Saint, Oberhausen, Germany29th November 2008
2nd Electronic Aid Festival: Jesus on Extasy, Destroid, Kiew, Patenbrigade:Wolff, Akanoid
In November, the electronic aid festival is taking place for the second time at the Saint Club in Oberhausen. With a total of five bands, the organizer independence e.V. presented a diversified line-up with top bands, but before we could see any of those we had to wait. A little delay in the schedule, but it was not that bad to wait. We had coffee - thanks to the promoter - and nice chats. So, the minutes passed swiftly until we could enter the e venue, eventually.
AKANOID have released already three albums and a compilation. Several records with different solo and side projects in the genres Dance, Electro and Rock can be added to their discography. Their new stuff proves once again that the Germans have multilateral talents: already known for their hypnotic grooves they now enrich their electronic sound much more with atmospheric melodies, emotional voices and accentuated guitars. Their current album ‘Cocktail Pop’ has been released in April 2007; an EP called ‘100 Burning Guitars’ has been released simultaneously with their tour with THE CRÜXSHADOWS. The EP serves as an appetizer for the second AKANOID full-length ‘War Weed for God’s Dimension’ planned for a spring 2009 release. AKANOID are Hilton Theissen (vocals / guitar / FX), Phil Weyer (guitar / vocals), Gregor Matlok (synth / vocals) and Dirk M. Berhorn (drums). http://www.myspace.com/akanoid / http://www.akanoid.de/
Music & Performance
Openers always have a tough time - so they say, but in the case of the German four-piece AKANOID, entering the stage at sharp seven o’clock, this “law” didn’t apply, even if the amount of attendees was not up to scratch at that time, but a small crowd of loyal fans had gathered. Even I was impressed by the vocal qualities of Hilton Theissen, who turned out to be a true-bred energy bundle and was hardly stoppable in his urge to move and that not only on stage. During ‘100 Burning Guitars’ from the current, same-titled EP, he went off stage and took a “bath” in the small crowd and carried on with his performance from there for a while. Guitarist Phil was - just as Hilton - an epitome of verve and I’m still wondering how he was still handling that guitar, considering his extensive movements.
Going back to the “small” audience, they clapped and sang along. I would have wished for a little more attendance of their gig. Besides the mentioned ‘100 Burning Guitars’, the set held a lot of the first full-length like the pushing ‘Nexx’, ‘I Swear’ or the actual closer ‘No Matter’. Yeah, the “actual” closer. I can’t recall any concert, where the crowd demanded an encore from the opener, but there’s always a first time right? And so there was another unplanned song (in fact they did one song requested by the audience for a second time), before a great opening concert found its end.
Setlist
01. Intro
02. All the Noise
03. Nexx
04. Usual Freak
05. 100 Burning Guitars
06. Under the Line
07. I Swear
08. Same Old Song
09. Pain
10. Headless
11. What we Forgot
12. No Matter
Rating
Music: 7
Performance: 7
Sound: 7
Light: 7
Total: 7 / 10
Patenbrigade: Wolff
Sven Wolff and Lance Murdock make no secret of their obsession with heavy machinery. Endlessly fascinated with what appears to others as the monotonous daily routines of a construction site, they early on became enraptured with loud and gigantic machines, the glare of orange safety vests, yellow hard hats, and striped cordoning tape. However, the focus of their fervent adoration became the gravity-defying conductors in their seemingly never-ending tower cranes. It is exactly this bizarre source of inspiration that seems to have fuelled PATENBRIGADE: WOLFF and the duos zest for musical achievements since 1998. PATENBRIGADE: WOLFF is the soundtrack for this situation and remains dedicated to all tower crane conductors across the world. Ever since their inception they’ve released a string of albums and EPs. Their most recent releases are the retrospection ‘Demokratischer Sektor’ and brand-new the single ‘Stalinallee’. http://www.patenbrigade.com/ / http://www.myspace.com/patenbrigadewolff
Music & Performance
Now, the stage was turned into a construction site as it was time for everyone’s favourite tower crane conductors of PATENBRIGADE: WOLFF - in proper style with warning signs, barrier tape and of course with construction worker suits. Well, I know it would be easy to say that nothing could really happen on stage as their sound is usually pure instrumental an ambient-tinged. It was quite the opposite. Besides Sven and Lance doing their synth work and moving to the rhythms, there were 2 fellow workers, handing out some drinks to the audience lamenting about a broken nail, or treating a piece of metal with a grinder the whole time during ‘Führer WC’. You think that’s it? You’re wrong.
