Atonal 2018 trip review [part 2]

We are in the equator of Berlin Atonal 2018, facing the program for Day III. Something you learn in life is that after a big wave there is a moment to reach the bottom. The higher you get, the lower point you gonna touch later on. That works with drugs, with feelings, with work / art-works, but also in places such as Atonal Festival. It’s like a natural order. So after an intense Thursday (check part 1 of this review), the following days would hardly get me there. Still I left my mind open to be surprised, beside those acts I was looking forward to.

At a personal level, it’s not the same to make a one-day trip than taking a four-days experience. I had my starting point, the trigger, and now I would had to face everything I dug up from the deep dark black hole. That means going in loop over certain subjects, even if you don’t want to. Still had a great fun and enjoyed myself tripping out, but on the personal side I would have to hold up my mind, not being too mental, but still try to find out where those thoughts and memories came from and why. Is it myself hacking my mind with ideas, or maybe ideas are like viruses, implanted in you from a third part? Am I going towards a truest version of myself or, on the contrary, I’m just reprogramming myself in order to escape from the essence?

In any case all that is just a side story, that I only introduce so you can understand the deviations on this review:

The equator means the middle ground, it was by far the less exciting day for me, but you have to keep in mind that I’m a really visual person. So even though I don’t need visuals to space out with music, if there is no visual components in the equation, I would be less excited. In all these years, many people asked me for advice on which days are the best to attend Atonal Festival, and I always reply the same: 1. Depends on which artists you like and 2. Depends on if you are looking for a more complex combination of different arts (including visuals). Usually recommend Thursday and Saturday, but it’s never a safe bet.

The Main Stage showed an even more airless version of the light setting than Day I, the lights were lower, I wouldn’t say that was an improvement, but it’s true that depending on your position in the hall, the vision could be more or less interesting… For example, right in the back, on the side corridors, the metal structure and lights offered an interesting perspective, increasing the feeling of deepness in opposition to its vertical aspect.

Concerts passed by one after the other, ranging between ambient, drone, field recording, slow industrial, with synth based landscapes and dark atmospheres. From Georgian explorers Esi + Octachoron to sound abstractionist Chevel, passing by a more rhythmical set from Hiro Kone and the awaited Pariah who was presenting “Here From Where We Are” released this summer on the always interesting Houndstooth label. In general music wise was an interesting and pretty intellectual night, but maybe because of that I missed something to connect with that would really shake my ghost. There were great moments, but I waited for something else.

That something else could be the first performance over a decade of British Murder Boys in Germany. These guys have a good pedigree, as Surgeon and Regis need no introduction for a techno-industrial audience. Indeed, they started and went straight to the point, if you were waiting for that, they delivered what was expected. The Kraftwerk went back on, full speed, the former power station remembered its glorious times of rhythm, noise and heat. This concert counted with a different light set up, using mirrors on stage to reflect light in different angles, creating a beautiful structure around the Boys on stage. I left myself follow the machine, I danced, I enjoyed it but at same time it was not exactly my thing, I felt it like a reminder of my long years spent at Maschinenfest.

At this point I wasn’t expecting the night to get any better, but I was wrong, Stage Null somehow offered me redemption, or maybe just the right tone. Under a special program celebrating 25 years of Downwards Records the night promised heavy duty from solid artists such as Samuel Kerridge, Regis and Paradox… I didn’t stay that long, maybe because I was highly surprised by the first acts: Layne started with a quite atmospheric repetitive intro, adding step by step layers of hypnotic rhythms and ended (that first track) with some bass player adding the right homage to 80’s wave and post-punk sound. The whole concert followed that style, between dark rhythms and an updated version of post-punk. It felt like a pretty short concert, maybe because you can’t find much of her published, or maybe because I enjoyed it much more than all the concerts before. Anyway the same vibe continued with Ora Iso, Kathleen Malay’s voice feels like a whip, slow tunes, great sound and broken industrial. I delighted my ears and moved along enough to exhaust my body for that night.

Back to a full audiovisual day and looking forward to see Claude Speeed live, the day promised to be quite exciting. The Main Stage was opened with the premiere of Prequel Tapes with the visual work from nomoreless and a performance by Valentin Tszin. Maybe because I got the chance to meet Marco (Prequel Tapes) some months before, I was looking forward to see what they have prepared. And I appreciate they really worked out the whole set, music wise it was the presentation of his new album, diving deeper in ambient and well designed soundscapes, and visually everything have been planned and rehearsed. You can tell, just because there was a natural and interesting development from the beginning to the end, a concept behind it and a sort of storyline. Sound, performance and visuals fitted one with each other offering some iconic scenes.

