ACCELERA DECK – Live Volume III

(CDR, Scarcelight)

When I popped this into my iTunes for import, the internet database sprung up with the following track info: Gustav Mahler (1860-1911), 4. Satz, Finale. Allegro Moderato, Live Vol. 3, style: Alternative & Punk. See how that second to last one is correct. The “allegro moderato”-score is also close by. Funnily this set starts with some sounds that could easily be interpreted as some classical strumming on a harpsichord, then mutilated, but only slightly. Later on there are some bass-loaded melodies that owe its sombre melancholy and orchestral heaviness as much to doom-metal as to Beethoven. There are no coincidences, as an ex-office colleague of mine used to say. The mutilation continues throughout the slightly over 30 minutes track, with various layers added. My favourite ones are those that sound like big walls of glacially moving distorted guitars. As if Fear Falls Burning took a little peek into the venue. And those little sounds here and there that sound like birds singing in the wilderness. Or those warbly, swooshy, washing and fading pieces that are akin to a revved up My Bloody Valentine, though there was obviously no guitar to be seen anywhere close to where these sounds were produced, except maybe for deep within the intestines of the computer’s harddisk.

Just think about what some of the more basically fundamental music critics would make of the thought: guitars to be heard but not to be seen because worked from and with through a computer interface and, gasp, software. Most of them would hide behind the sentiment that, luckily, we are facing some experimental noise music anyway, which is not at all important as long as Metallica and Oasis are able to fill up stadiums. Wrong. Just like the photographic camera was inherently hidden within traditional painting and not invented as a contrasting or competing medium, the future of music in whichever way it might face us in the coming decades, is already set within the confines of music as it is. These developments are not at all invented as challenges – those are inventions of critics and established artists who are unable to see anything regarding the status quo as anything else than a threat, and usually from a very commercial viewpoint too – but evolutionary developments coming from themselves.

Am I at the moment imagining a stadium filled with tens of thousands of people and on stage there is a little figure behind a small stack of electronic equipment, blasting at the audience sounds of all kinds and structure with unlimited force? Sure, I am. And imaginary it will remain for at least a few thousand years or so – I am still steadily rooted in reality. Partly at least. Is this vision a good thing? I remember seeing live-footage of Jean Michel Jarre, which came up as a déjà vu right now, and I am not at all sure. A truly better version would be welcome. Parts of “Live Volume III” not played in a small arts-venue called ArtWorks in Richmond Virginia, but blasted in stadium rock volume over a city like Graz or Manchester or Brussels, would be a real treat. Changing the sound atmosphere of the city from air raid to springtime to apocalypse within just a few minutes would be a big thing. Which city official would be daring enough to stage this, thinking of all the complaints people would have due to the truly heavy noise factor of some of the parts of this piece.

Within the context of the three Live-Recordings issued in a row as well as within the rest of the work that I know from Accelera Deck, this one here is outstanding for its pure vivacity, boldness and almost symphonic structre structure. Chris Jeely takes listeners through his repertoire of recent works in a heavy headtrip. Some of the changes from one part to the next are really somewhat abrupt and harsh, but he goes so many ways and detours during this set. E.g. there is one part at about minute 15 to 20 somewhere, where he mangles the recording of a noiseband with drums, guitars and bass (Skulllike?) into a zooming and hovering miasma of noise, from which only appreggios of chords emerge, which are finally overwhelmed by an evil bass white noise part which slowly melts out into a more mellow fog of noise (from which my mind tricks me into hearing a classical male choir singing in the back). Noise live sets are often very strenuous and close to boring (while those artists trying to push their audience by pure extremity, like Haswell, bug me from start off by their arrogance) but this is one I wish I had been there.

One more thing at the end of reviewing all three of these live set CDRs, which made me feel like one of those Grateful Dead-fans or Dylanheads: people putting on shows with musicians that use computers, mixing desks, laptops or anything else that is put on a desk and not carried around, please use tables that are high enough for the artist to be able to stand up straight. Yes, that might look like a bank clerk cashing out, but those pictures of people hunching over their equipment starts to give me pains the back. Moreover, I don’t want the picture of an artist bowing deeply over his tools, showing the audience his hunchback and the top of his head, to become the iconographic image for this kind of music (I might already be too late, anyway).

Check out parts I und II of this series as well. Oh, you already have? Allright, then.