dyxz.born.rndr - european tour 2013 - eight-hundred years on the banks of the aare

we followed the autobahn on its curve south-west through the myriad delights of the swiss landscapes on our path towards the always-stunning second-home of bern and the twin mism and luana headquarters of the living legend that is mich moser. how the storm-clouds still loomed ominous on the horizon but the rain kept its distance as we followed the winding path into the city, through its magnificent streets, shrouded in such stunning architecture and across the always beatuiful aare flowing through its whole before reaching the always-welcoming safehouse of captain mich; directly at the door ready to greet us with welcoming hugs and talk of what we could only immediately realise would be a stunning dinner at the broadspectrum surrounding compound already waiting for us. we directly grabbed what we needed from the car and then headed off by foot into the stunning depths of the city.

having ascended the steep hill from mich's place into the city center, it was only a brief excursion for beverages before we made our way to the wonderfully cosy apartment and broadspectrum surrounding compound of the absolutely wonderful can and nicole; a truly wonderfully kind-hearted couple indeed. we were welcomed immediately with the warmest of hugs, hot tea and much marvelous conversation before soon sitting down to an epic meal of home-baked pizzas and salat, wine, saft, coffee, yet more tea before we then found ourselves magically gazing out over the skyline diorama of the city center from their astonishing rooftop vantage point, a spell-binding instant to frame an outrageous series of developments of our evening indeed.

still, how the night held much more in store for us besides. we gathered ourselves up as a group and headed out into the cool of the evening to meet with some of the legendary everest records family over at the mighty reitschule complex; a stunning location which really needs to be on the list of essential spots to visit, and the perfect location to meet up with such marvelous souls indeed. still, how the night was a little cool and the spot a little too chaotic with some kind of minimal-chemical-party occurring out the front of the complex and so how we all retired to the magnificently cosy apartment and kitchen of captain matu to spend the last of the evening sharing drinks and ever-more amusing conversation til the early hours began to beckon. with weary heads we began to wend our ways back to our sleeping places, ready to get some sleep before the show tomorrow.

for my own part, i had the honour of sleeping at the mism/luana safehouse and slept long indeed, not awakening until it was almost time to take to the day to begin our busy schedule. mich and i walked back up into the city to collect dyxz and martin from the compound and how we made our way to the splendid raum to set-up and get a healthy soundcheck happening and to shake hands with the tastatur captains before taking a most-relaxed walk over to the everest records safehouse to chill and take tea with captain matu a while longer and generally take in their whole operation which, was certainly most-impressive indeed. but how the day was racing-by indeed and how we soon found ourself safely back at can and nicole's place for a staggeringly epic home-cooked indian meal with the extended bern family circle. shockingly fantastic tasty treats indeed.

still, showtime beckoned and how we made our way en mass back down to the raum and started to relax with the splendid folk who slowly began to gather in the cosy half-light of this most-intimate and wonderful of locations as the mighty mich began to spin a sinister collection of vinyl for our listening pleasure. still before long we did indeed take to the stage and slowly concocted a drone-heavy invocation filled with as many subtle hues as we could filter through the sound-system, building a steadily rising hymn to fill the raum with a slow and permeating unease of blackened arid lands. in truth, some technical difficulties on our part sadly plagued the performance a little, but how we did indeed muster over the length of the performance and managed to satisfy the ungods with a suitably darkened tone poem of careful duration.

but the night was still so young and how we were subsequently treated to the rhythmic tones of the local masters tastatur as we gladly began to spend the rest of the evening putting our feet up, chatting cheerily, watching the party-madness unfold and eventually taking to the dancefloor as the killer broadspectrum surrounding dj-team took their rightful place on the 1210's and treated us to endless party sounds as the night wore steadily on into the long early hours. how it was a great night indeed and an honour to be finding ourselves again rubbing shoulders with the mighty everest records family members matu and mich meienberg, no less. but how we slowly grew weary and ready for the sleeping, and how myself, mich and the lovely soumy bid farewell to the others and made our weary way back to the mism/luana safehouse for some much-needed sleep. still, how there was indeed enough time for one last tea in the still of his kitchen as we chatted cheerily for a few last minutes to the sounds of the true legend that is fbcfabric, the horror... into the dreaming then.

i greeted the sunday morning with the weariest of eyes to find mich and suomy ready for action and how we made a weary walk back to the broadspectrum surrounding safehouse once more, to link up for some splendid breakfast action with the others and to think about one last stroll through the city before we would have to think about gathering ourselves up for the drive back north across the border. how we were blessed with a sunny afternoon for it though and gladly bore ourselves a suitably relaxed path through the architectural delights of the altstadt, within the myriad wonders of the berner münster, up to the steadily widening views of the magnificent rosengarten for a spot of tea and relaxing, then back along the aare to our starting point; a marvelous sunday-afternoon jaunt indeed. but time had defeated us, and how we were forced to bid the gang the dearest of farewells before taking ourselves back to the car and making the steady drive back to the rhein-main after such a truly wonderful weekend indeed.

so, might we once again take the opportunity to offer our most-sincerest of thanks and so much love to the dear captain mich, the mism/luana family, the wonderful, wonderful broadspectrum surrounding family, the effortlessly kind everest records family, miss soumy, the tastatur captains and everyone who made it down to the show, a truly magical time indeed.

