![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
petroniaOr, Morr Music matsuri. It occurs to me that I should've written this earlier in the week, on the very off-chance that anyone was considering attending the last leg of their tour, but... oh well. ^^;
Sala Rossa is a hipster venue on upper Saint-Laurent, diagonally across the street from Casa del Popolo - the easiest way to get there is to walk along Saint Joseph Boulevard from metro Laurier until you hit the Main. Would never have known it was there without the number, as the outside looks like an office/apartment building. The first floor inside is the Sala Rossa restaurant aka the Spanish Cultural Centre of Montreal (want to try it out sometime, Ced? :D), the second floor is the concert venue. It's a small room, holds 220 max by the permit on the wall, all wooden dancefloor but for a very few tables lining the walls and the bar at the back. Lit by lightbulbs covered with red lantern shades, hence the name. There wasn't even anywhere to wander, so grabbed a beer and a sampler CD and emulated several other attendees by sitting down on the dancefloor and... reading Mirage of Blaze. ^^; I read a lot of Mirage of Blaze over the course of the evening. The dead time pre- and between sets is not much fun when you're a non-smoker gigging alone, as I tend to be, and especially not when the joint is filled with Main hipsters and/or inhibited indie electronica types as opposed to chemically friendly gay bois.
The Go Find played first, followed by Styrofoam. The Internet explained to me afterward that the former is the one-man band of German guy!Dieter, and the latter is the one-man band of Belgian guy!Arne. When Dieter was on Arne played synths, and when Arne was on Dieter played guitar and sang back-up vocals, and they both had the same third-man guitarist. So for all intents and purposes three guys came out, played an hour-long set, went off, then came back ten minutes later and played another hour-long set. XD;; (Belgian guy!Arne: "Look, Belgium is a small country, okay? We lack qualified musicians.") It didn't sound all that different either, for I guess the obvious reason that everything on the Morr Music label sounds as if it might be by the same people anyway, let alone when it's actually played by the same people.
The Go Find - Over The Edge (Late Night Remix)
That being said this is what Morr Music sounds like, grosso modo: melodic ambient edging into electro pop-rock, sort of downbeat, sort of wintry, a fair bit of experimental and a fair bit of emo. It's setsunasa music for me, sitting there with my legs folded right under the stage, craning my neck up at German guy!Dieter and thinking this was exactly what I needed to hear in a stuffy warm room on a chill late-autumn evening... And if the two - I mean three - bands on stage that night were any indication, what Morr Music looks like are the people who live in the basement of Burnside Hall. (That's comp sci grad students, math society and Taskforce IT student volunteers, for the non-McGill alumni among you.) Even Valerie Trebeljahr, who it turned out was a cute Asian girl with a beauty mark like Atobe Keigo - just a cute Asian girl you'd assume was in comp sci if you saw her on campus. It's something about the hair, lack of real attendance to. Everyone in the audience was better dressed and hipper than the performers, even me. I'm not sure how I feel about that last part, but otherwise I found it perversely comforting. XD
(Mind you this doesn't mean it was gruesomely earnest. One of the Styrofoam songs was introduced thusly: "This is a boy-girl duet, and on the album the girl part is sung by Miki, a Japanese girl. She's not here, so it will be a boy-boy duet technically, and Dieter will play the part of the Japanese girl.")
While Lali Puna was setting up I leant my elbows on the stage and read Mirage of Blaze, because only the stage was well-lit enough for me to see. (Of note at this point was a classically moppy-shy indie boy I'd been sitting next to on the dancefloor the entire time. He wandered up and craned his neck to try and read a setlist someone had let fall among the equipment, but despite the obviousness of this maneuvre was too inhibited to ask any of the performers to hand it to him. I felt quite vindicated, since I'd done the exact same thing. I'd also crossed Valerie Trebeljahr in the ladies' room some time earlier but did not stop her to say anything dorky such as "I have this friend who really likes your Human League cover," though the sentence actually crossed my mind to the extent that if Schuldich were there he would have heard it sub-vocalised. Not that Schuldich would've been in the ladies' room unless he had a really good reason.) When I looked up again I was two feet away from the stand of Valerie Trebeljahr's Korg keyboard, and everyone behind me was standing like a proper crowd. ^^; So that's where I remained for the entirety of their set.
