Gig review: Nadja, Elin Piel

For the hundredth time, I've entered a bit of a lull period with posting things. Life has been extremely difficult in the past few months and what little energy was left to spare was used on other things. Which is somewhat sad, since I've attended a few great concerts (Wolves In The Throne Room and Godspeed You! Black Emperor, to name a few) and simply didn't have the willpower to write about. C'est la vie! 

Tour poster taken from Nadja facebook page, found here

The concert took place yesterday evening, namely 23rd of May 2023, at a venue called Oceanen in Gothenburg, Sweden. Never been to this locale before, but I must say that the choice was superb for this kind of event. Getting to the back side of the building through a cafe garden leads you to tiny half glass, half wooden entry hall which takes you to the room with a bar and a small stage at the far end. Usually I find drone and noise concerts to be a bit extra demanding on the venue and its acoustics, since if the location is not up to the task it could be quite detrimental to the experience, even more so than compared to the regular strings/drums/vocals acts. Oceanen managed to pull its weight and proved to be an excellent host for the occasion, with truly great containment of sound and a miniscule addition of its own tones which actually contributed to the whole experience. 

Elin Piel was the first to take the stage, standing in front of a small table filled to the brim with synthesizer electronics. I was instantly hooked to the sound as the venue was slowly flooded by gentle tones quickly transforming into a harsh, pulsating wall of noise. The said harshness and crackling was brought to extremes, swallowing the crowd, but periodically broken by calming blips in a sea of noise. Just when you think that the sound is on its way to become even more aggressive and nigh unbearable, it slowly swings into a kind of relaxing and almost meditative binaural blip therapy. In my mind, the entire session was a sort of a clash between this truly heavy, industrial-like monstrosity being wrapped in an innocent, nature-infused gentleness. A big part of the whole experience was witnessing how Elin shapes the soundscape, a constant moving of hands which were manipulating buttons, knobs, plugging and unplugging and rearranging the cables, swinging between the two opposites of sound. 

This part of the evening was a complete surprise to me and truly wonderful at that. I'm excited that Elin actually lives in Gothenburg, so hopefully some time in the near future I'll be able to attend another show. Definite recommendation to anyone reading this to check out Elin's work, which can be done on bandcamp here. 

Nadja

Ah, Nadja. It actually took me several deep breaths and a few minutes of contemplation to actually come up with words that will open this following paragraph. Nadja is simply one of those projects which radiate a specific kind of energy and demand a certain type of respect from the listener. Personally, I am amazed and in utter awe of long running projects which never seem to slow down their pace and in fact become more and more brilliant over time. I get similar emotions about "Envy", who bring a tear to my eye when I consider their endurance and influence on the screamo genre as a whole, about which I wrote here. Or, in a different genre, when I think of "Thou", a band with so much passion infused with inexplicable quantities of hard work and dedication to their craft for almost 20 years straight. 

Simply put, Nadja is exactly like that in their field of music. They've been creating their soundscapes ever since 2003. and have never stopped to amaze with their process of two decades of metamorphosis. Pushing the boundaries with every release, year after year of experimentation and developing their craft, they've become more marvelous with each of their steps. Even if you are not familiar with the entirety of their career, simply knowing a small amount of their repertoire and history is bound to produce a certain kind of awe in you, if anything by the sheer volume of work put into their music. 

And frankly, that being said, reviewing their live performance is rather pointless and almost dull, in comparison to the actual experience one gets on their shows. There's just this special something that Aidan and Leah do with their sound that is so powerful and beautiful, but so maddeningly indescribable and fleeting. The second they went on stage, that aforementioned power was undeniably present and the sound which they unleashed instantly had that special Nadja ingredient. The sheer amount of deafening and nigh violent audio was overwhelming, but at the same time soothing and self-reflective, both quirks so unmistakably Nadja. 

I saw them perform once before and back then I remember the drum machine was not used extensively. Now however, it seemed like an integral part in the soundscape which they were weaving and it somehow gave them a little bit of steady ground, making them a step closer to resembling a metal band, and I use this term extremely lightly. Trust me when I say that there is absolutely nothing standard or conventional about Nadja's music, instead I am merely referring to the overall structure that the use of drums adds to their song structure. Their entire performance was fused into one huge maelstrom of sound with the drums as the only solid, unmoving part. Above that loomed Leah's bass which was this omnipresent force that absolutely dictated the mood and setting of a particular section. The way she manages to mutate the ambiance and somehow grasp the entirety of the band in order to control the boundaries of what is happening is astounding. And then, amidst all that chaos comes Aidan's guitar which fights all this turmoil and sends out shockwaves of strings played in a variety of ways, tempos, and rhythms. The vastness of sound constantly remained on the highest of levels, while the groove of its message fluctuated, forming islands of well structured segments in a sea of turmoil. As you are listening it feels like you can get lost or it can easily slip into being "too much", but a solid anchor of the whole performance is the accompanying video collage running over the band.

As briefly mentioned, I previously saw Nadja live way back in 2011 in Serbia, alongside Ghone*, and reading that gig review (which you can check out here) I can't help but notice how perfectly that blog entry and this new one align. The craftsmanship of Nadja absolutely evolved over time, undeniably so, but the brilliance and awe which they leave you with is all too intangible for a review and must be experienced first hand in order to understand what these words of mine are trying to describe. Even if this type of music is not your cup of tea, you need to give it a chance because it is bound to leave you speechless. Until next time... take care everyone. 

*remember Ghone? In 2019 I showcased his entire discography, which was also followed up by an interview.

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."