At Strøm, Friday marks the end of all the meta-musical events and the beginning of the festival’s cornerstone concerts at Enghaveparken. For the always compelling price of nothing, Copenhagen’s music enthusiasts are invited to join the fun with acts like Jatoma, Egyptrixx, Space Dimension Controller, and Pional playing sets in the evening hours.
For an artist with only a few buzzed-about releases, Lone had accumulated a surprising amount of hype for his Strøm appearance. Surprising mainly because his music is vastly different from most of the other acts on the bill. But then again, there isn’t a lot of music that compares to Lone’s on any level. In true minimalist fashion, his stage presence was little more than Cutler himself, an array of equipment, and the first PC I’ve seen at a concert in a while. For me, the most striking thing about the concert was just how many layers Cutler operates with. Everything is stacked, twisted, and glued together, and while the mixing was… primal, my overall impression was definitely positive. As bass music gets increasingly sophisticated, hearing something that went straight for the guts turned out to be a welcome change.
Walking from the Grass to the Main stage afterwards meant more than just a slight change in surroundings. Where Lone was borderline chaotic, Brandt Brauer Frick was all about control. You would never guess that the three suit-clad Germans were here to play techno and not to crunch numbers, especially since they approached the task with an eye for detail most accountants would envy. Unfortunately, the sound of the Main stage did not do the trio’s music justice with a strange muddy feeling in the lower frequencies. It wouldn’t be unreasonable to say that techno without proper bass is a pretty mellow affair. On top of that, the trio relied heavily on tried and tested techniques with little room for serious variation, leaving the crowd satisfied but not exactly raving.
Back at the Grass stage, Jatoma had taken the stage. I had heard great things about the trio’s Roskilde performance earlier this summer, but had not managed to catch the group live before. With a real drummer, plenty of vocoder, bells, and a whole lot of percussion, Jatoma embarked on a set that drifted between straight up techno and esoteric, even psychedelic experiments. It may just be that my experience with Jatoma is too limited, but I found the first half of the set relatively trite with the four enjoying their own chores but rarely reaching out to tie things together. Still, the more explosive parts of the set, especially those with a minimal feel, brought out the best in the collaboration. In my humble opinion, Jatoma are best when they work towards a clear goal - An aspect of the group that we got to experience yesterday, but not to the extent that I had hoped.
Photographic high five via Emil Hougaard. Check out the rest of my coverage of Strøm 2011 on the official Strøm blog.
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