Lali Puna - Scary World Theory
No set list. I was at the show on a whim, camera-less and notebook-less, and was probably the person in the room who knew the band's discography least well. ^^; They did play everything of theirs that was familiar to me - startlingly familiar, I'd never realised how often I listened to songs like "6-0-3", "Small Things" and "Scary World Theory" (which actually reminds me of Johann out of Monster, though I think it's political in intent). There were some technical problems at the beginning that seemed to relate to the loudness of VT's mike; I could barely hear her, but she kept making a gesture for "turn it down", so er. After quite a bit of German intercom patter it was resolved, and actually it flowed quite well as part of the set - like scratchy vocal samples. XD Anyhow I say Morr Music tends to sound all the same, but one could tell right away why they were the headlining band. It's a matter of sonic sophistication. There was a *heartmark* level of attention paid to the creation of each tiny little noise, that on record you'd assume was some sort of sampling technique but could actually be Markus Acher playing guitar while standing on one foot (the other one flipping a distort switch every second chord), or Christoph Brander the drummer doing something arcane with an unscrewed cymbal. And they rock live, seriously, albeit in that My Bloody Valentine wall-of-fuzz-guitar way and not the Franz Ferdinand way. It was much louder than the minimalist bippy production floating out of my computer speakers as I write.
Lali Puna - Grin and Bear (this one is more representative of their recent sound)
So: three hour-long sets, 9:30 to 12:30, followed by a line-up at coatcheck and the ten-minute walk back to metro Laurier. Thus I very casually and unexpectedly missed the last subway home, and had to take a taxi. ^^; Had to make the guy wait and run into the house to get cash to pay, even. Should've brought more money, but that's the story of my life. I would've spent it all on merchandise anyway - they'd sold out of half their stock at this point on tour, not illogical when you figure a CD's 10$-15$ at the show but 25$ at the record store if it's in stock - but I got a sampler, and if I'd had the money I might have gotten a t-shirt. I wouldn't wear a t-shirt for most of my bands but I'd wear a Morr Music one. It seems more indicative of who I am. ^^;
Post Scriptum: while searching for info online I found what appears to be my s3kkr1t Chinese music blog.
"和聲悅耳的嗡鳴超過機器嘎喳聲，電腦軟體電子碎屑爆裂聲等節奏的作用，將深藏潛意識的愁緒憂鬱與懷舊情緒勾勒而出，再以旋律和絕美的電子音色撫平心靈，這是充滿了溫暖以及情感的電子音樂，繼承了Kraftwerk的優良傳統。
疏離孤絕的都市生活，正需要這樣的音樂，相濡以沫互相取暖。"
(Basically what I mean when I say I can't write in Chinese. That's a category link, my Taiwanese twin set hirself the task of importing and reviewing the entire Morr Music discography. ^^; Check the most recent posts re Luna and Bebel Gilberto.)
Sala Rossa is a hipster venue on upper Saint-Laurent, diagonally across the street from Casa del Popolo - the easiest way to get there is to walk along Saint Joseph Boulevard from metro Laurier until you hit the Main. Would never have known it was there without the number, as the outside looks like an office/apartment building. The first floor inside is the Sala Rossa restaurant aka the Spanish Cultural Centre of Montreal (want to try it out sometime, Ced? :D), the second floor is the concert venue. It's a small room, holds 220 max by the permit on the wall, all wooden dancefloor but for a very few tables lining the walls and the bar at the back. Lit by lightbulbs covered with red lantern shades, hence the name. There wasn't even anywhere to wander, so grabbed a beer and a sampler CD and emulated several other attendees by sitting down on the dancefloor and... reading Mirage of Blaze. ^^; I read a lot of Mirage of Blaze over the course of the evening. The dead time pre- and between sets is not much fun when you're a non-smoker gigging alone, as I tend to be, and especially not when the joint is filled with Main hipsters and/or inhibited indie electronica types as opposed to chemically friendly gay bois.
The Go Find played first, followed by Styrofoam. The Internet explained to me afterward that the former is the one-man band of German guy!Dieter, and the latter is the one-man band of Belgian guy!Arne. When Dieter was on Arne played synths, and when Arne was on Dieter played guitar and sang back-up vocals, and they both had the same third-man guitarist. So for all intents and purposes three guys came out, played an hour-long set, went off, then came back ten minutes later and played another hour-long set. XD;; (Belgian guy!Arne: "Look, Belgium is a small country, okay? We lack qualified musicians.") It didn't sound all that different either, for I guess the obvious reason that everything on the Morr Music label sounds as if it might be by the same people anyway, let alone when it's actually played by the same people.
