23.2.2009: Next Life (NO), Kombucha (CZ), Upejr (CZ), Yarrdesh (CZ) v Chapeau Rouge
Norská potřeštěná dvojice Next Life nemá daleko k tamějším poděsům KILLL (projekt lidí ze Single Unit, Jaga Jazzist a JR Ewing). Ti sice ještě nic nenahráli (krom podloudně šířených záznamů ze zkušebny), zato pravidelně ničí publikum svými epileptickými sonickými i vizuálními záchvaty, které nazývají koncerty. Obě kapely spolu ostatně pravidelně hrávají.
Next Life nejsou natolik rozfragmentovanou sekanicí digitalizovaného metalu, ale jejich mix 8bitové elektroniky, nostalgických motivů jak vystřižených z dávných počítačových her a krátkých úderných metal/hc riffů je KILLL poměrně blízko. Co je nejzvláštnější, tahle bizarní míchanice navíc výborně funguje, nejde jen o samoúčelný bláznivý experiment.
Next Life sami se odvolávají na Earth Crisis, Assück, staré Napalm Death nebo Man Is The
Vstup 190,- při rezervaci na mailu tickets[at]letmo[dot]net. 240,- na místě.
Večer otevře Upejr, který loni vyhnal polovinu sálu Archy jako předskokan Zu s Mikem Pattonem. Ta zbývající polovina si to ovšem řádně užila. Čekejte soundscapes na pomezí minimal industrialu se silnou glitch estetikou třeba ve stylu posledních nahrávek projektu Inanna Mikaela Stavöstranda (mj. Vita, Mitek label, ex-Archon Satani) a elektroakustické hudby.
Následně vás u srdce zahřeje parta prima kluků se svou legrační kapelou Kombucha. K tanci a poslechu bude znít vyschízovaný výškrab deathu, grindu, hc a alternativy z psychiatrické léčebny.
Poté Next Life a konečný klystýr pro vaše ouška zajistí Yarrdesh svou breakcorovou masáží.
http://vids.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=vids.individual&VideoID=8614737
Z tisku:
„This record leaves you with your mouth open so don't forget to close it again.“ (Cuemix Magazine)
„After the Duo's breathtaking full length album debut, the appropriately named "Electric Violence" on Berlin's Cockrockdisco outfit (2006) their long expected follow-up "The Lost Age" will be in the stores on November 24 via the notorious Oslo-based Fysisk Format label; "The Lost Age" is a small history come full circle, as the releasing imprint is run by the legendary record-shop Tiger, in which Next Life founder Hai Nguyen Dinh spent most of his savings as a kid.
While Next Life's unique mixture of aggressive metal riffs and the virtual worlds of old school game consoles could be easily ending up as a sheer exercise in male geekness, their almost theatrical live presentations featuring intense video projections and flickering light effects completely deny that, providing an abstract, almost artsy meta level to ultra brutal onslaught of musical mayhem. These 20 minutes of pure energy will change your life, promised!
Recently Next Life's restless live gigs around Norway gained them quite a bit of international press attention, highlighted by two bigger features on French / German "Arte" TV station: http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x4ku0w_title0103_3d „ (biography)
"Next Life's show is a complete experience in the logics of seasickness: sickly colours, precise visuals, and this put to life through extremely precise, wild, innovative and hard-hitting music. It is as if a computer game has gone evil, taken elements from black metal and turned the volume up to way beyond maximum. I feel invaded, completely lost in the magic of this violence. No wonder people tend to throw up if they get too drunk before the band starts playing. Hard-hitting artwork will do that to you, even if it's disguised as a band..." (Jennie Hval)
„For fans of: Kraftwerk, Slayer, JS BACH
The seed to what would become Next Life was planted when songwriter Hai Nguyen Dinh as a six-year old played "Exploding Fist"on his Commondore64 and blew the speakers of the family TV. A few years later Hai met future Next Life keyboard-player Trond Jensen on a pre-internet computercamp, where young people challenged the force of primitive processors in the same way previous generations went kiting or cliff-diving. You can still hear this young love of transistor culture and digital storytelling in Next Life's sound, but today it is the evolutionary relationship between human and machines that is the main experiment.
