Review: Nisennenmondai and Clean & Jerk

After an exhausting day of taking care of stuff and having to repair my bike tire literally the last minute before heading to Urban Spree for the very first time, I was more than glad to have made it there against all odds. Nisennenmondai as well as Clean & Jerk were both fantastic!

Besides the fact of it being located somewhere on the RAW area, I didn't know anything about Urban Spree beforehands. On their website they proclaim to be an "independent contemporary art gallery"and to defend "an artistic grassroots approach, directed towards cities, street & graffiti artists, photographers and contemporary artists." That doesn't sound too bad in the first place and the venue also seemed nice at first sight. I arrived quite late but fortunately didn't miss anything, Clean & Jerk just started a couple of minutes after my arrival, so I made my way into the concert room on time together with a respectable amount of other people.

Since the front of the room was already quite packed, I just headed to the back and found a neat place on some high stairs with perfect view of the stage. Not only was the view pretty nice, I also instantly noticed the perfect sound, which contributed greatly to make this a worthwhile event. Clean & Jerk were announced as a new Berlin based project of an ex-Chrome Hoof member and I have to say they were more than a worthy support for Nisennenmondai. Their music wasn't completely different to Nisennenmondai's, both three piece bands played instrumental and highly rhythmic music with influences from Krautrock and Electronica. But still they had a very distinguished way of combining these influences to form something interesting and appealing. They're music was mainly relying on a dry and deep bass and tight drumming, completed by a percussionist who threw in some tribal rhythms, cowbells as well as synthesizer and keyboard melodies once in a while. This combination of rhythmic and minimalistic bass and drum playing immediately drew my attention and I was positively surprised to say the least. Musically it reminded me of early post-punk bands like Liquid Liquid, sometimes ESG or even Gang of Four combined with very reduced Electronica and early analog-synth music. The music was groovy (although I hate to use that word for some reasons) and driving, it was diversified but minimalistic at the same time and it made me wish to see these guys again some time soon. Perfect prelude to a great evening.

Review: Nisennenmondai + Chris Corsano/Clayton Thomas + Oneohtrix Point Never

I'm glad I bought my ticket for this in advance. Not that the show was anywhere near sold out but I just haven't been in concert mood all day. So if it wasn't for the already bought ticket I'd probably have stayed at home... and missed a really good concert.

We arrived when Oneohtrix Point Never were already playing. I listened to their stuff before and found it okay but I wasn't sure if this could work live for me. And it also did not really. We saved a neat seat on the balcony with perfect view to the stage, but there wasn't that much to see besides artsy visuals and two guys on their laptops. Musically this was like drony experimental sample stuff. I found it way to random to be interesting.

Next up were Chris Corsano and Clayton Thomas. I already saw Corsano twice - once solo, just him on the drumkit  and once collaborating with Dennis Tyfus. He was good both times so I was sure he'd be good this time. Tonight he played together with Clayton Thomas on double bass and it was just plain awesome and definitely made my evening. They complemented one another so good and this was by far the best of the Corsano gigs I saw. He is probably one of the best (experimental) drummers around and you should definitely check him out if you have the chance and want to see what else you can do on a drum kit than just hit it with two sticks... Seriously, it's awesome just to watch him play but it's not only technically fascinating but also musically insanely good!

Final band of the evening were Nisennenmondai. They're an instrumental trio from Tokyo and play something like a mixture between Post Punk and Krautrock. Think of ESG and Neu! mixed together in an ascending and repetitive way. They were fun to watch, especially the drummer who was awesome! I really liked their more reduced songs but I was a bit overstrained with their like epic rock outbursts. But altogether I had fun and they did really good (plus they left the stage without playing an encore... I don't like encores... most of the times at least).