Sonic Circuits Festival: Late Wrap-Up
Six nights of noise came to an end at the Black Cat on Sunday night, with a fistful of performances that ranged from highly anticipated to incredibly obscure, at volume levels from a low buzz to a constant stream of noise.
Anton Nikkila & Alexei Borisov:
When the Sonic Circuits schedule said that the performances would start at 8:10 p.m., it was no joke. Although the doors had just opened and the line still ran down the street, the laptop cruncher from Finland and the vocalist from Russia provided what almost sounded like a backing soundtrack as people filed into the venue. The "almost" comes into play because background music doesn't make the person at the other end of a phone call pull the phone away from their ear, which is what happened when a friend of ours picked up the phone and heard some of the most intense, squeaky feedback to have come out of the PAs all week. But the screechy feedback was tossed over danceable beats and mumbled vocals for what was actually a fairly enjoyable listening experience. This was also their second performance at the festival; they'd backed reclusive guitarist Jandek at the Velvet Lounge the night before.
Pekka Airaksinen:
He had also backed Jandek at the Velvet Lounge the previous night. Sunday night, Airaksinen provided a mixture of samples with keyboard melodies. The samples ranged from bells to flutes to organs and the combination sounded like it could've been a score from old horror films. The effect was woozy, meandering and only slightly spooky, so the audience treated this as background noise as well. Very very loud background noise.
Dr. Bibber:
Listed on the Sonic Circuits program as an artist that could appear anywhere at any time, Dr. Bibber appeared throughout the audience before the HEALTH set, dancing around with blue flashing lights on his sunglasses, and decked out in only shorts, a hat and a Walkman. He was distracting in the best way possible, the hilarious way.
HEALTH:
They may have been surprised and excited to be opening for Faust, but they were the act that the line of younger patrons had clearly come in to see. Granted, they pulled that draw with good reason. Although Jacob Duszik's vocals were turned down a little too low and there seemed to be some sort of technical difficulty between "Heaven" and "Die Slow," those minor complaints are the only negative thing to be said about their set. The energy of the young quartet was unmatched as they flung themselves around, scratching guitars, pounding toms, pushing buttons or just dancing. Drummer Benjamin Miller is one of the few percussionists who really looks like he's having the time of his life, rather than constipated. And throughout the screeching guitars and pulsating samples was this danceable rhythm and weird ethereal vocal glow. It was a phenomenal 45 minutes of sound.
Black Hole Miami:
The trio of saxophonist Ulrich Krieger and guitarists Rat Bastard and Chris Grier chose one pitch, absurdly loud, and stuck with it. All three artists were virtuosos with their instruments and their intent seemed to be to blow out the audience's eardrums (and blow out their own fingers, since they were moving at equally absurd speed.) The crowd that left after HEALTH missed out, although to be fair, it recalled the last 20 minutes of most Sonic Youth shows where the band goes crazy. This trio was certainly going crazy.
Faust:
Any barrier that had not yet been broken over the course of the festival got broken during this set. For instance, no one had yet decided that creating sparks on a metal sheet would be a good idea, but Faust did! No one had yet created a painting onstage during their set, but Faust went for it. Their music ranged from dark and dirgey (when one of their members read a scene, stage directions included, from the play Faust) to upbeat and poppy. Although they only had two original members, they had no problem pulling out older numbers, like "Jennifer," as well as new and improvised tracks. And for the encore? They asked the audience if they wanted to hear some krautrock. A tongue in cheek question considering that the band not only has no current German members but also specifically told the City Paper that they don't like being referred to by that term. But as Julian Cope noted, they helped pioneer and define that subgenre and they proved their relevance as an experimental powerhouse even now, 40 years later.