Got back from the first two days.
I won't write in detail, just briefly. Everything started basically on schedule.
The volume on the first day was extremely moderate, there was practically no noise either. In principle, everyone could have gone, if we had known in advance, not just the stubborn and patient ones. Links to the musicians' pages are right here. Grabbed the photos from a punk and anarchist and from easyget.lv
21:00 Platons Buravickis / LV /
A young guy in a suit and tie. Electronica. Too sparse and not very interesting noises, in my opinion. So-so.
21:45 Candycoveredclown &
Kaspars Groševs / LV / – Clinical Archives
The vocalist of a cult Latvian hardcore band (on the left) and someone else. Electronica, though quite varied. I liked it. There was also a video with scraps of paper on a metal plate, simple and fun.
22:15 Rolands Kronlaks / LV /
izpilda Līga Ančevska un Oskars Petrauskis
A huge mountain of percussion: springs, drums, gongs, cymbals, foil. At the end, there were even singing bowls. By coincidence, I just got gifted a thing like that at work for my birthday.
The musicians were smiling and generally weren't overly serious. I liked it, pretty awesome actually.
23:00 Voldemārs Johansons / LV /
(izpilda - Elīna Endzele un
Aleksandrs Jalaņeckis)
The musician was playing someone's minimalist piece on the flute. Not bad, listenable.
23:45 Ghedalia Tazartes / FR / –
Alga Marghen (sadarbībā ar Francijas
Kultūras centru Rīgā)
Ghédalia Tazartès is an old guy in a hat who sings and plays a bit, accompanied by a drummer — a jack of all trades. The duo was the headliner and lived up to the hype: they rocked out fiercely, and the crowd gave them a very warm welcome. I liked it a lot: on a recording, it gets tiring, and you don't fully understand what's what, but here it almost feels like pop music when you actually see how the process goes.
00:45 Jóhann Jóhannsson &
Hildur Guðnadóttir / IS / –
Touch Music, 4AD
The cellist from Mum and a dude behind a laptop. We had a combination like this last year too — are they breeding them in Iceland or what? Actually, I just remembered that last year she was the one droning too, only it was a different dude — BJ Nilsen. I liked it less back then.
But this time they droned — at first New Age-y, then more metallic, which I like better. Overall — good. The crowd gave them a warm reception.
01:45 Vladislav Delay & Lillevan / FI/DE / –
Force Tracks, Chain Reaction,
Mille Plateaux, Resopal, and Sigma Editions
(sadarbībā ar Gētes Institūtu Rīgā un
Somijas vēstniecību)
Delay, as we know, is a peculiar electronic musician. Does everything as usual, in his own special vein. There were few people left by then, because it was no longer 2 a.m., but 4 a.m. I liked the accompanying video, the music was average. Delay is a master, but I'm kind of sick of him already — it's always the same thing, even if it's tricky in different ways. And generally, I'm already tired of all this kind of electronica.
02:45 Sound Meccano & Evgeniy Droomoff / LV / –
RX:TX, Laton, Kokeko
Sound Meccano is Rastislav, the host of the "Sound Constructor" show on "Radio Naba". He's also the one who rebroadcast "Muzprosvet" and heavily praised Zavoloka last year, while I was standing right next to him.
I still haven't met Rastislav in person, although we once had some business through third parties.
They were doing electronica, there was also a cellist (or was it a viola? I can't tell them apart). Honestly, I wasn't impressed — but they finished at 4:20 in the morning, and the crowd had almost entirely scattered. How objective my opinion is, is hard to say — I wasn't in the right state.
By the way, I drank a few energy drinks, but I wouldn't say it helped much. Later I read about caffeine — it works per kilogram of body weight, and for there to be an effect, I need to drink a shitload, which is exactly what I did the next day.
Overall, I quite liked everything, except maybe the first and last performances weren't impressive. Obviously, Tazartès was the best — an absolute blast, as expected.