It was a real pleasure to see these guys rock out on their insane amount of gear. It kind of reminded me of the prototype 909 stuff before they went all micromusic. It even looked like the crazy gear table photo on the back of the prototype 909 cd. I was even more impressive that they probably flew over the Atlantic with all of that sensitive electronics.
They were playing with a home-made step sequencer, some sort of midi sequencer box, a bass line synth, a jomox 909 clone, a Dr. Boss drum machine, a cd deck, a modified nord modular (it's a brave man that modifies that beast), two mixers, some home-made synths/fx and some other stuff I probably am forgetting about. I think the lack of variety was due partyly to them being so busy keeping all the gear under control. The atmosphere created by this mad scientist lab of gear (one of them had a dexter's lab tshirt which was very appropriate) lends itself to sweaty knob tweaking and channel cutting while trying to catch up with the sequencer as it goes from track to track. This made the tracks sound very similar and somewhat compromises the ability to intricately map out the flow of a performance over time which IMO a laptop is more suited for since the timecode and cabling is all internal and out of sight. Of course the tradeoff with the laptop is that it compromises the raw live feel you get when it seems like the machines could go haywire at any moment. It looked like the synths and pads were all pre-sequenced while the live aspect consisted of one guy tweaking synth parameters and creating bass line patterns on his home-made step sequencer and the other loading up different patterns onto the drum machines according to his set list. Overall, a great set to hear and a great performance to watch. I was frozen in front of the table gleefully anticipating Dexter's Lab guy reaching over and unmuting the bass drum channel to a round of cheers every time. And for once, the sound in RX Gallery was actually a little pumping. Quoting [EMAIL PROTECTED]: > I agree, they kept it pretty safe for most of their set. I had thought they > would have been more experimental or edgy, but I didn't really care, cause I > was having a great time. It would have been really cool to be able to hear > the bass better as well, that system at that bar is bass weak, the speakers > are almost passive. Gear is still more fun to look at, than laptops. > > > > yeah, i was really suprised that Kontrol was such a > > rockin party-- went down because i was intruiged by > > all the Mutek reviews for Galoppierende Zuversicht, > > fully expecting a bunch of non-dancing chin-strokers, > > and lo and behold it was packed (to capacity) with > > attractive people up for a good time. > > > > THoughts on Galoppierende Zuversicht: > > > > They were quite competent and fluid with their (huge > > pile of) gear and did a nice job keeping the party > > moving despite getting spending some time in the > > broken-down, not-entirely-straight-ahead zone, but the > > bulk of the set was pretty stock minimal tech house, > > with some acid and microhouse sounds in there. > > > > and despite the fact it was a fun, rockin party, i > > have to admit that for the first three quarters of the > > set i was a bit disappointed with the music-- i was > > hoping for something a little more interesting/novel > > after all the Mutek reviews (including someone quoting > > Ricardo Villalobos as saying they were they best act > > in live minimal techno right now). > > > > ...and then the last couple "tracks" were fantastic-- > > much more of what i was expecting out of the set-- > > cool arpeggios and chords with more of that raw > > jarre/jamal moss sound, more interesting drum > > programming and a great touch with the sound. > > > > i wonder if the early stuff was pandering to the SF > > crowd, or what, because i sure would have loved 2 > > straight hours of the kind of sounds they ended > > with... > > > > >
