Combichrist
April 5 2014
Theater of the Living Arts

By Doktor John

Philadelphia PA

Atlanta-based aggrotech band, Combichrist performed at the Theater of the Living Arts on Philadelphia’s famous South Street, the third stop on a 28 city U.S. tour that will cross the country and end up back in the deep Southeast in May.

The opening act, William Control, did an admirable job of warming the crowd. Exhilarating and bizarre, William has an eccentric presence, dressed and groomed like a Jersey Boy at the height of the Four Seasons reign in the 1960s, wearing a snug shirt-and-tie, vest and sporting a perfect pompadour, totally discordant with his satanic persona and demagogic style. The image was subverted by the glimpse of tattoos sneaking up his neck above his starched collar and beyond the French cuffs of his sleeves. His take on music was totally weird but entertaining. His on-stage antics were casually mind-boggling, as he violently swung the microphone cable, vehemently chain-smoking and exhorting the adoring, predominantly female, crowd of fans to chant vulgar and evil slogans along with him. The beautiful blond Ash Costello in a black vinyl miniskirt joined him for a couple of songs. William Control’s performance and many of his songs like “Only Human Sometimes,” “Strangers” and “Razor’s Edge” were disturbingly unforgettable.

At around 9:30 pm and after a considerable pause, the theater went dark, the video screen lifted and an orchestral fanfare with a heavy martial groove filled the air. Toward the end, the band members took their places. The ominous, British-accented and robotic voice that is the introduction to “We Were Made To Love You” commented in flat, emotionless tones,” We love you…now die.” Terrifying in a hideous, red-illuminated, full-face mask, Norwegian native and frontman Andy LaPlega burst on stage, his harsh and raspy voice screaming the main theme of that track from the new 2014 album, “We Love You.” The crowd, who, at that point, remained stationary, took up its venomous mantra of “Hate, disorder, love, destroy”.

The relentlessly driving “Today I Woke to the Rain of Blood” and “Blut Royale” charged the audience up, and soon a violent, but comradely mosh pit broke out in the center of the horde. The venue staff was exceptionally accommodating, allowing the dancers free reign as long as no one was being seriously injured. A “girl pit” spun off with one statuesque brunette who discarded all inhibitions as she led a small crowd of punkish beauties who made up a significant subset of the spectators.

The set list in general went back and forth between entries from the new “We Love You” albums and their classic favorites such as “Throat Full of Glass.” One exception was “No Redemption” a classic guitar metal piece that is the soundtrack from a video game.
The melodious “Denial” offered a slight respite from the relentlessly driving, punishing style of most of the other songs. The track “What the F… Is Wrong With?” eloquently posed that perennial question — that all of us have asked — in the form of a rousing anthem that is from an album of a similar name. Sixteen songs made up the main body of this breath-taking show.

The final song, “Love is a Razorblade” ended the set, but the enthusiastic crowd demanded more, so the band returned to the stage to perform “F… That S…” and “Sent to Destroy,” which together captured the quintessence of Combichrist’s “Techno Body Music.” Lovers of this kind of hard-edge, mean-spirited style of music couldn’t possibly have asked for more.

The R Bar
March 9, 2014
New York, NY
By Doktor John

Female-fronted Brooklyn-based, dark electro band The Sedona Effect put on two screenings of their newly-released (January 2014) music video “Cross the Line” at the R Bar on Manhattan’s Bowery on a recent Thursday night to a large crowd of black-attired, dark wave fans. This band is the solo project of German-born, classically-trained soprano and dramatist Kai Irina Hahn who has recently come to NYC from London where, it can assumed, some of her conversion from lyric opera to EBM and industrial developed.

The video features a mesmerizing, layered electro-industrial track that builds through several crescendos. On screen are Kai, in the form of a femme fatale — alternately bathed in eerie, blue and red light — and in the background phantom-like, masked and fetish-clad characters.

Kai hisses her call to “cross the line.” During a black-&-white segment she holds the blade of a knife to the throat of a lethargic young male and succeeds in seducing him into final action. A large and slithering, spotted snake weaves its way throughout the video, bridging between several scenes, reminiscent of the serpent in the Garden of Eden. So —come to think of it — is Kai herself! Just the kind of thing to awaken the amoral side of the poetic persona. Parts of the video were actually shot at the RBar.

Besides the video, there were live stage performances featuring duets of performers, the first a “Celtic Kabuki” with Duchess Wendi and Sean Monistat who wore a deer-antler helmet. The second featured Ess Moonking and Kai herself performing parts of the choreography of “Gloomy Sunday,” a cabaret piece that she staged last year at Bizarre Bushwick in Brooklyn where Kai now resides.

