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Electronic ambassadors

A new generation plugs in and turns on to a different vibe

By Darrell Jonsson
For The Prague Post
April 11th, 2007 issue

COURTESY PHOTO
Beautiful but deadly: Cobra Killer headlines Thursday.
A new generation of daring electronic artists may seem like unlikely bedfellows with the current German European Union presidency and the Goethe Institute. But, this spring, these institutions, via an international festival known as Unsound, will connect an international array of creative minds to further bridge the former East/West European cultural divide. Starting in Prague, this small tribe of trailblazing electronic artists will make its way through Kraków and Toruń, Poland; Bratislava; Kyiv and Minsk.
Given the variety of artistic approaches and national origins, the connecting thread in Unsound’s selection of music acts is not immediately apparent. Sure, there is a core reliance on electronics. But, as participating artist Kate Wax says, “In the last 10 years, we’ve seen every form of spectacle and virtuosity that could be achieved with machines and computers. Now, emancipated from the technological aspect, we are experimenting even further and trying to find a proper language with the machines that figure with our inner kingdoms.”
Unsound

When: Wednesday and Thursday, April 18 and 19 at 7:30
Where: Rock Café
Tickets: 190 Kč per night in advance; 300 Kč for both nights in advance; 250 Kč per night at the door;
available through Ticketstream and at the venue
For more information, check www.unsound.pl

Headlining the opening night will be Germany’s Jan Jelinek, performing material from his 2005 CD Kosmischer Pitch (Scape Label), which extended the current click-electronica vocabulary with effective allusions to Berlin’s seminal ’70s electronic scene. Also based in Berlin, the jazzy-electronic duo known as Dictaphone will mix electronics with layers of lyrical bass, saxophone and clarinet. Earlier in the evening, Czech-based Neutrino’s abstract dub will provide the most danceable beats of the night. In contrast, Kotra from Ukraine will present an ambient approach that should appeal to those who prefer some meditative psychoacoustics in the mix.
Speaking of psycho, the festival’s second night will feature the stage antics of Australia’s Justice Yeldham, who has been known to break glass over his head, writhe, crawl and otherwise carry on to a relentless industrial noise soundtrack. Such sensationalism aside, the evening’s headliners, Cobra Killer, rip a feral Go-Go’s-meet-an-underworld-Kraftwerk sound into an entertaining and occasionally disturbing robotic rock ’n’ roll romp. Also on the bill are the home-grown Machine Funck and Natur Produkt, accompanied by their post-industrial VJ projections. Ukraine’s Andrey Kiritchenko will offer his minimalist interpretation of electronica, while Poland-based Mitch & Mitch will provide some comic relief. Hot on the heels of their recent supermarket tour of Portugal, the Mitches’ road-tested avant-rock anthems “I Can’t Get No Sci-Fi” and “I’m 30, I’m Lonely and I’m Horny” will have people rushing either the stage or the bar.
Lingering at the bar longer than it takes to fill your glass, though, is definitely not recommended. Because when all the shards of glass and cosmic dust are swept away, Kate Wax will be delivering some heady live drum-driven electro revelry. Wax rides about as close to rock ’n’ roll shamanism as any half-Tibetan Swiss-born digital tone hacker could ever hope to. Although she began her singing career as a lonely outsider singing to bugs in the Swiss forest, Wax later found expression as a soprano singing European classical music.
Along with her electronic and classical musical vocabulary, Wax finds inspiration in what she describes as “those African ritual and religious Asian mantras; there you can understand where hypnotic electronic music comes from. It’s all about repetitive rhythmic loops that function like a voodoo incantation. Rhythm is time, and time is our own death. Good electronic music is a radical contemporary and pure re-transcription of that fatal concept.”
Like Wax, Unsound’s lineup brings to the stage an artistic response to the rapidly changing electronic environment. Unlike in past decades, when electronic artists often seemed to be just groping at the dials, this new wave of electronic artists attempt a culturally mature balance of electronics and performance. Much of this new energy is born of an inner need that Wax describes as “idealistic, intense, sincere and wild as braving an ice storm … and my survival instinct makes me sing and dance in order not to freeze.”

Darrell Jonsson can be reached at features@praguepost.com


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