Reflections of Darkness - Music Magazine - Electrolution Festival

Details: Written by: Sebastian Huhn; Published: 08 November 2008

Forum, Bielefeld, Germany
7th November 2008
Mediengruppe Telekommander, Großstadtgeflüster, Bonaparte, Sonnenbrandt

On 7th November, the Terrorverlag webzine unleashed its third strike and together with Bielefeld’s Forum they organized a festival with stylistically very similar bands from the Electro Rock / Punk / Pop Genre. MEDIENGRUPPE TELEKOMMANDER headlined the festival. Additionally there were performances of GROSSSTADTGEFLÜSTER, the explosive newcomers BONAPARTE and as opener the Hamburg based band SONNENBRANDT. The whole thing happened on two stages to guarantee a lively and entertaining evening.

Sonnenbrandt

The Hamburg based trio which started in 2003 is already a welcomed guest in (East) Westphalia, being able to animate all attendees to dance at the Kernkrach Festival and also at Electrolution. After one EP at NLW 2005 ‘Urlaubsgruss mit Sonnenbrand(t)’ the debut ‘Gestern’ finally hit the shops this year. http://www.sonnenbrandt.com/ / http://www.myspace.com/sonnenbrandt

Music & Performance
SONNENBRANDT apparently were the only band on this festival that played more encores than regular songs. To be precise 1 regular song and 7-8 encores. Seriously now, it’s just that this Hamburg based band has a capital sense of humour what made them very likeable to me and after they’d played their “only” song they went to the stage exit or better they pretended to do so and came back right away. On the spot, Frau Sonne told us that a band from Hamburg just has this humour.

Cpt. Korg and casually Herr Brandt support her on the synth while Herr Brandt played a guitar for the most part. The music of these three-piece moved between the poles of Neue Deutsche Welle and retro 80s synth pop, being the fundament for Frau Sommer’s clean vocals. The performance itself could have used a little more movement in my opinion, but maybe it was deliberately kept that way. Can’t tell as I’ve never seen them playing before. However, the charm and wit they spread made up for the lack of movement and when did you ever get the chance to see some “stardust” from Hamburg, as well as a couple of bathing caps thrown into the happily dancing audience among which we could spot two members of THE RORSCHACH GARDEN as well. An entertaining and funny start and it was to continue funny

Rating
Music: 8
Performance: 7
Sound: 8
Light: 7
Total: 7.5 / 10

Bonaparte

Already known as the “hot shit” in Berlin, this band certainly starts through nationwide in 2008. The hedonist collective crushes every stage and already managed to convince Quentin Tarantino (“I booked them to ruin my party in Berlin but they ruined my suit.”). The Avant Electro Punk initially self-produced their debut ‘Too Much’ but meanwhile the acclaimed record was also regularly released. http://www.myspace.com/findingbonaparte

Music & Performance
The carnival broke loose or so it seemed when we saw the first members of BONAPARTE coming on stage. Meanwhile the room in front of the bigger stage had filled quite well and one could be curious what would happen now; and that was quite a lot during this performance. Maybe some little information about the costumes of this troop; and it really was a troop with about 10 people, maybe more, however back to the costumes; the singer or shouter or whatever looked like a mixture of a scarecrow and a medieval-dressed nobleman. The synth player seemed to have escaped from a travelling circus, the bass wore a coat and a string combined with a hilarious wolf mask and the drummer, well he reminded me of that nutcracker guy.

The word “trash” maybe fits this performance and the music surrounding it best. It looked entirely overdrawn, but somehow fascinating when suddenly a tourist couple, probably from the 70s came through the audience and went on stage as cool as a cucumber to take photos while the other protagonists on stage seemingly didn’t take any notice of it. They began to make themselves at home and soon another woman, bitchy dressed joined them and tried to get off with the man with explicit poses, but that wasn’t even the craziest thing happening like the gay with the disco ball hat or when one of the many lads there on stage got rid of his string or…I could go on forever. It was just splendid to watch this. Did I mention the music? Guess I did but what I didn’t mention is that I had serious problems understanding what he was singing. Maybe it wasn’t that important because it was the show that was far more interesting and it animated the crowd to dance wild dances. The mood was simply great!

