Review Chad VanGaalen for OOR

CONCERTINDIE

ONGEMAK EN BEZIELING HAND IN HAND BIJ CHAD VANGAALEN

De uit Calgary afkomstige muzikant Chad VanGaalen wilde altijd liever naam maken met zijn kunst en animaties. De surrealistische waanbeelden, die terloops uit zijn psyche lijken te ontstaan, zijn het handelsmerk. Die unieke art-stijl nestelt zich vanzelfsprekend in zijn muziek: vreemdsoortige knip-en-plakliedjes waarin VanGaalen nauwgezet abstracte geluiden integreert, met effecten, drones en zelfgemaakte instrumenten. Tegen wil en dank is VanGaalen bekender geworden om zijn muziek dan zijn kunst, iets wat hij zelf niet in de hand heeft. Zoals vanavond blijkt in de Dokzaal, werkt dit grappig genoeg in zijn voordeel.

Met de dag lijkt er weer een nieuwe popzaal te ontspruiten in het Amsterdamse centrum. Dat gezegd hebbende, is de Dokzaal een bijzonder fijne aanvulling. Bij binnenkomst voel je meteen een huiselijke sfeer, vergelijkbaar met het Utrechtse Kargadoor. Voor livemuziek is deze Dokzaal beter berust: beneden de veranda heb je een ruimte voor intieme shows, langs de bar vind je de (verrassend) grote zaal. Een voormalige kerkzaal zo blijkt, wat de gevoelige akoestiek verklaart. 

Zanger/gitarist Aaron Mangle, van garageduo Cousins dat het voorprogramma verzorgt, bedankt de bezoekers al van tevoren. ‘Because last time in Amsterdam sucked!’, mompelt hij, terwijl hij koddig tussen elke lettergreep van zijn thee nipt. De woorden zijn hier zowaar goed verstaanbaar. Ondergetekende verheft zijn bierflesje in repliek, waardoor het schuim overloopt. Ook de vallende spetters zijn door iedereen in de zaal hoorbaar. Eventjes het middelpunt van de aandacht zijn doet toch even blozen. De andere helft van Cousins is drumster Leigh Dotey; voordat het liedje inzet komt er telkens weer een aandoenlijke miscommunicatie tussen Dotey en Mangle aan te pas. Die awkward handdruk, die kennen we allemaal. Nou, dit is dus de muzikale variant. Het duo jaagt met heerlijk bevlogen en infantiele energie door hun setlist. Muziek in de geest van Ariel Pink, Connan Mockasin en R. Stevie Moore, al oversturen de liedjes van Cousins iets meer, de rustieke piep-en-kraak sound van The Flaming Lips in hun prille jaren.

In tegenstelling tot Cousins is de akoestiek voor Chad VanGaalen vanavond een beproeving. Hij is sowieso niet het meest happige beestje betreft toeren en optreden. Daar komt bij dat zijn huidige bezetting bestaat uit voormalig Monty Munro (bas, achtergrondzang) en Eric Hamelin (drums). Nee, het zijn geen broertjes van elkaar. VanGaalen's show neemt duidelijk een andere gedaante aan dan zijn vorige clubshow: om de meer uptempo liedjes, zoals Burning Photographs en Peace On The Rise, hangt nu een zware walm van noise en feedback. Overigens is die vorige clubshow, op het wijlen fabrIQ festival in 2012, best noemenswaardig: VanGaalen was toen in feite een eenmansband, de drums, electronica, gitaar en harmonica tegelijkertijd bedienend. Dan moest hij ook nog zingen, die iele tenor die zo doeltreffend het hart weet te raken. VanGaalen heeft zeker de elan van eenGram Parsons of Neil Young, maar zijn muziek is niet bepaald rootsy, eerder abstract. Referentiekaders be damned, VanGaalen doet liever beroep op de kwintessens vanuit zijn eigen macabere tekstbubbels en onaardse fantasiebeelden. Dat optreden op fabrIQ kreeg nog een extra lading, omdat het pakweg drie weken na het overlijden van VanGaalens boezemvriend, Women-gitarist Chris Reimer, plaatsvond. VanGaalen produceerde de twee albums van Women.

