Review: Dirty Beaches in the Maze

If you start queuing for something half an hour before the doors open and you know more than half of the people who have turned up will have to go home empty-handed again, would that not make you truly appreciate the event? Well, as it turns out that was not what visitors at yesterday's Maze festival event had in mind.

Alex Zhang Hungtai, aka Dirty Beaches, is what I would call a genius. I might be going out on a limb here but to me, what he creates musically and artistically, is simply a cut above the rest. His sound structures, layered and fuzzed out, with his moody effect vocals may not be new but nobody does that like him. He seems immune to the influence of others and creates his own musical world that appeals to your usual electro-psychedlic crowd as much as fans of experimental noise and ambient alike. The prospect of experiencing West Germany transformed into a labyrinth and the wonderful music of Dirty Beaches together sounded like absolute heaven to me.

So what is the Maze? In a nutshell, it's a cultural event and a sociological experiment in one. The rooms of West Germany have been kitted out with wooden frames that in turn have been transformed into "walls" with the help of colourful string. You can walk through some of them, others will appear as barriers and will make you take alternative routes, like in a maze. Additionally, pieces of art are strewn throughout the labyrinth. The idea is that people have to think more about where they position themselves in the room and that there is an element of surprise thrown into the evening. For example, apparently there is a secret "door" in one of the "walls" but I don't think anyone found this out last night. And you don't really know where or how the band is going to play until the actual performance starts. It is curious but can be daunting at times, too. Nobody is keen on going to the back of the maze in case they get stuck there for the rest of the evening.

Update: You Are Here AKA The Maze festival

Because the organisers of the Maze festival at West Germany are the coolest people, we have been able to get a quick update from them on how the first days of the two-week-event have been going. It is such an exciting project, which we wholeheartedly support, so go on over and have a look. Here is what organiser Grinni had to say on the initial days:

"First days of the MAZE were as diverse at it can get! People self-directing their way through a labyrinth of woven strings and sonic experiments:

From the clash of the opening with Diamond Terrifier's meditative otherworldly saxophone performance to the fragile and intense dream-pop of Sean Nicholas Savage to Gandoola oond Krapoola's Sickotheke aka crawling on the floor with turntables. Sunday continued with a spiritual cleansing and enlightening performance by Jimmy Trash & Professor Mugglestone, where audience -one-by-one - going thru stages yet intimate, disgusting, confusing, teaching and comforting, set to encounter a purified self. On to Jim Avignon's Monday of weird electronic anti folk. Tuesday ending the first part of the MAZE with a challenging night of instrumental solo and group performances by Axel Dörner, Olaf Rupp, Jan Roder, Oli Steidle, Carlos Giuffoni." 

We are so privileged to have this happening in our town. Yeah! 

BTW, also check out the little preview that Noisey ran last week. It will give a brief overview of the idea behind the festival.

 

It's finally here aka The Maze

You Are Here aka The Maze, the two week art and music festival taking place at West Germany is finally starting and opening this Saturday! In cooperation with the artist duo Trouble, who made The Maze first happen in New York, some lovely Berlin people are hosting a pretty interesting program of bands, musicians, performances and artists in a self-built maze.

Now this Saturday, Diamond Terrifier and Sean Nicholas Savage will open the Maze along with a lecture performance from Itty Minchesta of the AtomicTitCorporation. Diamond Terrifier is Sam Hillmer and basically half of Trouble. You may have seen him playing with his band Z's at West Germany (our review here).

On Sunday, the second day of the maze, there will be a performance called Hermetistasis presented by Professor Mugglestone and Jimmy Trash. You can find some more info on this facebook event page.

Here's the full schedule of the Maze and you can find more background information on the festival itself here.

Support the Maze

We already mentioned the You Are Here aka the Maze festival here a couple of times. It's going to be a two week long festival taking place at West Germany from Sept 15th until Sept 29th. The program is gradually getting completed and it already looks pretty neat!

Now the Maze still needs some help and you can play an important part in that by supporting them on their Vision Bakery crowd funding site. You can find the Vision Bakery site here and you'll find more detailed info on the Maze on their tumblr blog, where you can also find a tentative preview of the full Maze program.

Please help them out if you can, this is going to be an awesome project that deserves to be supported!