Photos from the FRKWYS Live and Bass Mutations performances of Unsound Festival New York -
Alan Howarth, Harald Grosskopf, Emeralds, Dorian Concept, KiNK, Badawi, Kode 9, Sepalcure, Spatial, Appleblim, Lone, Dave Q, and more.
taken by Stephen J Cardinale
[photospace]
It had been building for for days already, but tonight was the night that it all exploded in an spasm of orgiastic subbass and lashing breakbeats. As I stepped off of the train in the Village, I already felt the pensive mood of the night developing. After navigating the queue to get into Le Poisson Rouge, for the RVNG INTL showcase, I slid into the front row of the packed house just as Alan Howarth was finishing his first number and segueing into a surefire crowd pleaser: the theme from Escape from New York. As Howarth went through a few of his more famous John Carpenter scores accompanied by looped clips from the films, the crowd was eating it up and begging for more. His music is what it is: there certainly were hammy or proggy moments, but when he got started doing this stuff in 1981 it was just him, Moroder, and few others, so the guy deserves respect. He also left a lasting stamp on the genre of film score music – aside from avant garde masterpieces like Tarkovsky’s Solaris and its amazing electro-acoustic score, there were few precedents to Howarth’s works. He’s also a charismatic and funny performer, and as he went through his material he was cracking jokes and very much living for the now.
Half an hour later it was Harald Grosskopf’s turn to return from the grave Halloween-style. RVNG INTL caught a few people off guard when they reissued his Synthesist record, but with the number of Kosmische Rock survivors ever dwindling it’s always a pleasure to hear one of them throw down live. He was joined onstage by a German friend doing some characteristic spacey guitar shredding as well as a revolving door cast of younger guests contributing vocals and synthesizers at moments. As I wasn’t familiar with his music before the show, I just let it wash over me and soaked it in. Krautrock is one of those things I’ve spent significant portions of my life listening to, and as they went through their hour long set they hit all of the right notes of its more synthetic end as the crowd grooved to the loopy live drumming. Cool…
Emeralds was up next and was evidently the reason many people had come for the night. It was interesting that while the older generation performers had used Ableton, these young guys from Cleveland had a sick collection of analog gear onstage: SH-101, MS-10, Prophet ’08, Doepfer analog sequencer, and a new, fat Moog as well as the guitarist’s rig. With those analog beasts onstage, it was a given there were going to be some extreme frequencies and punishing bass, and their set proceeded like Tangerine Dream on a heavy dose of proper Midwestern methamphetamine. The whole room was rumbling from the analog low end with the guitar barely audible under the thick, noisy layers of rigidly sequenced synthesizer riffs. For the last 15 minutes, Howarth returned, and we were treated to three expanded versions of his favorites accompanied by the Cleavelanders. They finished off with the tension music from Halloween 2, and as I slunk out to run to the next event I’d been suitably jostled and softened from the waves of analog brain-melt.
Lateness was unfortunately the theme of the night for me, and in spite of my best efforts I walked in the door of Public Assembly just before midnight having barely eaten. Bass Mutations was getting off to a brisk start, and after big upping Dave Q onstage I caught the rather lackluster end of Cancha Via Circuito. Eleven Tigers did better though, and while his set was missing much emotional or harmonic content, the cubist restructuring of Garage and Dubstep he was pumping out gave pleasant recollections of Brainfeeder. Lone wasn’t all that live, and after checking out half of his attempts to mix UK Funky and the more obvious end of Future Garage I retired to the lounge area where Dorian Concept was up next. His jumpy Garage beats were punctuated by some really exceptional live keyboard tickling that he sampled and integrated into his set on the fly, injecting a much needed dose of feeling, funk, and groove to limber up the dancefloor… people were definitely ready. I silently regretted missing Badawi, Kode 9, and Sepalcure’s sets, but with such a stacked lineup it was impossible to catch all of it. The crowd for the event was massive – almost every nook in Public Assembly was stuffed with people, and making the rounds of friends and acquaintances occupied my time until the highly anticipated set by KiNK. The Bulgarian immediately let loose with twisted breakbeats that didn’t match either a House or Dubstep framework, and by halfway through his set he’d made it into the banging House and Techno that’s more familiar to his fans. All night the performers had been going full out and not slowing down for the curves, and KiNK ruthlessly kept the breakneck pace to feed the hungry crowd. As he wrapped up, friends and I were roughly spat into the back room right into the middle of Appleblim’s set. Laurie hasn’t been up to too much production-wise since the anthems he dropped on Skull Disco, but he’s a dependably amazing DJ and his psychedelic Techno-influenced style was just what everyone needed to keep the beers flowing and the bodies shaking. It led smoothly into another highly anticipated event of the evening – a live/DJ mashup on Ableton by the much-talked about London talent Spatial. I had missed his previous set at one of the last few Dub Wars (RIP), and I certainly call myself a fan of his choppy and hard reductions of Dubstep, Garage, and Techno. By this time, the accumulation of the night’s musical and other excesses had softened my head and I was just in it for the dance – there comes a point at any music festival when critical judgement is suspended and you’ve just got to roll with it and take it all in, and I’d surely arrived on such pleasantly bass-blasted shores. The tumbling breakbeats and pillars of subbass kept adding fuel to the fire, and even when they killed the music the dancefloor was still crowded and bodies were still in motion. It could have gone on for hours, but with more eagerly anticipated events yet to come, we stepped out into the morning light and pointed our noses towards the train…
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