A pair of very interesting photo exhibits was held as backdrop to the video release party. Anka Jurena’s work was largely b & w and quite creepy, and it included some available prints of Kai intertwined with her snake. Jesse Kleitman’s photography display featured traditional subjects, colors, filters and Photoshop enhancements.

The turnout was excellent and the video was well received, which portends an even more successful launch of The Sedona Effect’s upcoming album “Vortices,” due out in the fall of 2014.

QXT’s Art Series IX: Kaliyuga

March 21, 2014
Newark NJ
by Doktor John

Number nine in the series of art and media exhibitions held every other month at QXT’s, Newark’s iconic underground dance club featured a fascinating array of displays. Curated by multitalented impresario, Ben Faresich and his artist partner Nicole Zanetakos, who collectively conduct their operation under the title “Dactsaurylus,” this occurrence, as previously, featured around thirteen exhibits with displays of paintings, drawings, videos, electronic music and installations. An artist in her own right, Nicole comes up with a unique theme for each alternate-monthly exhibition based on her wide-ranging knowledge and interests. Ben, a remarkably accomplished photographer, works on developing Nicole’s ideas and helps bring them to fruition.

Many exhibitors were highly accomplished, i.e. attaining a professional level of proficiency. Other works were more raw and amateurish, rich with sincerity and honest ambition. The emphasis as always was on surreal, dark—even horrific—imagery. Training among the exhibitors always runs the gamut from those with graduate training in art through those who have never shown their works before to those currently enrolled in art schools.

Repeat exhibitor Charlie Garlette, who runs Bent Nail Studio, displayed some stunning, “DieselPunk” installation pieces impressive for their elaborate, electro-mechanical and mysterious nature. Flashing, multi-colored lights flickered around the base of a columnar array of metallic constructs, atop of which sat a fluid-filled, illuminated tank containing a biological specimen of god-knows-what creature. Behind and separate from this installation sat a diorama of sorts on a shelf, at its center a creepy bare tree upon which were arrayed true-to-life casts of Charlie’s fingers —eerily lit in dim blue light and set against a background of an electronic board.

Artists came from as far away as Long Island, spectators from as far as Brooklyn. A raffle was held that permitted lucky attendees to leave with artworks that had been generously offered as prizes by the artists.

Raffle winner and model Jessica Graves receiving prize from artist Celine Paz. Rob, DJ NueMatic in back. Curator Ben Faresich at far right

QXT’s was full like I’ve never seen it, although I wouldn’t say it was uncomfortably crowded. A great mix of goth, industrial and New Wave kept the dance floor packed with the frenzied and the enraptured.

Filmmaker Ryan Polukord showed his film, “Danger Zone,” a project he has been working on for two years. He took the time to film some of the artists at the show, and is working on a promo video for QXT’s Art Series. Rob Simscuk (AKA DJ NueMatic) performed his original electronic music, ranging from atmospheric and dark ambient to drum-and-bass for dance.

Look for a recurrence of this event at QXT’s in late May, or better still attend the Dactsaurylus-curated art show scheduled to take place at the easy-to-search Seed Gallery on Market Street in Newark on Saturday, April 26th.

Webster Hall
Feb 14, 2014

by Doktor John

This was a very special Valentine’s Day for lovers of industrial music. The object of their love, Skinny Puppy made this a most fulfilling holiday to a sell-out crowd of their fanatical metropolitan area followers.

The audience was surprised with a somewhat earlier-than-expected, 8:50 PM start. The eerie and somewhat hard-to-recognize strains of the rhythm-less “Chloralone” accompanied the advent of light on the stage and the entrance of frontman Nivek Ogre in the first of several horrific costumes he would don for the show. The music transitioned seamlessly into “illisit” in which SP accuses this of being “the criminal age.”

The backdrop and the performers were flooded with a crazy-quilt of broken, animated lighting that was disorienting and hallucinatory. A model of a slender canine appeared in silhouette on the stage and would later serve briefly as stage prop.
“Village” from the “Handover” album and the classic “The Choke” from the 1985 “Bites” album followed, then back to “Weapon” for “plasicage” and “wornin’.” A screen on stage ran LED figures displaying the rapidly-growing national debt at $55 trillion and mounting while images of electronic circuit boards, disasters, chaos and op-art flashed behind the stage performers.

“Deep Down Trauma Hounds” from the 1987 “Cleanse Fold and Manipulate” album provided a welcomed return to the classics as did their all-time favorite, “Warlock,” the uniquely cadenced, compelling and mesmerizing hit from the “Rabies” album.

