Short walk through of evening:
Proper PA. 2 subs, four tops. Performing in a gallery space. No stage. Artist where performing at the end of the main gallery room. I haven't heard anything from the three first bands, but will check out more of their works.
T.R. Kristen.Performed his electronic work DRUG. Didn't clock the set, but felt around half an hour long. Perfect duration. Played w back against crowd facing the PA at sound engineer booth. Slowly built up using channeled field recordings of bugs plus plus and electronic synth. Couldn't see the brand, but seemed to me to be some sort of potmeter button type. Low freq drone / contemporary electronic GRM studio feel. Skilled executed and very attentive to freq range and audio balance. A bit abrubt in changes a couple of times, and the ending /catharsis build up was a bit foreseeable, but worked in the whole. Crowd was seated on the floor. Good start. Had me meditating a bit and spacing out.
G.E.K.Duo of Johannes Lund & Maria Bertel. Trombone and saxofon ran through efx. Seemed to be miced w contact mics. Not sure, could be regular small mic attached to instruments. Took me totally by surprise. Epic, heavy and chaotic w a lot of energy. Noise-improv country. Think they clocked in around half an hour as well, but felt shorter. Try playing your Sun Ra 12" through a chain of Pro co rat 2 pedals and Blue boxes. Bit Sunn O))) edge to the harmonics and tonality at times. Could see they both had a good time playing. Very good.
FAMILY UNDERGROUNDTrio from KBN (according to the press sheet), but performed as a duo in Oslo. Psychedelic drone rock w 80s alternative rock feel. Took a while before they got warm, manage then to build a very interesting and atmospheric set. Vocals, guitar, synths, tambourin, div electronics and possible a backing track. Set got a bit stretched compared to other to two artist, think it would have benefited w a bit shorter and compressed set. They spent a little too long time building atmosphere and lost a bit continuity towards the end. Nevertheless during their set they upheld a very good balance in sound of instrumentation and how the diverse instruments interacted with each other. Good vocals. Female performer was working very focused over electronics during the set. Use of unplugged tamburin was pure genius. Very in contrast, but filled and suited the material perfectly. I wonder how they sound on records? Understand htey have a fairly extensive discography.
Puce MaryShort and to the point confident set. Not affected stage performance. That is rare to see these days. Good quality. Around twenty minutes or so. Korg synth and electronics plus vox. Loud punishing w strobe blitz lights. Crowd had moved closer towards the artist. Standing around in a half circle. PM delivered good vox and a confrontational set vs the crowd. In your face on some of the audience members, while bumbing/half punching/running into (?) a guy w the end of the mic. Very atuned ear to freq range. There were some tasty periods, especially low end bass use against high freq range - no to very little mid tones. I am not sure, but it seemd to me that at least half of the audience hadn't encountered PE before. Enjoyed the displacement a bit sadistically I have to confess. She managed to hold (as far as I could see) all the audience members attention until the end. Top notch.
Photo by Kim Sølve.
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I didn't document the evening, so if I come over more photos/videos/plus I'll post it here.
