M83/Ulrich Schnauss/DJ Chris Widman @ empty bottle
After a wonderful dinner with friends and a long week of work it was time for the first show of 2 for the weekend. I had read reviews that M83 were very MBV like, and listening to the album I thought “yeah they are swirley and blanketed in reverb and noise, but its not like its loud”. The live show really proved where those MBV compares came from. The openers Ulrich Schnauss and DJ Chris Widmanslowly eased us into the night’s event.
DJ Chris Widman played a nice long set of dark ambient leading up to fairly upbeat techo. There was a record he put on at one point that sounded like the music from “Bladerunner” which was both neat and creepy. I haven’t heard such a good set of techno tunes since leaving Buffalo,NY where on Friday nights DJ Soma would spin techo/ambient/downbeat stuff on the local college station Kirstie and I really liked (WBNY buff state college rado station). I have just realized that Widman is a member of Abstract Science which does a radio show show every week on WLUW (Loyola radio), I will have to tune into that.
Ulrich Schnauss was one guy, a keyboard, a Mac (looked like an older powerbook) and what sounded like multiple delay units. The combination visually gave me the idea that this was going to be some guy playing cheesy keyboards over lame beats. How wrong was I! The set started off slow, just a simple piano line and some atmospherics from the laptop. As that song progressed, and the layers of delay started to build, I began to see what he was doing. He actually was able, with all the layers of delay and feedback, make a typically un-expressive instrument very emotive and powerful. No only did he have musical skill he was able to make the effects and samples equally musical. A perfect stepping stone from the chill-out music of Widman and the sonic onslaught that M83 were about to bring, completely unknown to me at the time.
After starring at the stage, with all its real instruments, and wondering what they were going to do with them for the past 2 hrs it was finally time. I don’t know what my problem is, but when I listened to both “DeadCitites, RedSeas&LostGhosts” and “before the dawn heals us”, I thought that most of those sounds were keyboards and samples, ala Telefon Tel Aviv. There were samples, mostly used to thicken up the drum and bass sounds, and one keyboard which produced the melody lines of most of the songs. All of which were drowned, and I mean completely gasping for air, by the vertigo inducing volume of the guitar/bass and drums. There was one guy who played only guitar for the whole night, and he looked schooled in the Sonic Youth realm of guitar tools. He used a hand fan (one of those that you see ppl at baseball games holding to their face to try to cool off) to strum the strings for a few songs, a screwdriver in the neck of one guitar that he had laying on the keyboard stand was used as both a slide device and something that turned the guitar into more of a percussive instrument. Really though, while watching the show I tried to figure out who was making what sound, but it was useless. The drumming and bass kept all the songs from being just blissed out noise freaks. The 2 of them gave the sounds a danceable quality, not that I could move with my jaw firmly planted to the floor. The drummer was one of those that made you feel really bad for the drum-skins, while also able to change tempo and force to move the songs from these sonic onslaughts to peaceful soft landings. This was the show which has now made me realize that the sign at the bottle is right, “your not too old, its too loud”, but wow was it brilliant.