The show continued in the same vein, alternating cuts from the current “Weapon” with such classics as “Hexonxonx,” “Pasturn” from “Mythmaker” and “First Aid.”
The stage performance included Ogre’s simulated cutting himself with a large dagger. An audience member invaded the stage and was quickly subdued and ejected. Ogre donned a hideous, expressionless mask and hood, vaguely resembling a nightmarish version of Death from Ingemar Bergman’s movie, “The Seventh Seal.” After performing “Solvent,” he bid “Thanks to New York!” and disappeared briefly. Upon return the encores included classics “Far Too Frail,” “Glass Houses” and the wonderful “Smothered Hope” before concluding with “Overdose” from “Weapon.”
Webster Hall

Throughout the concert, no effort was spared as Ogre donned, now a furry costume, then a hazmat suit, another terrifying headdress or two and poured himself and drank a tall glass of some repulsive, phosphorescent blue-green liquid.

As always, Skinny Puppy was magnanimous in the generous and unbounded efforts to please, entertain and shock their zealous and loving fans, for whom this will always be a Valentine’s Day to remember.

Myke Hideous Photography Exhibition
Oakside Manor/Cultural Center Belleville NJ
Dec 11, 2013

by Doktor John

Multi-media artist and renowned local figure, Myke Hideous hosted a wine and cheese opening of his photography exhibition at the beautiful and historic Oakeside Cultural Center in Bloomfield NJ for the month of December. Widely known in the NY/NJ area and formerly prominent as a musician with a significant following, Myke left the music scene in 2008, devoting himself to the study of nature and photography.

His interest in photography and film development follows a family tradition which he has pursued since his teen years.

Ever a bird and animal lover, he has extensively photographed the local population including eagles, owls, sea-birds and denizens of the meadowlands. Captured with his top quality and ultra-fast lenses, these were among the most strikingly beautiful pieces, whether the subjects were seen serenely perched or in graceful flight. Extreme close-ups of insects shot in “macro” mode were among the most fascinating.

Landscapes and architectural icons that make up the collective unconscious of us who inhabit north Jersey were rendered monumental and mystical when treated with Myke’s visionary style.

Practically everything shown at the exhibit was shot with Canon equipment, either a Rebel, a 7D or lately the 5D Mark III. As an active member of the Audubon Society and a volunteer at the William McDowell Observatory, he has access to the $150,000 telescope through which he shoots celestial objects. One such on view at the exhibit was a stunning, close-up of a quadrant of the moon.
Myke’s involvement in the visual arts goes back at least as far as his career as a musician. Besides film, Myke has worked in drawing, painting, sculpture, furniture and clothing design, installation, found-art assemblage. This background serves his efforts with a camera very well, having developed his eye for composition, detail and novelty. To no one’s surprise, the enthusiastic crowd of attendees and collectors had Myke applying “sold” stickers on his framed works nonstop for much of the evening.

Suicide Girls/ Blackheart Burlesque

Gramercy Theater
New York, NY

Nov. 19, 2013

By Doktor John
New York, NY

The appearance of this performance troupe, fielded by the organization Suicide Girls, was the 30th stop on a 2-month tour covering most sizable cities in the USA. For those unfamiliar, SG is a website-based and online community of exhibitionistic young women, almost all of whom are stunningly beautiful, extensively tattooed and pierced. The organization likes to think of itself as “beauty redefined.” SG are so far out and beyond women’s lib, that they are blissfully uninterested in —and blatantly disrespectful of— the conventions of both feminism and of society’s traditional rules for women. Female sexuality is the core theme of SG, and there is an admitted undercurrent of bisexuality that runs through the group’s culture.

