For those living in S.F. who cringe at the thought of trying to make the last BART at midnight, here is a night when Oakland comes to you. On Tuesday, February 21, the Elbo Room features an "evening of avant-garde industrial, space synth, and minimalistic cold wave" among other "delights" featuring V.E.X., Night Work, Stacian, and The Creatrix, with DJ sets by Nihar Bhatt (Left Hand Path/Surface Tension) and Demian Glas (Milwaukee).
V.E.X is a meritage blend of no-wave, queercore, and slime punk (you may have heard of their previous, more rock-focused band Moira Scar). Roxy Monoxide and LuLu GammaRay play dual synths, both do vocals, and they sometimes even add sax for an improv jazz element. They came out with two albums last year, Codex Hex ( Cool World/ Fantasy 1 Records) and Insectsex (the latter on Oakland's own Ratskin Records), and are currently working on new material. Lyrically focused on pro-community, anti-fascist, and anti-racist messages, they take another step in removing any ego-driven barriers by performing in bizarre and bejeweled masks made by LuLu. V.E.X. will steal your little mutant heart.
Night Work is an experimental industrial pair formed by Henry Larsen (vocals) and Jamile Jackson (drum machine/noise). In their live show, they might make you feel uncomfortable at times, but that's the point. Slamming drum machine work, jarring beats, and vocals that blend screaming and spoken monologues create a performance that is captivating and unnerving — think of splicing Swans' Filth with a Boyd Rice album. "Night Work is a reaction to the evils of our society," explains Henry Larsen. "It is a survival mechanism for our spirit amongst the cancer of capitalism." You won't want to look away.
With two analog keyboards, a sequencer, and a drum machine, Milwaukee-born solo act Stacian fuses minimal/cold wave sounds with darkwave female vocals spiked with nostalgic moments of '90s techno. Inspired by Kraftwerk and Doris Norton, what you get is moody, haunting club bangers to sway and dance to. Also make sure to check out her most recent album, the ambient collection Drones for Everyday Use. Swoon!
More approachable in delivery, The Creatrix is all electronic melodies and cosmic-wave/techno meditations, sonically plush yet cool in tone, and erring on the side of hypnotically upbeat grooves. No vocals here, but who needs that when you're going down the rabbit hole of rave cave soundscapes? "Breach in the Hulll"is a fine example of this mind/body journey.
You are in a club — in an altered state of consciousness. Suddenly, a recognizable dance single penetrates the blur and haze. Colors vibrate as vintage synthesizers pulse. Overtaken by movement, for seven minutes you are lost. The song is from 1989 — a subversive cry against Thatcher’s England — and while you’re listening to “Blacklist,” you may not necessarily know that that is The Legendary Pink Dots, depending on which of their many albums you have been introduced to.
Their name is derived from the pink dots on one of the band’s keyboards and their stylistic range is beyond broad. Starting out in 1980, their albums experiment with everything from demented English acoustic guitar storytelling and gothy neo-psychedelia to abrasive industrial montages and avant-garde museum-core, with their early output tinged in post-punk essence. Sometimes this variance in genre can happen all on one album. The latest addition to their 40-record-plus discography, The Pages of Aquarius, was released earlier this year on Metropolis Records and induces more hypnotic and bizarre states of consciousness.
As you can see, the muse of singer, chief lyric writer, and keyboardist Edward Ka-Spel is never exhausted. In addition to LPD, he recently completed an album with Amanda Palmer, and in the past he has also collaborated with cEvin Key from Skinny Puppy (for their mid-’90s side project The Tear Garden) and many others.
Edward Ka-Spel at the LPD show 10/15/16 at Thee Parkside (SF). Photo courtesy Todd Billeci
We interviewed Edward as he traveled through an unknown California desert during the western portion of the Legendary Pink Dots’ U.S. tour.
So you’re touring for your new album. What’s going on with that and how did The Pages of Aquarius come about?
The album we just put out, The Pages of Aquarius, actually began about two years ago, when we started working on it. It was a whole process. That’s actually how long it took for us to finally decide earlier this year that it is finally there. Some songs are re-recorded. This is not one of those [projects] where we were extremely perfectionist about it dotting all the i’s and making sure it’s totally right. What do we get right after 35 years???! [Laughs.] But the theme is change, transformation. It’s starting in one place, a very earthly place, someone looking in the mirror and not liking what he sees and in the end basically ascending to nirvana. It’s very loosely combined but makes sense as a whole.
"Mirror Mirror" from The Pages of Aquarius
I understand the perfectionism side to creating your projects, but has this method (of not dotting all the i’s) been a new route for you?
I can’t hardly explain why it felt so important to us to go this way. I think we were all pretty excited about the advance in technology, the palette of sound that we can have access to. We can access difference shades that we never had at our disposal. Its kind of like going in to an ice cream shop and you want to taste it all. That’s basically what it felt like. We felt like we wanted to give it all because we felt like we never had such a choice. What is important to me, as the Pink Dots evolves, since we have been around for as long as we have, we never could stand to put out something that was merely “O.K.” — it would have to go a step further than the one before and of course the one before that would be our ultimate goal. You're always aiming higher. You always have to be that star that is just out of range.