Fast forward naar het hier en nu, trekt Chad VanGaalen al snel een conclusie, dat het funest is de teugels strak in handen te houden. Zijn nieuwe bezetting ontleent zich niet goed aan de Dokzaal, wat een chaotisch optreden oplevert. De spontaniteit regeert wanneer hij Mangle laat meepielen, wat tot een soort space age Crazy Horse tafereel uitmondt. Het sfeertje is vergelijkbaar met VanGaalens eerste twee releases Infiniheart en Skelliconnection, fuzzy lo-fi pop voortgekomen uit een kijk-wat-blijft plakken blauwdruk. The Soft Airplane (2008), Diaper Island (2011) en het dit jaar (op label Flemish Eye) uitgebrachte Shrink Dust zijn meer traditionele songplaten, in hoeverre je VanGaalen 'traditioneel' kunt noemen. De Canadees begint met een ietwat afgeraffelde versie van Cut Off My Hands, waarin hij zingt dat zijn handen hem, Evil Dead-style, als ‘a pair of bloody crabs’ in de steek laten. De nerveuze grapjes tussendoor, het aanpassen aan zijn twee bandleden - die de begeestering wel natuurlijkerwijs vinden -, Chad VanGaalen wil het liefst zo snel mogelijk door zijn set heen razen. Het ongemak kan hij dit keer niet van zich afschudden, net als het abominabele cartoonmonster op de Shrink Dust-hoes. De aangrijpende afsluiter Rabid Bits Of Time is vanavond de apotheose, hét moment dat pure bezieling en ongemak eventjes hand in hand gaan. Dan hoor je VanGaalen op zijn best: ‘And you've been dead for years but you never knew/and the rabid bits of time have been eating you’. Dit optreden is tussen zijn oren wellicht een verloren zaak, maar ondertussen laat hij het publiek in de Dokzaal compleet ontdaan en verwonderd achter.

http://oor.nl/#!/articles/ongemak_en_bezieling_hand_in_hand_bij_chad_vangaalen/concert

Interview Tijger Salto

Luifabriek interview post-hardcore misfits Tijger Salto – “We rejoiced in the prospect of making music without that sense of ‘importance’”

September 10, 2014
by Jasper Willems

Tij•ger Sal•to

“A whaaaat…?”

 

Proper translation: Tiger Somersault

A cat doing something as ho-hum as a somersault would elicit thrills on the interwebs for the simple fact that it’s a friggin’ CAT. The largest cat on the planet no less, one of the fiercest carnivores of the animal kingdom. Suffice to say, the name Tijger Salto befits this Amsterdam-based trio as well as anything. Unruly and dangerous, they manage to pack this tense post-hardcore wallop by means of just vocals, bass, a wee bit of synth and drums. Yet Tijger Salto eschews the habitual Minor Threat-esque machismo, instead emitting the straight-jacketed dementia we’ve come to expect from bands like Brainiac or The Jesus Lizard. Simply put, Tijger Salto has become this really fun crackpot of a band.

