Next up were Lokai. These comrades from Austria hummed their guitars extremely unhurriedly and tapped the cymbals very slowly, which pretty much reminded me of the band Radian, an album of which, however, I never managed to get through to the end. Funny enough, the resemblance turned out to be far from coincidental: the founder of Radian is exactly the one playing in Lokai. The impressions from the performance are a bit colorless. It seems okay, but somehow unengaging. And you can't really say it's boring, but listening to it doesn't really get me going either. True, the guy with the little effects-pedal suitcase made things better: after he twisted its knobs and pressed its buttons, the character of the sound changed heavily, which raised the interest.
Lokai
By the way, my friend
the fake <insert label of choice> left during Lokai's set to the electronic hall waiting for The Bug, whom I had hyped up for him. The Bug only showed up 20 minutes later, and the fake emo (and not even an emo, but rather a hipster, as I recently found out) risked missing Colleen. But she was waiting for the equipment to free up, and we sat for half an hour admiring an empty stage. I even went to check out The Bug, but apart from the terrifying volume of low-quality sound and a rapping black auntie of the "Big Mama" format, I didn't find anything. I won't post the video - don't see the point.
Now about Colleen. If anyone doesn't know, this is a girl from France, her name is Cécile Schott, and she makes beautiful and psychedelic, albeit simple, music. The gist is this: acoustic instruments are taken, repeating passages are recorded and layered on top of each other with the addition of delay and echo effects. What comes out is a layer cake of drawn-out high sounds, at the sound of which you immediately imagine crystal palaces or something similar.
Cécile looks modest and peaceful, at the concert she plays on various acoustic instruments. First - on the Viola Da Gamba, which is an ancestor of the modern cello originating from the Renaissance era. Then on the flute and guitar, she also jingled some bells. She recorded all of this onto a simple sampler with a pedal, which she pressed with her foot (it seemed) and then she played along to the background of the sampler's sounds.
Colleen @@@@ Skaņu Mežs 2008 - Viola Da Gamba from Vladekk on Vimeo.
Overall - I liked it less than the album. Over there melodies are present, the structure is thought out, there are many different instruments and they play simultaneously. But here - she played on the flute, recorded the flute, played over the recording. On the other hand, it was really funny to watch the attendees, who had been listening to horrific noise right before that and generally looked like slight nonconformists, sitting there afraid to move, so as not to disrupt the "fragile magic of the acoustic space" with noise. In quotes, because it's a cliché, and whether there was any magic is a question. After all, you can't really say a miracle happens all by itself just because you're a fragile-looking girl playing the cello while abusing ancient psychedelic effects pedals.
Colleen @@@@ Skaņu Mežs 2008 - Guitar from Vladekk on Vimeo.
Although generally - the performance was good, especially the part with the guitar. But with me it's like in "War and Peace" - man is a weak creature and his state of spirit depends on the conditions of the external world and a random number generator. I'm getting at the fact that I liked the majority of the sets. But sometimes you get sick of everything and just want to leave entirely. Then suddenly you like it again. And this can happen not just across different performances, but even over the course of a single one. I mean, I won't argue that I'm an emo too.
Colleen @@@@ Skaņu Mežs 2008 (flute) from Vladekk on Vimeo.
After Colleen, the Icelander Hildur Gudnadottir performed, playing the cello, accompanied by a bald-shaven dude in glasses - BJ Nielsen. The dude floated in the smoke that the organizers were pumping out too zealously, and could barely see his laptop, which amplified and transformed the buzzing produced by the cello. Not particularly convincing, but you can listen and decide for yourselves.
Hildur Gudnadottir & BJNilsen @@@@ Skaņu Mežs 2008 from Vladekk on Vimeo.
The last to perform was the indie-folk diva Marissa Nadler. She was all in red, just like Zavoloka. Her appearance holds something Greek, and she also has three guitars and three microphones. Marissa was incredibly surprised that she was performing at two in the morning, and said that this was her first time, but she still came out for an encore. It must be said that during the last days of the festival the audience called very few people out for an encore, and even if they did, nobody came out. Then again, for those performers who play a continuous stream rather than distinct tracks, it would be weird to come out for an encore, and those were the majority.
But Marissa, you see, plays songs, songs that are cosmic in sound and voice. Marissa is a mezzo-soprano, meaning the second lowest female voice in opera. Curiously enough, the famous pop singer Shakira is a contralto, meaning the lowest female voice in the classification. I'm just wondering - the fact that their voices are classified by operatic standards, why is that? To the ear they indeed have a certain "operatic" leaning and power, but are there some formal criteria?
By the way, on a side note, Shakira has an IQ of 140, writes the music and lyrics for all her songs herself, and speaks 6 languages.
However, we're not talking about her right now. To be honest, about Marissa I can only say that even though her music sounds majestic and grandiose, to me it's alien and boring, because it's still practically a bard song, which I can't stomach under any sauce. Music should be diverse and original in its sound - and what could be more hackneyed than an acoustic guitar. One joy is that the guitar is seasoned with an echo effect, and Marissa's voice could rival a fancy tricked-out instrument.
What can be said about the third day overall?
Zavoloka pleased me the most. Colleen was cool, but the album is better. As for the rest - noise and sound cranked to the heavens got tiresome a long time ago, you won't surprise the audience with that. Musicians need to look for something new, and not overdo it with the "organic flow of plasma", as well as improve their equipment, otherwise all the hummers and noisemakers fade into a monotonous mush.