Katherine Suicide, official voice of Suicide Girls, came on stage sporting fire engine red tresses (on the website she appears with very different and various hair colors) to welcome the audience in her slight British accent. Have you noticed? Nothing is more suggestive of wanton decadence and sexual libertinism than a British accent. Besides addressing the audience and charging them up, Katherine made a frank appeal for photographers in the audience (who isn’t one now?) to provide free promotional advertising for the show and the website by inundating the various social networks with pics of the goings-on, and she offered a few free subscriptions (which entails unlimited, members-only viewing) to the website for those selected by the backstage judges.
Choreographed dances involving the same 3 or 4 girls resembled nothing so much as a cross between traditional 20th century burlesque and the kind of antics you’d see in any go-go bar today. There was a lot of rolling the head around with hair twirling that highlighted the wildly unnatural coloration of the extra-long tresses which all the dancers seemed to sport.
DJ Mel Clarke played rock tunes with a heavy drum-and-bass style, few of which were recognizable hits with the exception of Marilyn Manson’s “Beautiful People” and the 1966 Sonny & Cher antique, “Bang Bang My Baby Shot Me Down.” The eerie sci-fi wail of a Theremin served as accompaniment to mistress-of-ceremonies Katherine’s striptease act.
Performers started each routine in skimpy outfits but sooner or later stripped down to g-strings, tattoos and an X in black-tape on each breast. They were often barefoot or shod in socks or flats or sneakers, never high heels.
Some skits had them wearing gorilla masks, helmets, facemasks, barbarian style bikinis and a Batgirl cowl, making loose and incomprehensible reference to Planet of the Apes, Star Wars and Game of Thrones. One lanky, lime-haired beauty named Razzi lugged around a bottle of Jack Daniels on stage throughout the night, taking swigs now and again, and sometimes spray-spitting the whiskey out over the front row spectators. The performances in general were more athletic than esthetic, loosely choreographed, pointless and surprisingly tame. The girls were certainly gorgeous to gaze upon, but the look was hippie-natural rather than glamorous. These were not the Rockettes.
As is often the case, things come full circle. Thus, in their attempts to shock and titillate or simply for lack of imagination, the SG/Blackheart Burlesque skin-show finds itself treading trodden trails. Some of the music and much of the show itself drew heavily from—not your father’s—but your grandfather’s burlesque—peek-a-boo fan dance and all.

Psyclon Nine
“Order of the Shadow [Act I]”
Metropolis Records

By Doktor John

This San Francisco-based industrial/metal crossover band is back from a hiatus since 2010 with a new album due for release on November 12. There are 13 tracks, almost strictly for those in the head-banger (if that term still has meaning) crowd who are willing to accept techno-industrial elements on the menu.

There’s a fair amount of variety in this album. Several tracks are noted to begin with or have variable stretches within them consisting of formless, wind-like electronica and distant menacing samples. Numerous songs contain frantic, gasping vocals synchronized to artillery-like, pounding beats and are very danceable. Other tracks like “Suffer Well” and “Glamor Through Debris” employ death metal forms, such as machine-gun-fast vocals that are aggressive to the point of being vicious, but are better to dance to than your usual heavy metal.

Track12, “Penance” is barely a minute long and consists of wind-like noise without melody or rhythm, and then a brief noise bridge that could be the sound of two locomotives being violently slammed together numerous times before lapsing back into relatively soothing noise.

Track 9, “But With a Whimper,” contrary to T.S. Eliot’s line “…the world ends, not with a bang but a whimper,” contains a couple of series of loud bangs separated by desperate whispering, and is definitely not for dancing.

The final track, “The Saint and the Valentine” comes as an astounding melodious departure from the rest of the album, with pitch-dark minor-key symphonic elements and moments of pleasurable, carefully sung vocals in a theatrical whisper alternating with the abrasive screaming heard on the rest of the album.

Heavy metal is neither my favorite, nor my forte to evaluate. “Order of the Shadow [Act I]” has definite redeeming features, although it is not going to be within everybody’s comfortable listening zone. The best thing I can say about it is that it sounds like Skinny Puppy died in a horrible accident, went straight to hell, connected with some metal heads and from there produced this brutally seductive album.

Covenant
Leaving Babylon
Metropolis Records

By Doktor John

“Leaving Babylon” is used to exhort Christians to leave the sinful world behind and to refuse to participate in political and social life. I would venture that Covenant meant some other variant of meaning. I will leave the interpretation to the reader/listener.

The title track comes in two forms. As the first track, it is a mere 3.2 minutes long and opens with indistinct samples as if one were eavesdropping on a newscast, followed by bare-bones percussion one might hear from banging on a trash can lid a la Skinny Puppy or Einsturze Neubauten. Soon a slow-paced cadence supersedes and the title is repeated again and again as a disconsolate mantra. “Leaving Babylon II” is the seventh track and consists of a slow-paced monotonous10 minute zombie walk, I perhaps through a virtual cemetery.

“Last dance” picks up the pace and eventually evolves into symphonic, electronic strings and full-throated but grief-stricken vocals. “Thy Kingdom Come” begins with a mournful acoustic guitar then proceeds into a lush melody and dire lyrics sung over a moderately-paced rhythm providing a showcase for Simonsson’s uneasy, stressed-out vocals. “Prime Movers”—in ancient and medieval philosophy—is the term that refers to the creator of the universe, and was once employed by Aristotle and Thomas Aquinas as proof for the existence of a god. I can’t say exactly how the title was chosen by Covenant, but this track has a nice galloping pace, combined with a recurring synthetic riff that will pull everyone irresistibly onto the dance floor.