After the vocalized ‘Maurerradio’ and ‘Schusswechsel’ with its prevailing distorted rhythms, the keyboard wouldn’t work anymore and what do you do when such a thing happens? You’re gonna crush it to pieces with a big hammer and make a mess on stage, but you have to clean up the shit afterwards. To make sure everything’s properly done you need a supervisor, who can do some vocals as well, especially that track ‘Voyage’ was nice. But we had another guest vocalist this evening, namely André Hartung, singer from SERO-OVERDOSE we heard on two tracks. A highly entertaining performance and recommended to see live.
Setlist
01. Intro
02. Aussetzbetrieb
03. Führer WC
04. Maurerradio
05. Schusswechsel
06. Einsatzbereitschaft
07. Feind hört mit!
08. Gefahrstoffe
09. Voyage
10. Never Neverland
11. Sunday Night
12. Kennlinien
13. Demokratischer Sektor
14. Ostberliner Bauarbeiter
Rating
Music: 8
Performance: 8
Sound: 7
Light: 7
Total: 7.5 / 10
Kiew
KIEW was initiated by Andreas Thedens end of 1990 and released several tapes and CDs until they got signed to German label Out of Line. They’re well-known for their club hits ‘Feierabend in Kiew’, ‘Tunnel’ or ‘Diskette’. A new album is said to be released soon. KIEW are: Andreas “Thedi” Thedens, Matthias Kulcke and Stephan Thiemicke. http://www.kiew.org/ / http://www.myspace.com/kiew
Music & Performance
From a construction site, we’re gonna move on now to a madhouse. Some may say we already had one during the last gig, but that’s a matter of opinion. Anyway, the doctor, the nurse and their patient all connected through a power cable initially came on stage to start with their ‘Audiotherapy’ how they put it - and this therapy mainly intends to make people dancing with rhythmical, twitching movements. But the therapy wasn’t such a resounding success as I would have expected as people usually love to dance to such rhythms, instead it was only a handful. KIEW developed avant-garde noise-scapes to a very rhythmic Industrial sound with Break-beat and Techno elements.
On stage they’re as well using wild and wailing guitar lines during their ecstatic dances on stage and Andreas, responsible for the synths on stage took on vocal duties on some of the tracks and I think it wasn’t me alone, who found those performances quite disturbing at times. Honestly, if that guy would play a madman in a movie, you wouldn’t be sure if he was only acting. Nevertheless I couldn’t get into that kind of music…
Setlist
01. Intro: Montreal permutation
02. Exit
03. Graograman
04. Käferfrühstück
05. Therapiegespräch
06. Zimmer 72
07. Tunnel
08. Gabriel
09. dcdisk
10. Delusion
11. Mister 29
12. Mister 29 (13th Monkey Version)
13. Staub (Short Flut Mix)
14. Stille / Stimme
Rating
Music: 5
Performance: 7
Sound: 7
Light: 6
Total: 6.2 / 10
Destroid
DESTROID is a project of Daniel Myer, who is also well-known for his other projects, i.e. HAUJOBB and ARCHITECT. With their first album 'Future Prophecies' released in 2004, they already gathered much attention by the press as well as from the fans of electronic music. Their second album, which is called 'Loudspeaker', was released on 26th October 2007 and was once again a success as much as it was an evolvement of the band’s sound. DESTROID are Seb Rydell aka Sebi (production, arrangements), Yamazaki aka Daniel (production, arrangements, vocals) and Lil' Demon aka Ribi (live noises). http://www.destroid.de/ / http://www.myspace.com/destroidmusic
Music & Performance
It’s been over one year, since I last saw DESTROID on stage and was really looking forward this gig. What I wouldn’t have considered possible anymore happened. Daniel could get almost everybody, who’d gathered up in front of the stage to shake their tired bones. Well, there’s some young folks sitting on bar stools right at the front for hours, who couldn’t, but when they eventually did, even if only for a short time, Daniel ordered some Vodka for them. Yeah, back to the music and the crisp and harsh ‘Soul Asylum’ opening the set, to seamlessly blend it with the following ‘Friend or Foe’ from the current album ‘Loudspeaker’ to crush everyone’s bones afterwards with the dark ‘Bonewhite Light’. But not only they played tracks from both of the albums, we had the opportunity to witness a live synth performance for two times.
