A little Show/Album Review - Stacian "Person L" release party! with Lohza, Gel Set and Dimentia!

     Despite being so burned out that day, I am so glad I went to this show.  The three opening solo female fronted acts caught my attention for the night. It was Stacian’s night to shine with her release “Person L” full length E.P. with support from solo femme acts Lohza and Gel Set. Headlining the night was Dimentia from the hard-wired music collective, Katabatik. 

Lohza, Gel Set and Stacian 10-7-17 Eli's

  Lohza opened the evening in front of the keys delivering uncontrived yet engaging soundscapes enchantingly lit by a modest candelabra. A slower tempo, minimal singing and  less beat focused, it was entrancing without putting you to sleep. I was imagining putting this album on once I got home that night to wind down after all the dancing I was about to do. Upon getting her digital format only EP- I was happy to find it was the perfect music to do so that night, early morning, my room gently lit with candles amongst my new potted plants. “Night Bay” is well suited for your “good night mornings (1)", “Topic Hole” meditates with more earth tones, and “1987” is a perfect backdrop for an early 80’s melodrama (yeah, I was thinking Twin Peaks). Find a punk- ask them for her email, buy the digital EP.

Gel Set (LA)…. I just kept thinking of the words “lucite” and thinking of clothing made of shiny vinyl and jelly sandals. I just had to see it.  Turning towards more of the  electronic -beat side element of the evening, she brought brave innocence with miminal wave and moody moments that suggested  down tempo dancing and swoon swaying. Although at times her live set I felt could be a little more polished (maybe technical difficulties? Hell, it is Eli’s) I was determined to get her LP as well. 

I was immediately invited in to “Don’t you miss Me” with the un-fussed yet bouncing digital sounds of early Depeche Mode- A Broken Frame era and continued to be wooed by the smokey sadness of "Sexual Numerals" and taken in by the clean pops of "Bounce".  

Stacian always brings the bodies out to dance in every live performance I've seen of her. "Don't worry, I'll wake them up" I remember her saying at one drowsy party, before her set. Her sound is an edgy, techno noir-wave trance and she sings with a sensual aggression channeled through a dark wave filter.   Her record label, "Night School” describes her as “(Stacian) is Person L, is Oakland resident, solo artist and academic Dania Luck. Beginning in the American Mid West, Stacian has been an ongoing Bay Area concern since 2008, deeply involved in the minimal wave and underground electronic music scene. A dystopian vision of alienated humanity, broken communications and technoid mal-forms, Person L is her most fully developed full length and a leap forward from 2012’s Songs For Cadets. Moving away from the primitive Cold Wave of previous work, Person L manages to create a bleak dystopia without relying on Ballardian cliche, though still invoking concrete prisons and urban disassociation. Person L is a throbbing, murky underworld that revels in imperfections, a submersive, digital swamp bleeding through the club.”

 First side of her LP allures you with lo-fi, dark-side vocals and Subtonix-y feels on the keys. The second side brings you to the steely and hypnotic mode of post -apocalyptic dance electro via two analog synths, sequencer and drum machine. Side two is less vocal and pulls you right in with the  provocative first song “Dirgent” and to the perfect last song “Gnomon” with its’ keenly chosen samples.   I got lost in it and that's what I wanted it to do. Good late night music. Good fucking anytime music. 

Dimentia brought his knob-laden,  Katabatik-ness to the mix, which I love myself some Katabatik. He opened for Front 242 the week prior! His technical intensity is on point. However,  the ladies stole the show. 

Thank you all for your passion! Make sure you check out all these acts! 

(1) "good night mornings" is a thing my friend Richard Toomer (SF/NYC comedian and philosopher) likes to say. I can't take credit for it, but I know those days where you stay up all night to the morning and there is the perfect song for that specific moment. <3

Give the Noise a Beat! Machina #2 is here!

   Devyn Saturnus of Esomoprhic records rematerializes this friday 6/16 with his curated  Machina night “a multi-sensory night of esotronic//dungeon acid//industrial tech//modular synth and evilutionary visuals”.  This is the second one that he has curated and involves musicians from his own label as well as musicians from the bay-area based electronic collectives Katabatik and 5lowershop. Devyn tells us about the featured artists, his musings on our Oakland scene and remembering Obscura Machina. Listen to this teaser track while you read!

********* In this interview the events of Dec. 2 2016 that took place in Oakland are mentioned. I am still very sensitive to this subject and wanted to let you know what to expect  before reading*******

So Machina #2 is underway! Tell me more about musicalfungus as he is on your label Esomorphic records.  

I met Chris (musicalfungus) in passing at “that one thing in the desert”, many a past life ago. At the time, all I really knew of him was his affiliations with certain crews in the west coast bass culture. Essentially I found through social media he started collecting and building modular synths, which always piques my interest, and its been fun watching him explore these machines, getting to a point where he was ready to explore this in an album. I forget the initial communication we made (the sea of faces on social media can do that..) but he shot me what is now DEMON CORE. Instantly I fell in love, threw it up on Esomorphic Records and booked him a show. You can also consider this Machina as MFungus’ cassette debut show. Be sure to pick it up! He’s from Santa Cruz, so catch him while he’s in town!  I’m confident his modular magickal conjurings will be quite the treat, improvised through real circuits and currents, experienced and released into the aether, audio spore frequencies settling into the fertile dirt of our senses .

You've also got some guys from 5lowershop and Katabatik that night as well.

Yes, not to be missed is Hakuin, the pseudonym from Justin Rafferty from 5lowershop who will be starting the night off with his signature brand of psychedelic hardcore IDM, an alchemy of styles and aesthetics revealing machine whispers and warnings from beyond.. He is an absolute genius and I’m very excited to see what he has in store for us. 

