Sound Forest festival
Place: |
Black Friday (Melna Piektdiena) |
Main location: |
193 c Brivibas iela
Riga
tel. 6718 59 17
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Doom metal, disco, acid house and Donna Summer had a car crash on the highway to oblivion.
Chrome Hoof emerged from the wreckage, grooving. London is multi-faceted and contradictory. It is chaotic, magical, glamorous, cold, terrifying, apocalyptic, exciting, mundane,ordered and unhinged all at the same time. Chrome Hoof is the first band ever to capture this reality. A combination of primal feeling, virtuosity, theatre, brooding menace, late 70s glamour and large monsters made out of chromed titanium, Chrome Hoof should not really make any sense whatsoever — but they do. They have a character that, like London itself, transcends the sum of its parts. Chrome Hoof have somewhere between 10 and 14 members, depending on who turns up. Singer Lola Olafisoye is reminiscent of both Grace Jones at her stylish best and a New Orleans witch queen who took the wrong turn entering the spirit world and ended up in Zone 2 by mistake. Brothers Leo and Milo Smee have opposing musical backgrounds — doom metal and acid house respectively — but rather than compromise and meet in the middle, the brothers simply bring both styles to the same band. A sweet-faced trumpet player called Emma Sullivan lets out the most blood-curdling scream imaginable. Violinist Sarah and bassoonist Chloe bend their classical training towards making the perfect soundtrack to any forthcoming apocalypses we might be having. The entire band wear metallic monks robes, and are sometimes joined on stage by an enormous monster with a goat s head and flashing eyes — although at one summer festival the monster was sacrificed on an enormous fire with scant regard for health and safety issues. With most bands, what you see and hear tends to be the vision of one person who tells the other band members what to do. With Chrome Hoof it seems that everyone brings not only their musical skills but also their character to the stage. The result is a futuristic party.
Astrowind might be a slightly ridiculous band name, especially if you consider the fact this Latvian guy play lush ambient music on vintage synthesizers. But nevertheless, it’s a good name. An accurate name, at least. Because there is a feel of acroamatic escapism, there are these huge chords of hissing analogue synthesizers and you can even find this special kind of Slavonian melancholia (or Baltic, respectively) people use to rave about. Astrowind bring up a lot of references in their beautiful and, well, obsolete music. 70’s Krautrock Avant-gardists like Cluster or Harmonia make up for the most obvious comparison, but you can also find some influences from contemporary composers like Arvo Part (listen to the stagnant organ-chords on Impressions) or Terry Riley (the overall tonality). Add some traces of experimental guitar-music (on The Night the Stars Flew for instance) and you get an idea. But who’s behind the Astrowind-moniker? At the present moment project consists of Kriipis Tulo. Tulo is an important figure in the electronic music-underground of Riga, the humming capital of Latvia. He founded the Kolka-label, released several EPs at Nexsound, Sutemos, Cold Room, Lagunamuch, Rump Recordings and Synergy Networks and travelled Europe for several live-gigs. He was collaborating with a lot of influential artists ranging from fine arts (Ritums Ivanovs, Voldemars Johansons) to free improvisation (Derek Holzer, Maksims Shentelevs, Janis Bikis). After collaborations with dj Contour and I/DEX, he started Astrowind in 2006 with Mahi Bukimi. Project got the harmonies and the sound to become one of the most interesting Baltic acts to emerge from a scene rich of innovative musicians (Muschraum, Joel Tammik, Selffish, to name just the most obvious).
Oneohtrix Point Never is the recording name of the now famous Brooklyn-based experimental musician Daniel Lopatin, whose last album Returnal was released by Editions Mego in June 2010 to a major acclaim and before has been released on No Fun. Lopatin's music is composed and performed primarily on vintage synthesizers, and has been described as "drone or ambient music", "gentle eddies of sound" and "like a cracked mirror refracting the sounds of the past".
Emeralds are John Elliott, Mark McGuire and Steve Hauschildt. They began playing music together under the name Fancelions in 2005 in Cleveland's western suburbs of Bay Village and Westlake. However, due to a desire to simplify and focus more on live improvisation, they re-formed as Emeralds, playing their first show under that name in June 2006. Since then the group has released over thirty recordings, on labels such as Hanson Records, American Tapes, No Fun Productions, Ecstatic Peace! and also on their own imprints Wagon and Gneiss Things. The album What Happened, released on No Fun Productions in 2009, was their most widely known release to date, just surpassed in fame by Does It Look Like I'm Here? released on Viennese imprint Editions Mego. In fall of 2009 the band self-released the follow-up full length to Solar Bridge which is self-titled Emeralds. Emeralds are noted for blending ambient music with 80's synthesizer textures, German Kosmische music and the minimalism of Terry Riley.
www.skanumezs.lv
