Δ (alt-J) Review - Berlin Columbiahalle

When performing on stage, save for the strumming of strings, tapping of keys, and beating of drums, alt-J barely move. Their legs and arms are almost immobile, and due to the lights flashing behind them, any movement of their lips and eyes are hidden in shadow. When addressing the throng in front of them between tracks, they are brief and modest, seemingly unaffected by the crowd’s ecstasy. Indeed, one might deduce that they aren’t even enjoying themselves. This is All Yours is the name of their second album, and playing at Berlin’s Columbiahalle last month, it appear like alt-J are willingly but indifferently imparting a gift.

It is a gift ardently received.

Centre stage and just a step closer to its lip than his bandmates, lead-singer Joe Newman doesn’t have the classic appearance of a rock star ...

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Bertie Digby Alexander

Berlin 2015

Gone Avery

On first listening to Gone Avery they reminded me a lot of Imagine Dragons. Their heavy use of guitar chords certainly makes them rocky, but like Imagine Dragons, heavy pop influences are evident in their songs in their lively melodies with an easy hook that makes for fun listening. The band is from L.A and they released their first EP, ‘Lost and Forgotten’, in 2012. Since they have built up a relatively enthused fan base and have played in a variety of top venues in California.

Imagine Dragons’ hit ‘Radioactive’ debuted as the credits rolled on the film Host, which was based on the book by Stephanie Meyer, better known for the Twilight series. The film Host lacks much of the darkness and the intrigue and the sophistication (yes, I said it!) that is evident in the Twilight films, which made Radioactive a perfect credit rolling song: upbeat, catchy, and one that is easy to jump up and down to without the fear of their becoming wrapped up in a mosh pit. In comparison, the Twilight films featured classics such as Muse’s ‘Super Massive Black Holes’ and Radiohead’s ‘15 Step’.

Though it sounds like I am digressing, this difference between the two Meyer film adaptations rose in my mind as I listened to Gone Avery’s first few tracks ...



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O Pioneers! in Ausland

At first look it appeared that Diane Cluck was an odd fixture for a place like Ausland. A bare small venue – very Berlin – in the heart of beautiful Prenzlauer Berg, Ausland is known for putting on kookie acts and sound-art exhibitions. Inside it might remind you of a small, protestant church, tall but narrow, the tabernacle at the back serving Berliner Pilsner. On Wednesday 7^th May it was hosting Diane Cluck who, as far as her reputation preceded her, did not seem very Berlin.

The place is non-commercially run and beyond just a venue (nothing worth its salt in Belin is ever just one thing) Ausland doubles as a workshop for artists. Beyond this it is a bar, and also puts on ilm screenings and talks. In better words than mine, Ausland’s mission statement reads: ‘The focus clearly is on experimental, non-mainstream, demanding, kind of weird stuff which either makes you comfortable or make you leave the place before you’ve even finished your first (cheap) drink ..’ Above anything else, the place is about, ‘consuming arts in its finest forms.’

In such company, on first appearance – and I admit, for me, this was – Cluck’s strain of folk music appears very normal, perhaps even a little dull ...



To read the complete article please visit ADS Records

To find more on Diane  - http://dianecluck.info/

Waiting for the Dawn: Alex Bay’s 'Daylight'

‘Nobody Like You’, the first song on Alex Bay’s EP Daylight, begins with a ‘1, 2, 3, 4’ in a gruff male voice, opening the record in a rock ‘n’ roll vein that isn’t sustained. Indeed, the rest of the EP, 5 songs in total, are more 90s mellow rock than Babyshambles or Kings of Leon. This is not a straight up criticism of Daylight, for with Bay’s lack of pretention and heaps of self-assuredness, at its most powerful the music is reminiscent of the best of Joseph Arthur or Eagle Eye Cherry, and needs not be rocky to be good.

Bay is from North Hertfordshire. This is his first EP and his voice sounds more mature than his 24 years. ‘Nobody Like You’ breaks earlier than you are expecting. A chorus of other voices rises behind Bay and it is very quickly great fun. Bay has a confidence in his own sound – even if at this point a listener isn’t completely sure what that is – which spurs on feet tapping and head nodding, if not banging. In addition to this, perhaps the first thing you notice is the quality of the sound production. The songs sound full-bodied and are as crisp as a bell. As Bay is still relatively young to the music industry, this level of production is impressive, and allows a listener to relax, confident that they are in the hands of someone who know what they are doing.