Rating
Music: 6
Performance: 9
Sound: 8
Light: 7
Total: 7.5 / 10

Großstadtgeflüster

Since 2003, the wild singer Jen Bender, bass monster Raphael Schalz and drummer Chriz Falk enrich the German music culture with their bold, urban Electro Pop. After their debut ‘Muss laut sein’ whose Indie hit ‘Ich muss gar nix’ is probably known to many and countless live performances, the band comes along with their second album ‘…bis einer heult!’ - another reason to not miss the trio as the new songs have already succeeded their live acid test. GROßSTADTGEFLÜSTER is Jen (vocals), Raphael (keys) and Chriz (drums). http://www.grossstadtgefluester.de/ / http://www.myspace.com/grossstadtgefluester

Music & Performance
The above mentioned ‘Ich muss gar nix’ frankly was the only track I knew from this band that took on the task to raise the mood even more than BONAPARTE did before them and the succeeded in fulfilling it looking at it in hindsight, even though everyone still acted quite behaved in the beginning when the three came through the audience to enter the stage and start the set with a punchy choreography. While the first two or three songs didn’t free the little mad man inside everyone, it just happened from on second to another. You could literally feel the adrenaline level rising with every minute and at one point it wasn’t just dancing anymore.

The famous moshpit came to prominence and that’s it. Hell broke loose and the people in front of the stage all went into a state of rush and knocked over several beer bottles and the liquid spread over the floor. A wonder no one slipped. I preferred to go apart but it couldn’t keep me from getting the full brunt of some jostles. I mentioned ‘Ich muss gar nix’ before, announced as ballad coming from the bottom of the heart and that was the moment when even I screamed the lines together with the other lunatics.

Rating
Music: 7
Performance: 8
Sound: 8
Light: 7
Total: 7.5 / 10

Mediengruppe Telekommander

Florian Zwietnig and Gerald Mandl, both based in Berlin for quite a while, met at a mutual train ride and since 2001 they make music together. With the two albums ‘Die ganze Kraft einer Kultur’ (2004) and ‘Näher am Menschen’ (2006) they made a quick rise, at least in the Indie scene. A new album is said to come soon. Besides, their sweeping live shows always are a guarantor for good mood. http://www.mediengruppe-telekommander.de/ / http://www.myspace.com/mediengruppetelekommander

Music & Performance
MEDIENGRUPPE TELEKOMMANDER on stage, that’s the two guys mentioned above with guitars and a table with instruments, whereas the table is no regular band member, just happened to be around I guess. The rhythms flooding the room sometimes were more hip hop, then rather Electro pop-ish again and so the performance was subjected to a constant change as well. There were nice instrumental parts both filled with some guitar gadgetry where the charmed out unusual sounds out of the instruments with the help of various effect pedals and almost acrobatic dancing moves with the instrument and then everything was different again and the performance took on this hip hop character where both were sweeping over the stage and boosted the audience to songs like ‘Bis zum Erbrechen schreien’, ‘Panzer’ or ‘Mach das aus’.

And especially those parts made the audience go nuts. Not that bad as with GROßSTADTGEFLÜSTER regarding the moshing, anyway the crowd turned into a partying mass and everybody - and I mean everybody - danced and sang, some even the complete lyrics; and as it was kind of interactive performance the audience was heavily involved, screaming parts of the lyrics alternating with the band for the most part and some seemed to have finding it boring and relocated their dance floor onto the stage. It was just a great closing gig for a festival that had many surprises on hand for us. Tired but content we left the venue and hit the road back. The bed was calling loudly.

Rating
Music: 8
Performance: 9
Sound: 9
Light: 7
Total: 8.3 / 10