 |
 |
 |
 |
||||
|
||||||
 |
||||||
|
|
       |
|
Reviews: Wilsonic Festival 2001 [10-05-2001] | Marek Babusak | photos courtesy of www.5D.sk April 21 at the Babylon klub Did you hear about last yearıs Wilsonic? If not, you'll probably hear about next year's. No tennis shoes here, but the festival does take its name partially from Bratislava's former nickname "Wilson City," a post-war carryover that only some still remember. Last year, Wilsonicıs directors Michal Hvorecky and Tibor Holota brought to Slovakia a ton of really interesting talent and spread concerts over three days. It looked like a regular big electronic music festival was finally going to take place in Bratislava. But, despite the cool line up a really small crowd showed up. It was a commercial flop, but the fest's reviews were nonetheless really good. This year Wilsonic was shrunk down to a one night event and a big name was announced: the Icelandic stars Gus Gus. Seeing all the people queued up for tickets in Bratislava's SNP square, you could tell it was going to be a big night. The venue for Wilsonic 2001 was the Atlon, a former shopping centre right in the town centre. A big hall with two bars, an upstairs balcony overlooking the stage with its own separate soundsystem and another bar, an upper gallery (the V.I.P. section) and a number of dark empty rooms with windows leading onto the roof, this was a promising start except for a scant few hitches: the chaos with cloakrooms was a bit unpleasant, and the classic disease of lacking toilet capacity quickly became an issue. The last minor minus was a lack of ventilation since all the windows had to remain closed because of residents in the surrounding buildings. Nevermind, going on to the music. Without any announcement, Daniel Balázh (aka DJ Luculus) appeared on stage, the loved-and-damned ex Radio Ragtime DJ with a face resembling the creepy guy from Charlie's Angels. He launched the night with a gorgeous experimental, mostly downtempo set. I've never seen him perform live except at one long-ago Sleepy Motion gig in 1993 as a drummer. Great noisy drones interlaced with some dubby and fat house beats in his set, while total fade outs followed moments of terrorifying noises and extreme delay. Pierced, silver space girls roamed around, inappropriately bored as hell what with the exotic cacophony. There was also a video projection with Marie Curie and trademarks of old Czechoslovakian electrical appliances, images that fit in perfectly well. Next was a first-time-ever performance by Tea Peak, a Bratislava-based duo introducing themselves with a long, primitive analogue intro, then suddenly breaking into beng!! beng!! kicks coming in, quite a nice touch. But after they turned off the drums and did a really interesting song with samples of strange female vocals, nothing else of note happened, it seemed like maybe the boys Jofes Vlk and Martin Turchan forgot some of their instruments at home. The crowd, until now phlegmatically chilling, finally got up onto the floor with Jake Mandell as he began his set in a truly partyesque mode. Hailing from Minneapolis, Mandell produces his minimal house on a software designed on his own, with a help of just one notebook and a small mixer. Mandell makes it seem like the 80's are really not at all gone, as he revitalizes the magic of Front 242 or of the Revolting Cocks' brutal disco beats and bass links, but in delightful way with some spastic click & cut intermezzos, all with an engineer's accuracy. It's 23.30. London deconstruction freak Max Tundra (Warp, Domino comes on with his 30-min- long (short?) live act. He's not playing the trashed lo-fi tunes like on his album Some Best Friend You Turned Out To Be...., actually his performance is breathtaking with a strong vibe and absorbing rhythm, sounds decomposed and highly blended together. Archaic sounds contrast with super intense hi fi beats and then he adds guitar, horns, and trumpets to bring the noise up to a huge jazzy cacophony. After that, Tundra turns on the mike and starts his half sung, half spoken waterfall of words into the sounds he plays. He is the man.
Next up were Crane A.K., the stars of Berlin minimal house label Force tracks. Finally there are no breaks and no scratches, just boring house music, kicking it straight-out. People are in that party kind of mood and they're in for more still. Time for the headliners: Gus Gus DJ's Herb Legowitz and Alfred More deliver the excited crowd a serious three and a half hour long lesson in deep and tech-house sound. MC Lola B. Nice with her r'n'b and soul vocals joins the guys in the middle of the powerful whirlwind of Nordic sunshine energetic house beats and pumps the atmosphere higher. The set could've been shorter, in the second half they lost the vibe a bit. No luck for those who expected them to play poppy hits from albums Polydistortion or This is Normal. Chain-smoking Lola, sipping her white wine, was definitely having a great time. It looks like the new album by Gus Gus, Celebrator is not going to be as relaxed as the previous ones. They must have enjoyed the gig as Tibor & Toky, waiting for their closing house set evidently couldn't get them off the stage. These U-club local resident-DJs had to wait but when their time came they brought on a great dark, bass-full house set. An after-party raged from six o'clock in the U-club. Congratulations guys, mission successfully completed, looking forward to 2002. |
|
© & ® - 2001 - TAMIZDAT nonprofit organization | U Rajske zahrady 4, 130 00 Prague 3, Czech Republic |
||
|
tel/fax: +4202.2272.1167 press and sales: heather@tamizdat.org |
booking and development: matthew@tamizdat.org dispatch design and building: martin@tamizdat.org |
logo and support: martin.turzik@deadred.sk tamizdat webmaster: scott@tamizdat.org |