Freak Animal Fest

FREAK ANIMAL FEST 2008
10 after the first fest, things are happening again:

IRM (Already legendary Swedish band known from Cold Meat Industry / Segerhuva)
SHIFT (Just released new album. Unrest Productions, Freak Animal. Dark industrial/noise/electronics)
BIZARRE UPROAR (Over 15 years of Finnish filth, this show with special line-up and performance, not to be missed!!)
KERÄNEN (Finnish harsh noise!!)
+1 (to be announced later)

FRIDAY 29.8.2008 starting at 21:00 ->
Lahti, Finland. TIRRA (Loviisankatu , K-18. Tickets 7€

P-K schreef:mja ok, maar als ik Mikko's dvd's mag geloven is daar wél ne noise-scene die ietwat uit z'n dag gaat op zoiets.....

oktober dan maar (wss wel moeten werken zeker? )

Basically Bizarre Uproar played same set as while before in Faktory (Helsinki, together with Clinic Of Torture, Ride For Revenge, Ritual Feces). Crude static beginning what moves slowly, with few screamed voices bringing additional aggression. Then more brutal noise storm starts and microphone was passed to mrs Bizarre for some high pitched vocals. In the end you could hear the middle eastern call for prayer, with nasty feedback and crunchy noises. 3 men with naked asses up, getting whipped with leather belt.

Haare set was easily their best. Technical difficulties and lack of confidence of earlier gigs I've seen was just distant memory. Guitar-drone was bright and powerful, and after short phychedelic building of atmosphere, gig grew into pretty hard rumbling noise, however, with good amount of details and subtle elements you could hear from both, guitar and the mic/effects/loops/electronics. Cheap self-lighting "disco ball" I went to pick up from home between BU & Haare sets worked well for their atmosphere, hah..

Keränen played easily the best set I have seen from his solo performances. Some members of audience went as far as saying it was among best if not the BEST harsh noise live gig ever done. I've seen so many of noise shows, I can't go comparing them all, but it was pretty damn great. Contact mics placed over speaker elements, effected mics inside horn, ultra tiny mini synth, filter boxes, effects,... a lot of tools what could generate more "goofy" sounds, but in this show Keränen was really there in utmost core of the noise. He managed to avoid all the usual failures of harshnoise set. Enough of variation, but no blowing his wad too fast. Sound went forward relatively free-form and spontaneously, but still with utmost focus and purpose. You could see that the artist had exact idea what he was here for and it wasn't like pluggin on pile of gear and idea-free random rumbles.

Shift is in all ways very original in choises and technical side. Things what would be very easy to just do by pushing play button of backing tape, are done in real time with huge samplers/mixers and other pieces of gear. As opposite to many noise performers, Shift seems to always play carefully prepared live set, what you can't blame on being too hectic. Especially in harsh noise, you often see 5 minutes blast where artists gives what he's got, hits the gear and throws it around to reach early climax. Often sounding very different than in recorded work, when idea seems to be that audience is too impatient to really see what you do, and to squeeze in everything into energic fast-food noise formula is only way to do live.
Well, Shift ain't doing it. Often he seems to be no hurry at all, just doing and listening his own massive walls of static and rumbling noises, slowly echoing guitar sounds, deep crunchy distortions. Vocals are not mixed upfront in rock'n'roll style. Even in live situation, mixing remind of his studio work, where vocals are echoing deep and distant, and sometimes sounds like you hear the voice only when it starts repating itself in heavy delay effect. Despite all this, it's not like yelling whatever, but Shift has lyrics which are being read and pronounced - even if outsider may remain unaware. I can admire his way to stick true to his vision of what is has to be, while "regular PE standards" would suggest otherwise. There was several songs being played (?), but everything was build into big solid piece. In the end of set we could also withness Shifts more aggressive and up-front vocalization and his noisiers/heaviest distortion tones.

IRM was also fucking great. It felt that they were A LOT better than in previous gig in Finland. And you must remember that all these observations are done clear-headed, with no influence of alcohol or other stimulants, hah... Very simple background video was being played, and rather disturbing electronics combined with many "handmade" sounds. Playing pieces of metal with violin-bow, etc. Visually the atmosphere of real BAND is sometimes very nice thing in industrial noise. Bass player was bass player, singer was the front man and the 3rd guy reponsible for most of the sounds, mixing and keping it all together. I think at the best IRM was when bass-noise pulses or simple slightly distorted heavy piano loop created nearly trance-like feeling (not talking about trance techno music!). We're not talking about industrial music in EMB/dance/soundtrack/cinematic sense, but always in lines of "composed" but cruel and nasty stuff. Bands current acoustic and experimental elements are good addition to the purely power electronics/industrial core.

Audience was 100 paid tickets + bands/organizers/venues regulars (not all were charged, some regulars got in to drink). Most furthest visitors came all the way from Bulgaria, but also inside Finland there seemed to be a lot of travellers. I assume that we were very close to the maximum limit (140) of the venue. Budget allowed doubling the fees(travelcosts) of bands, food, drinks.. so thanks to all who paid in!

Venue was also very happy about how all things turned out. They welcome FA to organize further fests/gigs and maybe next time there will be also build actual stage, to make it easeir to see bands who play. Now crowd was so packed in front of "stage" that on back of the venue it was hard to see. Nevertheless, it was good to see such a interest in crowd, instead of people sitting in corners.

P-K schreef:100+ man.....in wat een apenland wonen wij toch

P-K schreef:jamaar allez, fucking Finland....een zaal met een max capaciteit van 140man : 100 man krijgen

petje af


....is er geen zwaar terkort aan verpleging in Finland? ....gans vrije week in Mikko zijne shop hangen dan....

P-K schreef:slechter als nu kan alvast niet

....en neen, niet "t kan altijd nog slechter", want op = op & leeg=leeg