The following artists, Lowtec + Kassem Mosse were premiering their collaborative new project: Kolorit, presented as an AV live. Visuals were a really basic audio-reactive texture of paper… Sorry to be grumpy about it, but again, it’s quite sad knowing that Berlin has such a great scene of visual creators and some artists just prefer to ignore the importance of good visual content. I understand that AV is being a trend (since years), but there is no point in offering a “live AV” if the visuals just don’t follow at all. Otherwise, probably I would have kept a better memory of their music… Kind of the same happened with the following artists, Leslie Winer & Co. just (ab)used a bucolic scene of wild horses running in slow-montion and left it there on screen the whole-f*cking-time, such a cliche, easy and obvious that makes me question if we should maybe create a new label for this type of shows (live A / lame V). In the case of Leslie things went further down… becoming probably the worst concert I have ever seen in Atonal. Started great! Winer has a great voice and a particular style, touching the edges of spoken-word and trip-hop. First two songs convinced, the rest of the concert seemed like a “Sorry, my dog ate the homeworks”, long breaks between songs, some moments it was just the percussionist, not as a solo, just because the others seemed confused on stage looking at the screen of their laptop commenting on… maybe how to change the video loop. Then the style could change into… oh! It’s just a loop, no voice, no purpose, but hey! They finished with a personal cover of Portishead. And that’s something I really dislike (don’t get me wrong, I love Portishead), artists playing great hits from well-known bands… It is OK if you do it in Lollapalooza, people is gonna love it, but in Atonal? C’mon! But… Maybe it’s just me, that I missed the point (her Witch album on 1993 is considered a legend) and that I-don’t-care attitude was just a cool pose I didn’t get.

Ahhhh-nyway! Now it was time for one of the concerts I was waiting for. It took quite sometime to set up the wall of Marshall amps, between the amps was Claude Speeed’s desk, in the middle, with his laptop and gear, the tall screen behind, all perfectly symmetric and aligned. A hint for the nerdy but punk soul that was about to perform. The show was a collaboration with Sasha Litvintseva + Beny Wagner, authors of the great, elaborated and twisted visual trip showed on screen. Here you have a good example of something produced on purpose, with a great aesthetic sense, fresh and contemporary, still ironic and funny sometimes, scary and creepy some other moments, and just beautiful most of the time. But more importantly a perfectly matched and synched AV show. On the music side Stuart played his mental and distorted combination of beats, samplers from hell (internet) and colorful melodies, all cracked down in impossible ups and downs in order to keep you still and at the same time push you to dance compulsively. The set was filled with moments to remember like that break where he dropped an on-your-face “Joy Division is rubbish” and kept forward with the song… provocative and ironic, his inside jokes were just brief seconds in order to short circuit those who were paying attention. I must confess it was hard to take all in… My trip was in its highest peak and the images I was being lobotomized with only increased the spiral of ideas, colors, patterns, meanings, not getting a chance to align all the pieces. Thanks god my brother Gnosick is a master in figuring out storylines, and summarized me afterwards that all we saw on screen was indeed as trippy as I guessed. All made sense inside that tent, inside the woods, the heat, the crazy flashbacks, the paranoid squeezed perspectives and even the free fall and the diving parts, all were part of a wild journey, perfectly portrayed. He absolutely deserved the great ovation received, and he replied back making the horns with both hands and kissing his laptop.

Still one more bullet in the chamber, the closing act in the Main Stage was Actress, and even though his music never hooked me up, I was curious about it. Actress show can be defined with the word “perfection” in its positive and negative sense. His music, his performance and his visual presentation is pure aesthetic, all shinny like his chromed mannequin. The glitched and RGB distorted visuals with all those pixels, the 3D chrome fluids, the lights over the mannequin, the music itself with that repetitive and never ending build up into something. Something unknown that kept me stand still like all the others around me, in that moment my mind was spinning around over all the personal subjects that were coming to surface the previous days, and from time to time I asked myself Do I like this? Yeah, it’s goooood, look! listen! the mannequin… it’s so shinny… At some point, after 40 minutes I realized I couldn’t move, my brother confirmed the same, Actress performed a sort of mass hypnosis. That’s it! We tried to escape, not looking to the mannequin again, but when I was about to leave the Main Stage I turned back, called by those perfect sounds, he got me and I was hypnotized once again looking the same for another 10 minutes. I finally managed to get ride of that spell and went out. I confirmed I don’t dig Actress work but I do recognize his great power of hypnosis, so he certainly does something right, masterfully. And indeed some friends told me how much they enjoyed it. No doubt it is a complete pure aesthetic experience.

The rest of my night between different stages is a bit blurred, I remember passing briefly by Knox-om-Pax rave celebration entitled Contemporary Hardcore, including the collaborative visual works of Spherical Aberration, Michael Tan and himself. Of course I didn’t miss Djrum and his very personal broken update of drum’n’bass mixed with ambient sounds, too bad that it was at Ohm which was absolutely packed at that hour. Still managed to see some of the artists performing in the Stage Null. But I had enough, needed time for myself and to save still batteries for Sunday.

Last day ahead, usually the closing day of Atonal is a more arty and relaxed conclusion. But think again: patterns are there to be broken, and the festival still had several aces up its sleeve. Sunday turned out to be the cherry on top with some impressive surprises, a day to remember and maybe the best of this year. So that’s why I consciously decide to attend all days of the festival, as you can’t never trust rules or patterns.

