. The difference is, this year there are prizes! Yes, I’ll send a (small) pile of CDs to the person who sends me the most right answers by the closing date of Easter Monday, 13 April. None of your rubbish, either. Good CDs, all unplayed.

If more than one person gets all the answers right, I’ll send those people a tie-breaker picture which will decide the winner.  So, get thinking and identify the 20 artists or groups in the pictures below, all of whom I think are fab, groovy and wonderful:

Esbjörn Svensson 1964-2008

Just a quick note to mourn the passing of Swedish jazz pianist Esbjörn Svensson, who has died at the appallingly young age of 44. I saw EST twice, once at the Barbican in London and once at the Dome in Brighton. They were awesomely strong both times, with Svensson’s piledriving piano leading the jazz trio into wholly unexpected and joyful places.

Svensson did a huge amount to bring jazz to a younger and wider audience, using the framework of the rock concert to make jazz sound fresh, raw and accessible. His trio were pretty damn unique, and he has left us far too soon.

Easter Quiz

OK, so I made this little picture quiz for some friends in Vienna, but I thought I would throw it open as well. So if anyone’s reading this and wants to have a go at identifying the 20 artists/groups shown, please send me your answers using the form below. They are all artists I enjoy listening to and admire.

I’ll post the answers on 8 April and say who got the highest score. No prizes except the glow of satisfaction.

Update: No-one was interested. Ah well.

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