Anyone go to see Golan Levin, Janek Schaeffer and Akufen at the Tate Modern on Saturday 11 May?

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I did. It was really good, particularly Akufen's set of Music for Pregnant Women to close... really quite beautiful. Other opinions?

― Dave Stelfox (Dave Stelfox), Sunday, 11 May 2003 16:48 (twenty-two years ago)

can you tell us a bit more about the gig?

― Mike Taylor (mjt), Sunday, 11 May 2003 22:59 (twenty-two years ago)

there this gig was ok. golan levin was amazing! janek schaeffer was pretty dull, and the visuals were bloody awful. almost ruined the whole thing for me. akufen was a bit disappointing for me. it just seemed to be a budget-gas or jan jelinek. the bit in the middle with the rainforesrt sound was actually awful. i thought he wsasd going to break into one of those bukem tunes with those bird sounds. in fact that would have been better. there was a really nice bit near the end, and it did sound good on the sound system. but he didnt really seem to be doing what he does well. i would rather see farben in a couplke of weeks for that. also, the visuals were nearly as bad as for janek shaeffer.
mainly the gig seem to summed upo by the audience, who were just plain weird/rude. most of them walked out throughout the thing, and everyone i could see seemed to be texting other people. some french (canadian?) dude with a skateboard just hung about for ages. everyone felt sort of listless. but gloan levin was really cool. he should have been on last, and akufen shgould have been at an afetr party in a club. that would have made it better.

oh well, it was still pretty good.

but that filming...!

― ambrose (ambrose), Monday, 12 May 2003 07:57 (twenty-two years ago)

Janek played a gig? Nice of him to tell us. (Or maybe he did and HSA didn't mention it to us cause he made me go to a wedding in Kent.) I can't keep track of these sound artists. Maybe that's what their Guild is for.

― kate, Monday, 12 May 2003 08:05 (twenty-two years ago)

actually it was good when Janek S. had the vinyl killer running around the end, and he looked to scared to turn it off.

― ambrose (ambrose), Monday, 12 May 2003 08:17 (twenty-two years ago)

He does those things which are vinyl records with the groove printed off-kiltre so it goes all wobbly and warpy, right?

― kate, Monday, 12 May 2003 08:34 (twenty-two years ago)

I thought he was great... Golan Levin was interesting and fun, too, and Akufen was quite beautiful. Just because he used the sound of running water and storms, I don't think that's any reason not to have enjoyed it. However, I did find myself questioning the validity of presenting that kind of music in such a po-faced environment - i made me want to tap my feet, not sit down in total silence. And, yeah, the audience was odd and comprised of the sort of people i generally try to avoid...

― Dave Stelfox (Dave Stelfox), Monday, 12 May 2003 09:06 (twenty-two years ago)

i hate these fucking venues, what is wrong with a warehouse or something. more things should be at the fortress i reckon

― gareth (gareth), Monday, 12 May 2003 09:24 (twenty-two years ago)

But soundartists like to perform at GALLERIES to prove that they are really ARTISTS and not actually just simple musicians like us proles who have to perform in venues and warehouses and the like. ;-)

― kate, Monday, 12 May 2003 09:29 (twenty-two years ago)

I've written quite a bit about microhouse, Akufen in partic. - One of the things I've always said about it is regardless of its "intelligence", it was was always unashamed of its status dance music... yeah, it's cerebral enough, but in a way that still inspires a specific physical reaction. Taking it out of a club environment, or at least a place where people could move, get a drink, interact removed a vast amount of context and therefore lessened the impact of the music rather than enhancing it. Then again, I've always liked to find my art in all the wrong places...

― Dave Stelfox (Dave Stelfox), Monday, 12 May 2003 10:06 (twenty-two years ago)

whoah... how garbled is that... parse some sense into it if you will...

― Dave Stelfox (Dave Stelfox), Monday, 12 May 2003 10:07 (twenty-two years ago)

yeah thats my point. cos he was playing in a theatre (or 'auditorium'), he seemed to drop anything with a groove and go all 'lush synth chords' on us...

― ambrose (ambrose), Monday, 12 May 2003 12:14 (twenty-two years ago)

Well, that was the nature of the piece he was playing, he'd been working on it for 3 years or so, so it wasn't just composed for art-gallery performance. it's no so much the content of the music but the context that spoiled it for me (and I still enjoyed it). I'm sure you'd have received it differently had you have heard it loud in a club or at least a more relaxed setting... I know I would have done.

― Dave Stelfox (Dave Stelfox), Monday, 12 May 2003 13:08 (twenty-two years ago)

are those dudes who play biscuits and stuff still about? project dark i think?

― Chip Morningstar (bob), Monday, 12 May 2003 16:32 (twenty-two years ago)

Ambrose, you were there...??
Golan should perform more, it was the perfect venue for him. The other artists... well, the audience seemed restless.

― nick.K (nick.K), Wednesday, 14 May 2003 11:11 (twenty-two years ago)

yeah i was at the back with tom and linzi. ed and suzy came down, but it was sold out, so they couldnt get in

― ambrose (ambrose), Wednesday, 14 May 2003 12:02 (twenty-two years ago)

I have discovered why we didn't go. HSA was dying with jealousy. ;-)

― kate, Wednesday, 14 May 2003 12:09 (twenty-two years ago)

god, i went to high school with golan. i still have a tape he did back then....
i've seen some of his web projects since then, but does anyone have a link to his music stuff?

― bucky wunderlick (bucky), Wednesday, 14 May 2003 13:47 (twenty-two years ago)

Most of Golans work can be accessed via FLONG but his audio material is either generative or performed live. He's a fantastic project coming up with Sound Poet - Jaap Blonk that will tour the UK in Autumn. It's yet to be finished but from what I've seen of Golan previous work, and what I now know about Jaap it promises to an astonishing collaboration - An ambitious application of Golans' sound visualisation tools and a sophisticated translation of Jaaps (singular) talent, (sorry, I'm not really up on sound poets).

― nick.K (nick.K), Wednesday, 14 May 2003 15:36 (twenty-two years ago)

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