In the personal side it was time for finishing up the trip, meaning: peaking up the pieces and make sense out of that puzzle I found in the last days. I got already some clear ideas, decisions I had to take, and some new insights. But again surprises were awaiting me around the corner. These altered state experiences work triggered by many different facts, mainly the personal situation you are at that moment. Under the effects of mushrooms (or any other psychedelic substance), just a word, an image or an accomplice look with an stranger in the right moment can change the direction of an idea and suddenly you might be seeing the whole picture from a different angle. Also the mood is highly volatile, some good news, plans for a future project, or a little chat with a good-hearted person can push you up straight into a light beam, but on the contrary some unpleasant news can take you deep down into a hole. It’s obviously a really sensitive state, so it’s always great to be surrounded by some friends that care about you. So you can fly high, but not forget the ground.

The first act in the main stage brought together Kassel Jaeger and Stephen O’Malley from Sunn O))), their evocative mixture of post-rock, noise and ambient was the perfect appetizer for a solid live set by Caterina Barbieri along the visual work of Ruben Spini, her synth based passages mixed with organic sounds and distorted sequences generated the perfect soundtrack for the grey skies, the storms and the windmills projected on the screen. It followed another great act, this time without visuals, the long and extended tones from The Transcendence Orchestra achieve exactly what their name suggest: a meditative journey guided by sound, like an electronic version of zen music. And indeed that was the perfect moment to start the last trip, right after some nice chat with good friends, stirring up the soup.

Right after the break came one of the big surprises of the night, Group A might not seem a surprise if you live in Berlin, as you probably had the chance to see them already performing their dark arts. True! As it’s also true that they played the previous year at Krake Festival, still… Group A took the chance offered of having a big stage, all the means needed and a great audience to make their very best, prove themselves as the avant-garde, twisted and beautiful rara-avis they are in the industrial / experimental scene. For this occasion they counted with the invaluable help of Dead Slow Ahead on the visual side. If black is the predominant color in Atonal’s audience, they came on stage all in immaculate white and played the always powerful combination of high contrast between red and white lights, in opposition to black and cold grey backgrounds, lights and shadows, a highly performative way to display music and visuals filled with references to ancient cultures, alien inspired shapes and graphics, thick smoke and fractals. They started big, but they feed the monster track by track standing up on their desks, abusing and mastering noise music as they pleased. They insisted asking us “Are you ready?”, and hell yes! We were all ready and they got it. Probably the longest ovation that such audience could offer. They totally won a place on the top of the best performances of this edition of Atonal.

After such mind-blowing act it was going to be hard to rise the level, but still I kept high hopes for Outer Space, just that name and scouting the words “vintage synth-electronic”, “relentless polyrhythmic” and “spirals into the tripped-out distance” among the description of their project, was enough. And indeed, they did a great set, music and visuals as an entity, reflecting a colorful and analog style that reassemble old ways into a contemporary trend. The mentioned spiral was there, an infinite feedback system that made me go deep down the rabbit hole, visualizing some personal fears… Not music’s fault, just personal stuff, so I had to step out, re-think and reboot. Lesson learnt.

The closing act of the Main Stage was another great surprise. My brother nailed it hours before commenting about how Atonal is more than just an experimental music festival, but a container of what should be considered contemporary art. It’s not just music and people dancing, but a next step in the evolution of the art museum concept. LABOUR was exactly that… But Who are they to be right at the spot, closing such festival? LABOUR didn’t exist until that very moment, as it is “a new collaborative project which seeks to contribute towards a space of nonconforming social practices and identities, and recasts the nature of work as a potentially transformative activity.” So it is an Atonal inbreed new concept that combined lights, performance, music and visuals specially conceived and arranged for getting their best out of the architecture of Kraftwerk. The piece was entitled “Next Time, Die Consciously” so, go and figure out… in your mind! For an hour we attended a continuous chain of events with several live drummers moving in all parts of the former power-station, light torches placed among us in order to expand the light conception within the architectural boundaries, the score was a mixture of ritual and transcendental rhythms with distorted electronic music and diphonic chants that accompanied us over a visual lecture (on the screen) through references to art history, culture and society, all re-arranged in a creative new way, like a perfect opera showing us the beauty of our decaying existence. The piece left in each and every one of us a moment imprinted for the rest of our lives, in my case I can’t take out of my mind that car being crushed by that giant shredder, how the car surrendered to its destiny piece by piece, still struggling, the drums rhythms going in crescendo, until the last piece of the motor vanished in a sudden blank and silent screen. That was just one of many stunning moments that made us forget our own struggles, redeemed through pure art. If there is something you can call a closure, this is it, period.

Thanks for reading!

 

 

Most photos are taken from Berlin Atonal‘s facebook. Cover photo is Claude Speeed captured by Helge Mundt.