I meet up with Benjamin van Gaalen (vocals) and Tim Mooij (skins) at De Arend, a benign and folksy tavern in the western quarter of Amsterdam. Mooij has an affinity for these hearty places. Last time we spoke was about three years ago, when he and Van Gaalen were still one half of noise-rock iconoclasts Stairs To Nowhere. We did what would be the band’s final interview at Café ‘t Stoplicht, another congenial pub preserving the bygone musk of tobacco, polaroids and lacquered timber. Right before the article was published, Stairs To Nowhere decided to call it quits. “There was nothing left to give in that band. We basically exhausted ourselves.”, Tim reflects.
Even when reading the piece in shoddy Google Translate-English, the reason why becomes quite apparent. Whether it’s setting piano’s on fire (and subsequently recording on them), dropping vocals with a Chinese shock collar (!) or capturing the wrecking of an entire studio on tape…Stairs To Nowhere was an all-out endeavor. Their shows had a punk sensibility to them, with Mooij frantically dismantling and re-assembling his drum kit, often mid-song. Yet at the same time, the band’s operation was undoubtedly methodical, contrived and ambitious.
Stairs To Nowhere made some waves trespassing the abandoned Vredenburg premises (all while capturing it on video) to set up and play in its hollowed-out shell. The local authorities weren’t too pleased. Thankfully, Tipper Gore inadvertently taught us that nothing sparks mass appeal more than controversy. Stairs To Nowhere seemed hellbent to capitalize on that notion by going by the extreme, whatever that ‘extreme’ might entail. Their music had a bohemian zest and zeal, yet at the same time they were a sophisticated and arty bunch of guys. Occasionally, they diverged into ostentatious humbug, and this arguably became the band’s most glaring foible. As a result, they were incredibly difficult to pigeonhole, which – in retrospect – made them such an exciting band to watch.
Even after their seemingly inevitable demise, I remained a Stairs To Nowhere fan to this day. Last January, Ben sent me a message out of the blue, announcing he and Tim were starting a new band. Needless to say, I was overjoyed and intrigued. While adapting some of the Stairs’ unruliness (Tim’s distinctive refractory drum form, obviously, being the ubiquitous factor), Tijger Salto is an entirely different animal.
“Everything in Stairs To Nowhere was so ‘important’”, Tim quips, deliberately uttering the last word in condescending manner. “I realized I still had something left in the tank. We rejoiced in the prospect of making music without that sense of ‘importance’, right Ben?”
Ben simply nods.
“Other than unleashing a bucketload of energy…”, Tim inquires. “…what’s the point of playing punk rock anyway?”
“Nothing, I guess,”, Ben answers. “You cannot be about-face in doing so, anyway.”
“Make no mistake, we had a complete blast with Stairs.”, he continues. “Both Tim and myself were entirely different individuals at the time. We had completely different ambitions. It was quite liberating to just leave all of that behind us. We took that into account when we started Tijger Salto. Our maxim is basically: ‘Alright, shoot! Let’s just DO it…regardless!’ We simply want to steer clear from any quarreling regarding the musical direction of this band. I mean, it’s great to be part of some conjoined MO. But once you skip the part where you tediously debate the music’s direction and just let it happen anyway – regardless whether you like it or not – something better could come up the next time around.” Ben explains that Tijger Salto nurtures a sequencing of ideas, all of them addressed emphatically with a Pavlovian “yes!” “Whenever we find out a song doesn’t work live, we simply ditch it. We’re a pretty prolific band, so it’s no big deal anyway.”
Where Stairs To Nowhere applied these bizarre elaborate song titles, Tijger Salto skips that part entirely as well: the songs are simply numbered. The band is Ben’s first crack at being a lead vocalist and frontman. He enjoys immersing in that role head-on, acting out on stage, right down to screaming the track numbers as if calling plays from a playbook. “It’s fun. There’s something about screaming your lungs out, to end up completely exhausted on your back ignorant of the fact that you’re still only halfway through the set!”
After Stairs broke up, he and Tim still kept in touch regularly. Both stray towards their other artistic interests: Tim ventures into professional photography while Ben tries his hand in performing in plays. Tim: “Nowadays I work as a coordinator at a photo museum. I gave Ben a leg up, so now he works there as well. He even became my boss for a short period of time…but that couldn’t persist, as I wouldn’t allow it!”*laughs*
Ben tells Luifabriek he always toyed with the idea of fronting a heavy rock band. “Once we decided to make music together again, I told Tim I would love to do just that. In the meantime, I actually attended some singing lessons, although that might be a bit obsolete for this type of music. But it was obvious from the start we needed a third member.” After playing with different people for awhile, Tim and Ben stumbled upon Rob de Witte through mutual connections.
Ben: “During our first rehearsal he initially intended become our guitar player. Luckily I took my bass to the rehearsal space as well, just in case. So, we jammed for a bit. Then suddenly, he looked at my bass and acknowledged: ‘I’m really more of a bass player, you know.’ So he picked up my bass and proceeded to unleash this unbelievably heavy, loud bass sound.” Once De Witte joined in with the fracas, Tijger Salto quickly established their haphazard yet free-spirited songwriting approach.