Woven in and out of the backing chorus in this song and some of the others, are the strings of a tragic violin, occasionally backed by two or three more ...



To read the complete article please visit ADS Records

Find Alex Bay on SoundCloud -  https://soundcloud.com/alexbaymusic/alex-bay-daylight/recommended

Songs of Roland: Roland Satterwhite at the English Theatre Berlin

Even in Berlin the theatre can be more restraining than liberating. The audience are quiet and compelled to respect the sanctity of the place. There is polite applause, and no raucous bawling. Therefore when a gig is performed in a theatre its nature is consequently altered. There is clapping, and perhaps appreciative cheering, but only minimal whooping and all bottle flinging is held in check. Everyone is nervous of jiggling legs knocking over glasses of white wine schorle and after half the set list all are shuffling to relieve numb butt cheeks. More London Symphony Orchestra than Southbank bear pits.

For the performer however, playing in a theatre can go either way; they may, like the audience, restrain themselves in awe under the proscenium arch, or they can find liberation on stage and a licence to perform a new role. The latter appeared the case for Roland Saterwhite who on February 14^th played his first concert in a Berlin theatre at English Theatre Berlin. As well as being a musician, Roland practices free improvisation, and therefore it was perhaps expected that this wouldn’t take the form of a regular concert.

However at first, emerging amongst a half constructed set, caught in the lights Roland appeared like he was indeed scared of the stage. He crept ... 



To read the complete article please visit ADS Records

Roland Satterwhite - http://www.benedekrecords.com/

Django Lassi - http://www.djangolassi.com/

ETB - http://www.etberlin.de/

Organic Dance, Recycled Sound: Pick a Piper at Fluxbao

The room was smoky, and filling up. There was condensation on the window that looked out to Warschauer Strasse, enveloped in the fog that had descended upon Berlin. Inside the club - that magical place we hear about in the charts, where anything can happen and we put our hands in the air - the crowd wait for Pick a Piper.

This club was Fluxbao, near Schlesisches Tor in Berlin. It was the beginning of December and no-one was sure at what time the ban were to start. It didn’t appear to say anywhere. But at some point after 9 o’clock the three-piece from Canada appeared from the shadows and onto the stage to whoops and claps and a slight ripple of bodies forward. They begin with a loud clash and in moments the beat of the drums and synth chords had taken possession of the club.

But they were called to an abrupt stop only a few moments later, as with a scratching hiss one of the speakers blew and the last remnants of the introductory song trailed off ...



To read the complete article please visit ADS Records

            Pick a Piper - https://soundcloud.com/pickapiper

Begin again, and again: Phia at the English Theatre Berlin

She is often referred to around the lines of, ‘that girl with that funny instrument who does the looping thing’ and this was the accumulation of my knowledge on Phia as I went to see her this October at the English Theatre Berlin. Shuffling within the bustling crowd that was fidgeting to see the final show of her tour, at first no-one I spoke to was particularly sure what the instrument she played was. ‘A mobiro,’ someone eventually said, nonchalantly. ‘From South Africa’. This created a momentary flutter of excitement in our corner of the lobby, and a little scepticism too. ‘It certainly doesn’t sound very African to me,’ someone said.

Amidst the wires and mics and lights, as Phia begins her set I crane my neck forward to get a better look at the thing in her hand that she introduces as not a ‘mobiro’ but a ‘kalimba’, a thumb-piano, a descendant of the South African ‘mbira’.  The kalimba, with the dexterity of the cell phone generation, can be played with just one hand by plucking at the mettle strips that run across the wooden tablet, creating a sound like a xylophone or a little bell; but the sound is cleaner than a bell, and has more body than a xylophone. With her loop pedal, Phia records a melody with the kalimba, or a beat made with her mouth or hands, or sings an introductory refrain, and plays it back, allowing it to loop again, and again, throughout her song, as she adds layer upon layer, created with her hands, or mouth, or the kalimba. Phia isn’t the only one to use a loop pedal, or indeed to play a kalimba, but she’s one of few to use them together, and it is this unusual aspect to her music that brought many of us to the English Theatre Berlin that evening.

In her songs Phia expresses the relationship she has with ‘home’, which was Melbourne for her until she moved to Berlin – ‘this village’ – two years ago. As Lily Allen presented her home in ‘LDN’ with crack-whores and Tesco bags ...



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http://listentophia.com/

http://mezmedallion.com/

http://www.etberlin.de/