***
Friday's live-set with Aril Brikha was present by Chameleon Records. Being a long weekend (presumably with plenty of people making the most of it by getting out of the city), things were slow to kick off. All the same, come midnight and the place was bustling… the crowd was down for a good night : )
Aril's set was an uptempo adventure of banging, melodic techno. Great for stomping away. Most of it seemed to be cruising at 130bpm-ish, with a strongly percussive vibe. To wrap it all up, he dragged the tempo down to a lowly 110-ish jaunt before local act Child jumped behind the faders and pots, to take us on one of his theatric techno adventures.
In typical Chameleon style, the night was also well-catered for visually. Not sure who was on VJing duties, but it was looking lush.
For those interested; Aril's rig was;
a laptop running ableton, novation launchpad and livid's code controller… nice and portable.
***
Snatched some sleep Saturday morning and afternoon before heading off to Adelaide to catch-up with Dad, and check out some of the Womad festival....
Adelaide: The plane tou
ched-down with a jolt. On the road everyone seems to cruise around 10 clicks below the limit… Life moves at a different pace, compared to Melbourne - nice for a change.Sat evening: Caught Mali's Tinariwen doing their tightly-grooving thing (despite the fact that two of the band member's had been held-up in a refugee camp). A bit later found myself checking out the lush sound of UK producer Bonobo and his band, for their last gig of the Black Sands LP tour. Another tight band - wish I'd caught the drummer's name, was grooving nicely… Wrapped up the evening lost in dub (with sprinkles of DnB) listening to the twisted experiments of the Mad Professor… he had a 24 channel mixing desk plus effects as his instruments of choice - would have been great to get a clo
ser peak at how he had it set-up.Interestingly, I found I was the youngest in the crowd for parts of Womad (for example at Tinariwen's set), and other times it seemed like I was the oldest (a really young crew was getting into the Mad Professor's bass-a-licious sounds - Womad's an all-ages event)… the festival pulls a diverse crowd.
Sunday: back to Womad to check out some more mixed grooves. Early on in the day, and two Melbourne bands got our attention; The Melbourne Ska Orchestra and Blue King Brown. Both really tight bands and good fun.
During my meandering on Saturday night, I caught part of a doco being shown on the Democratic Republic of Congo band Staff Benda Bilili (the doco was called 'Benda Bilili!'). As it turns out, they were playing a set Sunday evening. Not as tightly rehearsed as some of the other acts on offer (I've since decided I prefer their studio work), but really good fun:
^ (Watch your volume level - kicks off with intense amplitude, and there doesn't seem to be a volume slider on the soundcloud player). The twangy stringed instrument from about 16 seconds is a home-made, single-stringed amplified lute. This track is from their Très Très Fort LP (Crammed Discs).
Here's the trailer for the doco on Staff Benda Bilili:
Continuing to emphasise an element of fun, the Ukulele Orchestra of Great Britain played a cover set, reconfiguring the world of popular music through their small, four-stringed instruments. Good fun. Their arsenal was comprised of multiple ukuleles (including a bass) and voice (both lead and harmonising) - percussion provided through hitting the bodies of the instruments.
^ A personal favourite from their set
Aril Brikha http://www.myspace.com/arilbrikha
Blue King Brown http://www.bluekingbrown.com/
Bonobo http://www.bonobomusic.com/
Child http://childlive.tumblr.com/
Livid 'code' midi controller http://lividinstruments.com/hardware_code.php
Melbourne Ska Orchestra http://www.melbourneskaorchestra.com/
Staff Benda Bilili http://www.staffbendabilili.com/
Tinariwen: http://www.tinariwen.com/
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