Hakuin

And if this doesn’t already sound like the show of the summer, we have Scarford. It felt like a long shot asking a Veteran from Katabatik to perform at this very new event, but the timing was apparently perfect for Scott Arford to deliver unto us a new beast, Scarford. Recently released is an EP under the newly formed Katabatik record label. "Who You Are" is a funky, dark, and fresh approach to EBM and industrial. He's definitely standing out from a style that is easy to rely on "what has been done". It's obvious that Scarford is a beast that only Scott can tame with hard beats, stabbing bass lines in a sinister mid tempo range that personally grips my rib cage and shakes me....I can't wait to hear it on the system at The Night Light and if anyone had an second thoughts on attending Machina the chance to see this new entity should change your mind.

Scarford

I love the "dark disco" notes that Scarford is doing, plus I haven't seen any 5lowershop sets in awhile so this should be pretty interesting. 

Yes, quite the variety show. ((((((******TRIGGER WARNING********)))))) It goes without saying that our rather tight-knit community took a blow half a year ago and i’m doing my best to fill in the void we now face from the comrades we lost. Im extremely inspired by my band mate and good friend Micah Danemeyer. He pretty much paved the way as I worked with him under his label Discarded and as a semi-regular performer at his monthly Obscura Machina shows, where, in case you were wondering, is a direct nod and tribute to his energy before us, not stealing, but reminding us who brought our “scenes” together under his mutant vision.  My intention is to continue the platform for all of us weirdos to get our stuff out there and have it be heard, guided as a new label and collective entity. The unofficial “theme” of Esomorphic is “””bringing the underground... above ground”””, considering our DIY spaces are all at risk right now. Our options from my observations are very small house shows or trying to convince venues that people will actually come to these shows to subject themselves to such challenging outsider electronics. I have to thank Jason Kick over at The Night Light for his continued support and understanding and for giving us weekend dates. I knew that Micah had been booking and promoting shows for years and it took him so long for him to finally break even. I have to thank him for his tireless effort doing the good work for all of us, a gift that we should never take for granted. He set the stage for us to pick it up and to keep the legacy and tradition alive.

That was everything I would have wanted to have said about this situation, and you worded it so eloquently. It's still hard for me to write the right words about all that has happened. I'm so happy that this is still going on. It really carries an essence of him. 

   Everything everywhere is different now as far as what our culture is like. There is a time before the event in question and there is the time afterwards. Everything was different before and now its different after it. We have to somehow find it in ourselves to manage the harsh realities that we have before us and try to make the best of the situation.

Red Cellar

I think that is all we can do at this point. 

We got a lot of very mixed attention to the event that happened a year ago. So many media outlets from corporate media to small personal blogs. To some it was a tragedy and to some it was a bunch of stupid ravers that got what was coming to them. Although I can spend time just feeling absolutely SICK about that I want to transmute that energy and push it further into the mainstream attention and show them we aren’t just a bunch of stupid raver kids. We are doing something unique and special and we have the ability to transform culture. Such as Wax Trax! ...Some of the artists on there looked like a bunch of rag tag junkie criminals and you wouldn't think they would create a whole subculture and make an impact world wide. If you did, you probably would have been laughed at. But now you have Ministry, My Life with the Thrill Kill Kult, KMFDM all these bands which have defied all mainstream logic and have gotten to tour world wide and ultimately transformed peoples’ lives. I think that the culture that we have here in Oakland has the ability to achieve similar things. I’m going to try my best to make that a reality and I invite anyone to join me on this potentially crazy ride. Make some thing real and impacting happen,together, and see where it takes us. 

You've got the drive and the spirit. So this is your first self promoted show as Red Cellar. Are you still doing Regretamine?

Yes, I have a pattern of splintering projects. Regretamine started off as an outlet for underground hard acid techno, ultimately dance music. Something I had never tried to do. But after moving to Oakland and going to Katabatik parties I realized how much of an impact electronic music can have and of course putting you down dark spin on it to reflect the very strange times we live in- yes, even techno can be social commentary!

There’s definitely a place for it!

Red Cellar happened was a collaboration with Micah. So then I had two outsider “dance” music projects going- of course the term “dance” music is used very loosely here hahah! Give the noise a damn beat basically! So I got inspired to do electronic music songwriting with more tradtional song structures. At this point I’m working on a full length album for Regretamine, which is me doing synth and keyboard and vocals. That’s being cooked up in my Regretamine lab! 12-13 tracks in progress but I'm going to keep it a secret until I can unleash it. I also have the noise outlet Neural Eunuch in the Esomorphic catalog. That’s a much looser project with the intention of having revolving artists- whoever wants to come in and make some noise. I have hours and hours of music to sift through. I probably have enough for four or five EP’s right now but of course I have other things that are more pressing with deadlines.

How Does Red Cellar compare to Regretamine? 

Red Cellar's mutant vibe is undoubtedly the mark of Micah’s work. It’s less improvised than it used to be with the two of us jamming out, but my approach is to collect an arsenal of sound to appease whatever spirits I happen to conjure during the live performance ritual. The circle will be cast beyond the cellar door and I invite you all for these incantations and ecstatic dances that follow.......

The Original Red Cellar Line up- Devyn Saturnus and Micah Danemeyer

Transport yourself over to Machina this Friday 6/16 !!!!
The Night Light at 311 Broadway St. in Oakland

Dj Sailor Saturn will be spinning in between sets too!

Visuals by Sinest