I heard that you did move from the U.K. because of all the political ugliness. I heard you live in Holland now? Society does look pretty ugly right now.
Yes! It does look ugly. No, I moved back to the U.K. in 2011. I’m sad to say that the U.K. is in an uglier state than the U.S. right now. At least the monster that you have in the U.S. has to go at some point, but the monster that we have here we’re stuck with! It’s a very xenophobic, very harsh society and it’s promoted by the government. They’re borderline Nazis. [This] world is changing drastically, on an incredible level at an incredible rate. If you look at the big picture, it’s not in a good way, either. But I’m also an optimist at heart, though. I believe the world is still beautiful and it will always be beautiful — at least until I depart the planet, which hopefully won’t be too soon.
OK, so you're back in the U.K. for now. However, you have been touring extensively forever. Do you ever get a break from that?
To be honest, it has slowed down in the recent years. For example, last year we only did a handful of European shows. Not so much, maybe twenty or something. It’s a choice. We wanted to step back and do some actual recording. There’s a lot of projects going on.
You have created a vast library of sounds with LPD: psych-rock, acoustic, minimal electronic, darkwave dance. Is this all based on your moods? Feelings of the day? Year?
Well, that’s the Pink Dot world. It is all of those things you just mentioned. and it’s a very tasty cocktail that just might blow your mind. I think it’s about presenting all the shades and all the moods you might have. It’s about looking deep into yourself to see just how much there is there. It’s not so much the mind as it is the soul. There’s a lot of humor in there, a lot of sadness in there, and a lot of joy. I suppose it’s all nuances, all shades and all the questions. It’s always about questioning. It’s always about exploring in one’s self.
More Edward at the LPD show 10/15/16 at Thee Parkside (SF). Photo courtesy Todd Billeci
You cater to the dimensions of the spirit. That’s probably why you’re so prolific — because you have that range of emotion.
For instance, this set that we’re playing right now is probably the most confrontational set we have ever played. It’s quite extreme. Basically we start off with getting people in a nice mood and then we [chuckles] go off in a very interesting direction. But we have been getting good reactions! It seems to have been getting people talking.
How is the U.S. portion of the tour going for you?
I would say it’s been the best part of the tour of the year, really. More people are showing up, they're enjoying it, they're taking it well. A lot of good feedback. The plan for the rest of the tour is to finish up the U.S. and then I’m going back to the U.K. and the rest of the guys are going back to Holland. I’ll take a rest for a little while. I still need to have time with my wife and my little girl. We have a few European Dots shows, then doing a few shows with Amanda Palmer. We will probably play in San Francisco for that show next year. It’s probably the most exciting place for us to play on the whole American tour besides Portland!
For more info on The Legendary Pink Dots you can go here to their official website for the latest updates. Here's their Facebook page too!
Photo Courtesy Todd Billeci LPD 10/15/16 at Thee Parkside
A big thanks to Todd Billeci of Noise Art for his revisions and photo contributions as well as John Graham for his editing skills.
Genres, genres, genres. Sub-culture. Sub-divisions. Sub-groups. Whether it's the "drone metal" of a Sunn O))) album or the monistic, "neo folk" vibe of Current 93 sometimes they get blanketed under one term. Sometimes this one term is plainly just experimental. If you go to the experimental section of a record store you know for damn sure you are going to be taking a gamble and either finding that one glorious Nurse with Wound album or your going to be taking your chances on a band from Western Europe for a 25$ CD released by World Serpent that you HEARD was good through the grapevine from your friend who has good taste and loves Death in June. You take it home and take it out of its shrink wrap and wait with baited breath as to what could possibly happen next. Then you find out that its a a two song album consisting of a long intro of some creaky door way and some bad samples and someone in the next room scrubbing a pot in the sink-- and its dull (but it could have been really good if you did it the right way). So now you want to turn right back to the record store and sell it back. They will give you 8$ gladly because they recognize this band from the friend they trust who likes Der Blutarsch and set it back on the shelves for 25$. Thus the cycle continues. BUT there are some albums out there that could be considered experimental under the blanket term- yet I think they need to be distinguished against the dregs. These are the albums that you keep, yet you dont always listen to all the time. They are bizarre by many means. It is not the album you throw on just to go to Trader Joe's during rush hour traffic. This is an album you revisit and relish for the day or the week. This is not your daily album. This album is a MuseumCore album. An album, an aura, a sound that you don't visit too often but when you do it is inspiring and reinvigorates you. It's like going to a gallery in a museum.
Going to a museum is often an invigorating experience, mentally and emotionally. Despite it's contents, whether it be death or life, darkness and light. You reel from your experience hours, days or years after- yet it is something you don't do every day and if you should it would lose its merit and it's transformative power.
A MuseumCore album is an album that will hypnotize you for a week, and then you put it back on the shelf until the next time you decide to visit. You do not even think about selling this album back to your record store because you know some day, some year you will reopen it's doors to it's artistry.
Some albums I have found to be in this experience that of MuseumCore is
Educate your experimentally minded friends with your Museumcore findings. They will thank you for it. Remember they are gamblin' men and ladies and they're ready for most.
What are your favorite Museumcore albums? Would you ever go to a museum and want to listen to Museumcore tunes as you walk through the gallery? I would! Let's make it happen.
