- The omens weren’t good: Jubilee line down, cancelled buses, the weather patchy, the bloody Millennium Dome, Sunday, Friday’s hangover still giving me the shakes. But it was Kompakt, a whole night’s worth, with Burger/Voigt making their London debut no less. I’d have walked on hot coals.
Arriving at this North Greenwich white elephant I wondered whether it was worth the bother. Walking down anonymous boardwalks flanked by ads for vacuous theatrical productions, chain stores and deserted All-Bar-Ones, entering the O2 arena was like walking into an oversized, commercial sea-mine. An airport metal-detector with body searches also spelt trouble, but this was only for the lucky citizens dining at the American Grill. Why would a restaurant need metal detectors, unless they expected someone might try and blow them up? Ah, I see…
We walked in to hear Jonas Bering at the controls, busting out his latest quasi-pop single ‘Can’t Stop Loving You’. I rather slated this when I wrote about it in these pages but live it had a lot more bite, with the voice given greater urgency and variation and the skipping Euro mood ideal given the time. He followed this with something deeper, like his early dubbed-out Bienfait material given a ‘Lincoln Road’ makeover. Sadly the room was almost empty, with even fewer moving on the floor, but as he stepped down those of us present delivered a healthy round of well-deserved applause.
Thomas Fehlmann followed, beginning with luscious streams of thick ambient honey, which quickly grew beats and began to run, or rather shuffle. Working through tracks and traces from Honigpumpe, Fehlmann soon left these dripping beats behind for the bone-dry stutter of ‘The Road’. Here various elements were extended and worked upon, the familiar harmonica from Canned Heat’s ‘60s hit seemingly more stuttered, and those obnoxious gnarz touches given greater emphasis. By now the floor was heaving, but in that weird lurching skank, like zombies dancing to T-Rex; Voigt would have been proud. Fehlmann continued with some thrilling cuts, returning to the initial fluidity but with bolder, housier touches, hats so sibilant they could cut glass. If this is a forthcoming single (or one I’ve missed), it’s one to watch out for.
Headliners Mouse on Mars got straight to work destroying and deconstructing much of what Kompakt stand for, or at least attempting to. Tinkering at their machines like a pair of over-enthused mechanics, Andi Toma and Jan St Werner called forth a jerky, bastard funk seemingly allergic to any form of repetition or structure. Short bursts of 4/4 would stagger to life only to become entangled, keel over and erupt into showers of sparks. Rhythms did persist but they were of the (literally) broken variety, drunken IDM patterns coated with rust. This was punk rock to Kompakt’s glam, and if the restlessness had my dancing shoes itchy, the ceaseless invention and fuck-off approach, while retaining just enough groove to nod along to, deserved praise.
After MOM’s frenetic and resolutely live activity, Jörg Burger and Wolfgang Voigt seemed like a pair of technoid robots. It was easy to seem bobbing behind their screens, but impossible to determine what they were doing. As the keening slide guitar motif of ‘Bring Trance Back...’ commenced and the drums kicked in however, I doubt anyone cared. The difference in approach between these two artists is considerable, with Burger all melodic glitz and Voigt some kind of sadistic bludgeoner, but they do manage to work these poles into something original, and truly exciting. That said, much of their set seemed the work of two separate artists, with Voigt even getting off stage for some of Burger’s Modernist tracks (which went down superbly under fog and pink neon). Voigt’s emerged with a bang, blunt kick drums and great chunks of grit building into a sparse and heavy pummel like those heard on Profan or Auftrieb. This was minimal in the spare sense, but the sound was maximal, explosive and enthralling. The centrepiece, a searing rendition of Roxy Music’s ‘More Than This’, epitomised Kompakt’s pop obsession and Voigt’s own vision of techno—let’s hope Ferry and co. give the all clear for this to be released.
DJ Geo was the only performer to use turntables, but he performed as lively as any on the bill, albeit for little time. He ended with a wonderful example of trance-tinged Cologne, a fitting bridge between the preceding parity and Gui Boratto. The Brazilian’s eager sound reflected his own enthusiasm—drums rattled out like typewriter keys, tones built around more complex arrangements. He rolled out the hits, ‘Mr Decay’ and ‘Beautiful Life’ had the crowd hooting, and when the house killed the sound he was as reluctant for things to end as anyone, turning the monitors around for a few final moments.
The soundsystem was faultless throughout, which suffered as much damage from the sheer density of Burger/Voigt as Mouse on Mars’s circuit-bending, but the money could perhaps be better spent on transport to this God forsaken cesspit. The small crowd was faithful, and had this been transported to a dingy backwater in Shoreditch, open until sometime in the morning, it would have been one of the events of the year. Thank you Kompakt, but next time I’ll see you in Cologne.
Photo credit: Nik Torrens