There’s only one word for that: amazing and I would love to see that from some more electronic bands than the usual suspects. ‘Let me Leave’, one of my personal highlights from the ‘Loudspeaker’ album, was played in a special far more balladry version only carried by the electronic percussion. I vote for a studio version! The track, however, only was one calm island after which we went straight back to the dance floors with the likes of ‘Judgement Throne’, ‘Mourn’ and even ‘The Noize Institute’ from HAUJIBB. And at every point, the mood was fantastic and Daniel always anxious to boost everyone. Next time I wanna see a longer set!
Setlist
01. Soul Asylum
02. Friend or Foe
---tech break---
03. Abattoir & The Bog Cover
04. Bonewhite Light
05. Let me leave (Calm Version)
06. Judgement Throne
07. Mourn
---tech break---
08. Ruins
---
09. The Noize Institute (Haujobb)
10. Anasthasia
Rating
Music: 9
Performance: 8
Sound: 8
Light: 6
Total: 8 / 10
Jesus on Extasy
Founded in summer 2005 by vocalist Dorian Deveraux and guitarist Chai, JESUS ON EXTASY came to breathe new life into the “dead” industrial genre and their first album crushed in like a bomb and they quickly became a hype in the Goth scene, but a good one in this case as the five are all talented musicians. Their second release ‘Beloved Enemy’ came out this year’s May and showed a much more matured sound of this German band. JESUS ON EXTASY are Dorian Deveraux (vocals, synths, samples) Chai Deveraux (guitar, synths, backing vocals, programming) Ophelia Dax (synths, keys) and BJ (drums), who became a full band member in June after the latest club tour of JESUS ON EXSTASY. http://www.digital-dandies.com/ / www.myspace.com/jesusonextasy
Music & Performance
Considering JoE to be the headliner of the festival, it had become pretty empty there in the stage area. One full first row and the rest were scattered to the nearer environments. Anyway, as soon as everyone was in position and the monumental intro had ended, the first harsh tones of ‘Drowning’ blasted through the speakers “And the first row raves!” as Dorian noted with a smile. Meanwhile the set went on with two songs from the most recent album, the title track ‘Beloved Enemy’, ‘Change The World’ and ‘Nuclear Bitch’ and while Ophelia Dax behind the keys was smoothly shaking her hips, Dorian and Chai rocked with sometimes more and other times less movement. This time there seemed to be some sound problem as it was tough to hear the vocals amongst the other instruments for me.
But that couldn’t keep anyone from loud singing and dancing, however it even got thoughtful one moment as it was the first advent Sunday and of course you need to light a candle for this special occasion and the fitting song for this Church-like atmosphere, logically was ‘Church of Extasy’. The thrashing ‘Neochrome’ topped it of as it was time to leave to take a “short” walk home and calm down and reminisce of the great moments this little festival had to offer.
Setlist
01. Intro
02. Drowning
03. Beloved Enemy
04. Nuclear Bitch
05. Change the World
06. Assassinate Me
07. Nowhere Girl
08. Stuck
09. Alone
10. Second Skin
11. Puppet
12. Church of Extasy
13. Neochrome
Rating
Music: 8
Performance: 7
Sound: 7
Light: 8
Total: 7.5 / 10
All pictures by Daniela Vorndran (http://www.vorndranphotography.com/ / http://www.black-cat-net.de/ / www.myspace.com/vorndranphotography)
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