The 6.5 minute track, “Ignorance is Bliss,” starts with an eerie high-pitched drone of strings hanging over the introduction, with delicate synthesizer notation soon taking over as doleful singing brings it all together. A bridge of jubilant chimes intervenes, then a brief, bare-bones, techno-industrial run with simple vocals before the strings, vocals and compelling rhythm rise again in a grand crescendo to which the chimes gloriously return. The effect is an uplifting, emotionally triumphant experience.
“For Our Time” is real change of pace, with few if any techno or industrial conventions. It is sparse on instrumentals, relying heavily on Eskill Simonsson’s deep dark and up-front vocals.

“I Walk Slow” begins with the Eskill Simonsson’s intimately addressing the listener in pained, troubled whispers, his sad words punctuated by simple, sympathetic guitar strumming and disorienting bursts of static. “Auto (Circulation)” returns to the driving, techno-industrial style that won’t allow the listener to sit still, so compelling are the seductive beats. The final track, “Not to Be Here” is a lusciously beautiful, romantic, but anguished ode with a wistful narrative of the kind that sometimes motivates those on the dance floor to square off, embrace and dance two-by-two.

Whether one is looking for classic Goth, hard-core industrial, dark themes or uplifting, triumphal anthems, Covenant has put all these qualities together in their latest, must hear/must have album.

October 21, 2013

This coming February will mark 30 years of fervid fan status for me and my circle of musically-worldly friends and family. First appearing at the 1984 San Remo Festival held in the Riviera resort town of the same name, this incredibly talented and charismatic punk Roman kid in a motorcycle jacket has been catapulted to the top of the pop music world. At this time, with no less than ten hugely successful albums, he is a household name everywhere from Germany and his native Italy to the farthest reaches of Latin America and Canada. Even in the USA, where Italian pop singers are a neglected genre, he easily sells out such venues as Radio City and the gargantuan Barclay Center, as he did just recently, coming off a previous night’s sell-out crowd in Atlantic City, NJ. For his legion of fans, virtually every one of his hundred or so songs (the majority of which he co-writes) is a stand-alone single hit.

The vast body of Ramazzotti’s ouvre is sung in Italian which he enunciates with impeccable, music-friendly diction, delivered with a level of emotional sincerity as well as compositional genius that is a special pleasure to listeners of any linguistic stripe. Most of his albums are reproduced in Spanish versions. His worldwide stature has such stars as Cher, Santana and Wyclef Jean eager to sing duets with him.

As on every previous appearance, Ramazzotti’s stage show included a fabulous light show and mammoth orchestral presentation, accompanied by virtuoso performers on percussion, bass, guitars, keyboards and sax along with deliciously talented female and male back-up vocalists. Ramazzotti himself proved to be by now a dedicated and surprisingly accomplished guitarist.

Despite all these positives that Eros Ramazzotti had going for him, the overall experience of the concert was mostly disappointing. After opening with a handful of well-arranged singles from the 2012 hit album, including the title track, “Noi” (“Us”), he went to his standard repertoire. That’s where the concert went wrong. Instead of warm, respectful renditions of these beloved songs, they were delivered in a bombastic style, the band playing melodies and rhythms that actually competed with and contradicted that of the song being sung. Instead of full versions, Ramazzotti strung together inadequate, amputated versions into quick-fix medleys that short-changed the originals. Most egregious of all was the casual and off-handed inclusion of a mere fragment of “Terra Promessa,” his uber hit about coming to America, that would have been perfect for special presentation to this American audience, most of whom trace their fandom to this, his debut hit. For his part, Ramazzotti inappropriately revealed an objectionable fatigue and distaste for his own repertoire by talking, rather than singing the lyrics, without respect to the cadence of the music and by unpleasant lapses into falsetto. One of the few songs he treated at least respectfully was the magnificent “Musica E,” which was performed in its classic mode, although he could have devoted more to this monumental work.

Newcomers to the music must surely have wondered why there existed such devotion to this chaotic mish-mosh of excessively and inappropriately overstated blues and jazz that completely swamped and obliterated the character of the music. The old, die-hard fans were so ecstatic to just see their musical idol live that most seemed oblivious to his failure to deliver on their expectations.

Baggy jeans and tee-shirt seems to be Ramazzotti’s signature look, but in this instance it came a little too close to revealing his boredom and lack of respect for the magnificent body of his work that placed him at the top of the music world. Eros seems to have forgotten the “bella” in the Italian mandate to always present a “bella figura.”