The Go Find - Over The Edge (Late Night Remix)
That being said this is what Morr Music sounds like, grosso modo: melodic ambient edging into electro pop-rock, sort of downbeat, sort of wintry, a fair bit of experimental and a fair bit of emo. It's setsunasa music for me, sitting there with my legs folded right under the stage, craning my neck up at German guy!Dieter and thinking this was exactly what I needed to hear in a stuffy warm room on a chill late-autumn evening... And if the two - I mean three - bands on stage that night were any indication, what Morr Music looks like are the people who live in the basement of Burnside Hall. (That's comp sci grad students, math society and Taskforce IT student volunteers, for the non-McGill alumni among you.) Even Valerie Trebeljahr, who it turned out was a cute Asian girl with a beauty mark like Atobe Keigo - just a cute Asian girl you'd assume was in comp sci if you saw her on campus. It's something about the hair, lack of real attendance to. Everyone in the audience was better dressed and hipper than the performers, even me. I'm not sure how I feel about that last part, but otherwise I found it perversely comforting. XD
(Mind you this doesn't mean it was gruesomely earnest. One of the Styrofoam songs was introduced thusly: "This is a boy-girl duet, and on the album the girl part is sung by Miki, a Japanese girl. She's not here, so it will be a boy-boy duet technically, and Dieter will play the part of the Japanese girl.")
While Lali Puna was setting up I leant my elbows on the stage and read Mirage of Blaze, because only the stage was well-lit enough for me to see. (Of note at this point was a classically moppy-shy indie boy I'd been sitting next to on the dancefloor the entire time. He wandered up and craned his neck to try and read a setlist someone had let fall among the equipment, but despite the obviousness of this maneuvre was too inhibited to ask any of the performers to hand it to him. I felt quite vindicated, since I'd done the exact same thing. I'd also crossed Valerie Trebeljahr in the ladies' room some time earlier but did not stop her to say anything dorky such as "I have this friend who really likes your Human League cover," though the sentence actually crossed my mind to the extent that if Schuldich were there he would have heard it sub-vocalised. Not that Schuldich would've been in the ladies' room unless he had a really good reason.) When I looked up again I was two feet away from the stand of Valerie Trebeljahr's Korg keyboard, and everyone behind me was standing like a proper crowd. ^^; So that's where I remained for the entirety of their set.
Lali Puna - Scary World Theory
No set list. I was at the show on a whim, camera-less and notebook-less, and was probably the person in the room who knew the band's discography least well. ^^; They did play everything of theirs that was familiar to me - startlingly familiar, I'd never realised how often I listened to songs like "6-0-3", "Small Things" and "Scary World Theory" (which actually reminds me of Johann out of Monster, though I think it's political in intent). There were some technical problems at the beginning that seemed to relate to the loudness of VT's mike; I could barely hear her, but she kept making a gesture for "turn it down", so er. After quite a bit of German intercom patter it was resolved, and actually it flowed quite well as part of the set - like scratchy vocal samples. XD Anyhow I say Morr Music tends to sound all the same, but one could tell right away why they were the headlining band. It's a matter of sonic sophistication. There was a *heartmark* level of attention paid to the creation of each tiny little noise, that on record you'd assume was some sort of sampling technique but could actually be Markus Acher playing guitar while standing on one foot (the other one flipping a distort switch every second chord), or Christoph Brander the drummer doing something arcane with an unscrewed cymbal. And they rock live, seriously, albeit in that My Bloody Valentine wall-of-fuzz-guitar way and not the Franz Ferdinand way. It was much louder than the minimalist bippy production floating out of my computer speakers as I write.
Lali Puna - Grin and Bear (this one is more representative of their recent sound)
So: three hour-long sets, 9:30 to 12:30, followed by a line-up at coatcheck and the ten-minute walk back to metro Laurier. Thus I very casually and unexpectedly missed the last subway home, and had to take a taxi. ^^; Had to make the guy wait and run into the house to get cash to pay, even. Should've brought more money, but that's the story of my life. I would've spent it all on merchandise anyway - they'd sold out of half their stock at this point on tour, not illogical when you figure a CD's 10$-15$ at the show but 25$ at the record store if it's in stock - but I got a sampler, and if I'd had the money I might have gotten a t-shirt. I wouldn't wear a t-shirt for most of my bands but I'd wear a Morr Music one. It seems more indicative of who I am. ^^;
Post Scriptum: while searching for info online I found what appears to be my s3kkr1t Chinese music blog.
"和聲悅耳的嗡鳴超過機器嘎喳聲，電腦軟體電子碎屑爆裂聲等節奏的作用，將深藏潛意識的愁緒憂鬱與懷舊情緒勾勒而出，再以旋律和絕美的電子音色撫平心靈，這是充滿了溫暖以及情感的電子音樂，繼承了Kraftwerk的優良傳統。
疏離孤絕的都市生活，正需要這樣的音樂，相濡以沫互相取暖。"
(Basically what I mean when I say I can't write in Chinese. That's a category link, my Taiwanese twin set hirself the task of importing and reviewing the entire Morr Music discography. ^^; Check the most recent posts re Luna and Bebel Gilberto.)
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2004-11-19 05:47 pm (UTC)-Ced