Ever since starting the band, Tim feels he once again filled a creative void: “To me , I just needed that place again where I could completely unwind.” No question about it: Mooij appears to be more relaxed than three years ago. He seems to have found a nice balance between his professional craft, his marriage and having that place to fulfill some of his personal idiosyncrasies. A difference with three years ago: now he simply needs that outlet alone, not all the other baggage that comes along with playing in a band. “Tijger Salto is just a vehicle for me to keep myself occupied, to meet new people and to seek out new experiences.”

Read the rest of the article HEREuifabriek.com/2014/09/luifabriek-interview-post-hardcore-misfits-tijger-salto-rejoiced-prospect-making-music-without-sense-importance/.

Interview with Adrian Younge

INCENDIARY INTERVIEW ADRIAN YOUNGE - "I WANT TO BE PIGEONHOLED."

Submitted by Jasper Willems on Thu, 08/28/2014 - 20:06

The bullet just missed Domino, but he had gunpowder burning his eyes, so he thought he was a dead man. The Souls thought so too:  this dude was trying to kill off all the Souls Of Mischief!

Ever since jettisoning hip hop-sampling in '97 to become an analog recording aficionado,Adrian Younge has diligently moved against the currents of modern music consumption, embracing and reigniting its old ideals. Best known for scoring Blaxploitation spoof Black Dynamite, Younge immersively discovers and recreates sounds that made the golden-era of hip hop essentially a fucking ginormous Stargate-portal to all musical realms of the 20th century.

Recently ,Younge has found a way to rekindle both his hip hop genesis with his love for the obscure and hidden. He helmed Ghostface Killah's LP Twelve Reasons To Die and created a rapopera with the mighty Souls Of Mischief, whom Younge idolized growing up. Yep, you heard me correctly: a friggin' RAP OPERA. As Incendiary stops by Amsterdam to meet with Younge, it becomes apparent this musical tour de force has plenty of ambition left.

IN: Do you still remember where you were the first time you heard Souls Of Mischief's 93 'Til Infinity?

AY: I was at high school in '93. I remember watching the 93 'Til Infinity video, I was just trippin' out on it. The thing about that time is, I look at '93 as the pinnacle year for hip hop. 36 Chamberscame out that year too, so I was a big time Wu-Tang fan. By the same token, Doggystyle  became a big thing too, so I was a big Snoop fan as well. But the difference between those two albums and 93 'Til Infinity is that - as much as I love the music - I couldn't personally connect to Wu-Tang and/or Snoop, because I wasn't a gang banger. I didn't sell cocaine, you know, that wasn't who I was. But when I saw that Souls Of Mischief video, it really struck me. Because they represented my lifestyle, which was basically a hip hop kid coming from the suburbs. It really spoke to me. I was really into clothes and talking to fly chicks. Lyrically, they were just phenomenal. It was insane. I've listened to 93 'Til Infinity so much, I know every word on the album.

IN: No easy task.

AY: Yeah, it was a dream come true even get into contact with them to maybe do an album.

IN: How did this collaboration materialize exactly?

AY: Basically, it happened on the heels of producing Ghostface Killah's Twelve Reasons To Diealbum. A-Plus hit me up and said Souls Of Mischief would be interested in me producing an album. I was like "holy shit!". Producing Twelve Reasons To Die, I focussed more on Ennio Morricone, vintage Dario Argento horror scores and RZA-type stuff. This was a new plain for me, a new pathway of sound for me to engage in. If I wanted to make an album with Souls Of Mischief, I wanted something that channelled golden-era hip hop, which is from '88 to around '93. At least how I look at it: A Tribe Called Quest', Native Tongues, De La Soul, Black Sheep and Souls Of Mischief. Then we go back to their source material, the stuff they sampled, it's the music between '68 en '73. Jazz, funk, psychedelic dark soul. I wanted to create kind of a hybrid between that 90's golden era Native Tongues-hip hop sound back to late 60's, early 70's psych soul and jazz…and bring it forward to today. That was all the stuff I was meditating on when the Souls hit me up. I obliged and the five of us started talking. And a few days later we started working on There Is Only Now, it's history now.

