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ThuDenmark’s Iceage are THE punk phenomenon of the moment, but their music reflects the political and social upheavals of the last few decades. It is full of a raw energy that gives voice to the confusion, powerlessness, and disorientation of European youth, whose disaffection is as hard to overlook as it is for outsiders to decipher its codes. This creative energy born of disgust, and its concurrent yearning for alternatives, sets the agenda for the rest of the evening. Performances by the Berlin band reliq are charged with the grand gestures of Thelemic ritual magic and pursue an endlessly cumulative ecstatic dramaturgy, and contrast to the cosmic synth and drone explorations of New York musician Oneirogen, who reveals affinities with 90s post-metal. The programme is complemented by the German debut of performance from Wife, the solo project of Altar of Plagues singer James Kelly, who stands somewhere between the escapist romance of his Tri Angle label colleagues, black metal mysticism, and the hardcore continuum. Support comes courtesy of Reznik, a seemingly surprising addition to this musical line-up given his activity as a member of the label Keinemusik, but who as music editor of Vice Germany is certainly no stranger to metal in all its forms, nor to other types of creative cacophony from the shadow side.
As part of Berlin’s keinemusik-clique, Reznik usually stays loyal to the 4/4-time-paradigm, but given certain cosmic constellations, he’ll dig into the obscure crates of his record collection, transmutate into his fierce alter ego, King Azthomothrez, and serve-up a blend of digital disturbance, metallic forlornness, and pure sonic abnormality.
Iceage are Elias Bender Ronnenfelt and Jakob Tvilling Pless, Johan Surrballe Wieth and Dan Kjaer Nielsen. It doesn’t do any good to cite influences – Iceage mix punk, post-punk, Goth, and hardcore as if they invented it.
Under the name Oneirogen, New York based composer and multi-instrumentalist Mario Diaz de Leon creates hallucinatory washes of sound with electric guitar, electronics, and acoustic instruments.