The most striking element of Next Life is the inspiration from computer-composers like Paul Norman (Forbidden Forest) and Nobuo Uematsu (Final Fantasy), but the uniqueness of the band Life is in their combination of transistor-music and the music they grew up with: The militant straight-edge hardcore of Earth Crisis, the political death-metal of Napalm Death and Assück and the avant-garde hardcore of bands like Man is the Bastard and Infest. Next Life distill and pin these different elements into a musical experience that is dramatic and confrontational, but still has a neutral and universal appeal to it, not unlike the sadistic and grotesque computergames that makes families come togeher.
This ambiguousness has made Next Life popular as a live band in squats and all-ages venues, but also at state-subsidized art institutions and festivals. Next Life has a pureness and immediate appeal across cultural and social codes that links directly to the natural human nervoussystem. Your arms and legs are dancing the reproduction dance from before we became social beings, your mind just hasn't signed in yet.“ (Rough Trade)
„Being only twenty-four odd minutes long and comprised of sixteen short interludes and title-less tracks makes this record a difficult one to pick apart. The press release drops JS Bach somewhat pretentiously, or at least recommends this for “fans of” JS Bach (though I can’t really recall the last time I met a bona fide “fan”)*, but the classical, or classic feeling remains clear. Never has Norway witnessed a band so hellbent on pushing you between two worlds of the extreme, black shadowy roots of metal and the total crack-up of modernization via pure electronic mediation.
In that classical sense it certainly reads as a unified piece with progressive moments/movements rather than an experiment in cut-and-paste sampling. Whether or not the result is something like an epic journey through the castles of Dragon Quest, it is a sound that could be historically situated in Japan’s economic recession of the 90’s, upheavals in art and literature characterized by an influential eerie, apocalyptic, anonymous and apolitical quality– I’m thinking everything from noise-artist Merzbow, to writer Ryu Murakami, to director Takeshi Miike. It’s no wonder then, the record’s similarities to contemporary Japanese bands, the first time I saw Next Life’s Hai Nguyen Dinh perform at Spasibar it reminded me of a more serious version of the gameboy wizard DJ Scotch Egg, and the spastic/chaotic qualities of Melt Banana, as well as that sludgey, epic riffing we all love of Zeni Geva. And maybe that’s why the record sounds somehow current, like it’s something we all relate to- divine detachment in an over-sensory, technology-driven world.
The album kicks-off with a low-pounding plummet into their version of a lost age, which is hardly organic as it is industrial, quickly making its way through fantastical territory, fleeting moments of grandiose organ-like reprises over beats at Aphex Twin-speed and groovey rock moments akin to Amp Rep’s Hammerhead. Halfway through the record, and 3/4 the way again, we hear a krafty melodic keyboard interlude, like some reminder of the humane and naive… but each time follows a build-up of earnest, hard-hitting rock akin to Ministry, with an intense blast beat climax and head-nodding riffs. It almost seems possible to “begin” the record at any point, and loop it through until your original point of entry– so mechanical and crammed-packed the ebb and flow that you definitely feel you’re getting a whole lotta rosie for only twenty-four minutes.
And so rare a status Next Life have as originators of their own sound, that I would highly recommend grabbing this record at Tiger or from Fysisk Format before the next teenage simulacrum decides to repackage it as their own. ’Cos then you could do the whole “been there, done that” routine, and so on and so forth, right?“ 9.0/10 (Nö Music Media)
„Essentially, Electric Violence is like a game cartridge that needs to be blown into several times before playing.“ (XLR8R)
„Electric Violence is simply one of the best hybrids of electronic and hard metal music I’ve ever laid my hands on.“ (Gridface)
„Most of the tracks on their debut "Electric Violence" run between a mere 19 seconds blurb to a longish 5 minute odyssey. This is the real deal. Not unlike the hardest, heaviest metal shit you remember from your long-hair days from the 80's, these two just keep pounding their stuff out. There's no disrespect shown for the true art-form that was once [and still is] metal. They're doing it for the kids of today who hunger for the perfect moment to raise their fists in the air and rock-out! Question is, are you really ready for Next Life?“ (Gaz-Eta)
„If I should sum my review I'd say: "wow". Next Life are so original and gather a lot of what I like about different musical genres: tension, distortion, dissonant melodies, originality and rage … If the low bit sounds, bleeps and duet with the drum machine that nervously builds a web of upbeat tempos, the guitar cry out loud roaring while the processed vocals make me remember Naked City's Yamatsuka Eye but filtered and reduced to an angry toy. How would it be to be kicked in the balls by