IN: When I listen to There Is Only Now it, it feels like this rap opera. And to me, that's kind of unchartered territory. I read some interview with the Souls where they said something in the vein of the album being loosely based on their own career trajectory. Is There Is Only Now like a dramatization of that or entirely new fictional story?

AY: Well the story is based on a true incident that happened to them. On the first track Time Stopped, the Souls were at a parking lot in the middle of the night. Around 4 AM, some dude jumped out of a black truck and went up to (Hieroglyphics -producer) Domino told him to "get the fuck on the ground!". Domino looked at him like, "what!?" and the guy shot him in the face. The bullet just missed Domino, but he had gunpowder burning his eyes, so he thought he was a dead man. The Souls thought so too:  this dude was trying to kill off all the Souls Of Mischief!

Read the rest of this interview HERE!

Interview with Elephant Stone

ELEPHANT STONE: PASSING THROUGH THE INTERMEDIATE STATE

"These days, there’s less of that ‘oh, here’s the part where he breaks out the sitar!’" - Rishi Dhir

Words by Jasper Willems
Photo by Remco Brinkhuis

Rishi Dhir’s a cool cat, just not in that conspicuous, braggadocio rockstar sort of way. Naw, Dhir is more the Matt Hooper-archetype, that goofy science maverick who wears a profound love for the job on his sleeve. As opposed to dropping into a shark cage, though, Dhir drops the sitar for the likes of Brian Jonestown Massacre, The Horrors, Allah-Las and The Black Angels.

Oh, right, he also happens to front his own dynamite outfit since 2009: Montreal-based psych rockers Elephant Stone. With third album The Three Poisonsdue for release next week, Rishi sat down with us within the confines of the placid press area at this year’s Best Kept Secret festival to discuss what may be the band’s most ambitious LP yet.

So…the show went down well?
It was fun! It’s the last show of the tour. How many people, two thousand? I don’t know exactly how many people showed up , but it was packed! It was like four thousand capacity. Basically if you would pile up all the crowds of our previous shows this tour, it would basically be as big as this show.

So you’re basically saying Best Kept Secret was the biggest Elephant Stone show yet?
I think so… *suddenly has dumbstruck expression on face* Yeah, totally! That’s the biggest show we’ve ever played! In cities like London or Paris we’ve been playing for a hundred, maybe a hundred and fifty people. *laughs*

Have you guys figured out the new songs by now? The material on The Three Poisons seems tricky to translate to a live stage.
We’re still figuring those out. We started the tour by playing a lot of new songs. And then we realized that the mood of these songs were different from the last record. So we kept moving songs around. By the end of it, we realized people actually know our last record, so they want to hear that record. People knew the lyrics and they were singing them along! So when we play the new songs, it doesn’t get as much reaction out of them. So we played about two new songs each night. We’re playing our single “Three Poisons” and “Echo & The Machine”.

I recall you mentioning one particular show where you played The Three Poisons in its entirety.
Yeah, that was pretty much a week after we finished the record. We played Austin Psych Fest and my publicist wanted me to play the whole record. So we learned everything within a week. And it was really stressful! But the crowd appreciated it. I hope people thought it was a bold move to just play the new material. I think people liked it, it was an interesting challenge.

I could imagine you engaging different entry points while constructing these tunes, less of a traditional songwriting MO for one. Can you tell a bit more on how The Three Poisons deviates from your previous LP’s?
We’ve been touring for a year and a half, almost two years together with this formation of the band. Gab (guitarist Jean-Gabriel Lambert) and I recorded our last (self-titled) record with two other guys. With The Three Poisons, the four of us went in already knowing what our respective strengths were. We’ve been developing the sound a lot live, so as we went to the studio we just really took our time with it. Actually, we mostly worked on a song-by-song basis. Also, we didn’t have our current drummer Miles (Dupire) on our previous record, which was more straight up rock.  With him playing our music has definitely become more groovy. He’s really taken the band to the next level. So much in fact, that as we were mixing the record we made drums more present. These songs are a lot dancier now. Touring a lot makes you realize that people like to dance. Girls like to dance. (Meanwhile Gab, sitting next to Rishi, muses on why Elephant Stone doesn’t just do “what girls like!”)


You can read the rest here!