Gig review: Ghone, Aidan Baker, Nadja

Alright, this is a review of a gig to which I was seriously looking forward to in quite a long time. Usually when my brain has that much time to ponder about an upcoming show, I kinda get myself in an over-hyped mood and my expectations are set really high. What happened a few nights ago managed to blow those expectations to oblivion and amaze me beyond words. This was magnificent.

The event happened last Sunday, more precisely 13 November 2011, yet again in "CK13", Novi Sad. Shows just keep popping up in that town that it seriously makes me consider moving over there, if anything to save money I would usually spend to travel to the city. But going back to reality, after some geek action on a "Werewolf: The Apocalypse" session on Sunday, I set off on the trip around 6 PM, catching the train which was surprisingly not late. To my sadness I was travelling alone, so the time during the ride was spent reading some anarchist material I managed to amass, drinking tea and finally arriving to the station somewhere around 8 PM. The gig was supposed to start in one hour from then, so I took a longish slower walk through the city to reach the venue, though the bone piercing wind outside wasn't that pleasant and it actually made me more tired than the walk itself. Arrived, bought ticket, stood in the corner because I was the only person attending alone and probably looking weird, found a neat place near the very stage and somewhere around 9:30 PM the gig began.

"Ghone", a one man project from Greece was the first to create music that night. All his equipment (and that of "Nadja") was set on a little table on the stage, everything being illuminated by one single small lamp, the rest of the lights above the performer being shut off. The audience was slowly getting quiet and "Ghone" cut through the silence with sharp tribal like drumming, with slow and eerie pauses between the beats. The melody was slowly building up and completely entrancing, the sound further expanded with guitar playing. No, not with a pick or with fingers, but with a drum stick. The entire scene where you see "Ghone" enveloped in darkness and using the guitar almost as a violin, creating the most horrific and weird sound was amazing. That entire part of his set was ultimately chilling and grim, tension constantly building up and the sound getting bigger and bigger. What was truly excellent was the progression of the performance, since that eerie tone was slowly transformed into a mellow, gentle and soothing post rock-like melody. It was unbelievably relaxing after all those weird tunes and "Ghone" took his time to set the audience once again at ease. Yet it was a trap, since after all the beauty we were faced with came the darkness once again and we were smashed with some aggressive sections which served as a crescendo moment to end his performance.

After a small pause and a change of light, Aidan Baker got up on stage, taking his guitar and succeeding in taking the crowd for an extremely interesting ride. Repeatedly striking the strings with his palm, Baker created a soundscape which is really hard to describe, but astounding to behold. Watching and listening as he slowly weaved a complex sound construction with constant changes on the pedal knobs and different ways of stroking the strings, managed to make me imagine scenes from the book "Neuromancer". As if flying through the Sprawl, the mood invoked was, personally for me, somewhere between grim and seemingly hopeful. Like I wrote above, extremely hard to describe, but equally mind twisting at the same time. When the crowd was almost completely enveloped in the sound, Leah Buckareff slowly got on stage. She took the bass and masterfully adapted and melded with the ongoing melody created by Baker and thus "Nadja" was formed.

Up until this point, my enjoyment and general entrancement was at its peak constantly, but from the moment Leah joined the stage, the borders of my perception and amazement were penetrated and definitely acquired new heights. What managed to stun me beyond words was the overall perfect combination of both the audio and visual elements, their entire performance like a theater play rather than a regular concert. The sound was indescribable. As the flight through the Sprawl took an unexpected turn, the audience became faced with an enormous cage of sound, nowhere left to run away from it. The vastness and the gigantic proportions of the tones were constantly increasing, literally as if dozens of atomic bombs were detonated around the venue and a work of art being created around you at the same time. While I was standing there in the front row, everything was shaking, my whole body feeling the sound crawling over me at one point, chest pounding and at the peak of everything my left ear felt a short, slashing pain. Meanwhile, the video performance was astounding. Amid the total chaos of distortion and noise, Leah and Aidan were calm, slow moving and gentle, everything crashing around us yet they remained ultimately serene. Their hands were moving above the pedals on the table and masterfully crafting the sound around us, looking like they were slowly picking fruit rather than creating the explosions attacking the crowd. I have been into drone for some time now and seeing such sound being created live was extremely inspiring. The amount of audio manipulation, the overall skill performed by the musicians and various tricks displayed seemed just unbelievably entertaining and once again, purely inspiring. After their performance, there was so much ovation and cheer from the audience, the venue being full by the way, that both Aidan and Leah went off stage with smiles on their faces.

Reading what I wrote in this review, I can't help but realize how short it is, yet being quite descriptive at the same time. It is simply a result of me experiencing this show as something truly artistic and like nothing I saw before. Thus the review itself is a closer expression of the thoughts brooding in my head, more personal than it is usually the case and far less technical. It was an amazing gig and definitely one that deserves to be in my top 3, simply because everything was perfect. "This is beautiful. This is art."