next field report - returning to the steel heart of the republic

jamesreindeer
connewitz, leipzig, deutschland
23rd june, 2013

dyxz.born.rndr - european tour 2013 - low dronings from below the abandoned freight-cars drowning in the heavy rain

we drove south out of karlsruhe as the gloomy rainy weather began to set in and followed the autobahn with the throne burning spire of cathédrale notre-dame de strasbourg and the dark extents of the schwarzwald laying ominous in the east, the observatory and japanese guy to detail the ongoing soundtrack of the droning road and the steady concrete skyline of zürich with its fields of cranes ready to greet us as we finally rolled into the city under heavy rains, the prime tower looming resplendent in its shimmering hues as we found our way to the mism zürich headquarters and the wonderfully cosy residence of the ever-magnificent captain manu and his incredibly kind-hearted girlfriend lena. how they welcomed us in out of the rain, immediately had earl grey brewing and detailed the plan for the evenings schedule over the warming brew.

before long we took to the street once more and made our way down to the klubi under the steadily-building rainstorm to load in our equipment and set about the soundcheck process. the venue can certainly be described as something very special indeed. a cavern sunken in a tree-lined spot below the abandoned trailines running beside the river, an old carriage still standing lifeless above a small cavern-club replete with open stone walls and mysterious hieroglyphs in the water-etched granite walls. we soon got some really great sound happening with the aid of the marvelous patrick and also quickly managed to exchange the glad-hand with the mighty borut savski, with whom we would be sharing the performance along with ueli the super-nice manager of the site; a marvelous set of gentlemen indeed.

with all in hand we made our way back to manu's place under what had become incessant rain, the dark of the night already threatening to set in and a cool chill within the breeze that had us think we were being drawn back into the autumn once more. still, how lena, now accompanied by the wonderful alicia had set about preparing us such a fantastic vegan dinner for us all which i could not hope to do justice to with these humble lines. needless to say we took our fill, along with a host of always fascinating and illuminating conversations, our anticipation building for heading back to the venue, taking in the work of borut, not to mention our own humble performance. we wrapped ourselves up against the dismal elements and returning to the klubi on foot and under umbrellas and the blanket of the night having since fallen.

how the sanctuary of the atmospheric location seemed doubly so as we finally made our way out from under the downpour and into the dark, smokey cavern of the venue, darkly-lit and so welcoming. gladly, goodly number of close friends and strangers began to arrive, and in time to catch the fascinating work of borut savski, who treated us to a peformance and brief lecture on a suitably mind-bending audio-visual project he had been crafting in isolation as an experiment and was demonstrating the principles of for those of us lucky enough to be in attendance. he was essentially using randomly generated audio elements to trigger two-dimensional geometric visual elements to build an ongoing, and very-much trance-inducing sensory experience. fascinating work indeed.

after the hallucinatory depths of borut's work, dyxz, martin and i were ready to take to the stage to invoke some suitably dark sounds for those assembled within the stone walls of our temporary compound and directly set about a forty-five minute set of blackened-drones, monolithic doom-walls and spectral moments of frozen still; creating as atmospheric and enthralling world as we could summon within the limits of our confines. it was an absolute delight to perform indeed and how the kind audience were so very attentive and stayed with us along the course of the journey and offering such kind applause upon the final, grim culmination. a roaring success indeed, and one that we are already so very keen to repeat.

with the live performances handled and the merch-table manned for an adequate amount of time, it was time to spend the rest of the evening propping up the bar, listening to the mighty manu spin endless classic vinyl on the 1210's and chatting cheerily with those dear folk still assembled. but the time raced by as always and how the night slowly began to draw itself to a close. we slowly began to gather our weary selves up and take one last walk back through the still heaviest of rain to the apartment to start to think about falling into the dreaming once more. not before another round of earl grey at the kitchen table, of course. but how we were soon ready to fall back into the sleeping, to dream blissful dreams of drone-lands and sound-fields stretching out into clouds of radio-waves sailing high above farm-lands of antenna masts.

the morning greeting us cheerily, and with perhaps a little respite in the rain situation. we gathered together around the kitchen table and took an ample breakfast together before having to think about heading quickly back to the location to packed our gear into the car and starting the journey towards the mism bern headquarters, luana headquarters and the residence of the utterly-legendary mich moser. all was very much in hand and how we were in good time to take to the road as we bid farewell to the mighty manu and the wonderful lena. how they had been such impeccable hosts and how it had been such an absolute pleasure to visit them in their beautiful apartment and to get to share such a splendid time together; a really wonderful time indeed.

still, we were not quite through with zürich yet, and had one more stop to make before taking the autobahn south-west to bern. a complicated route through the city lead us to the compound of the mighty epilog of the magnificent son kas and postrap familia. he had marvelously managed to find himself in attendance at the show the night before and simply insisted that we must stop by before leaving the city, an offer impossible to refuse. so we soon found ourselves ensconced in his apartment, sipping tea and being stunned by an ongoing series of musical works-in-progress which took in his new collaboratory project with other rappers, his new solo works, self-produced and otherwise, and culminating in an auditioning of the viciously-shocking postrap supergroup armageddonendzeitstress, and how there is nothing quite as shocking as unexpectedly having your faced chewed off by soda as an end-point. this all too brief and all too shocking had to come to a close though and, with farewell hugs aplenty we found ourselves back on the road, back towards the impossibly-staggering beauty that is the city of bern.

might we once again take a moment to offer our most warmest thanks to captain manu, miss lena, ueli, patrick, alicia and the klubi family, the mism family, the postrap family, the whole extended zürich family and indeed captain borut, how it was a magical experience and how we so very much look forward to next time indeed.

next field report - eight-hundred years on the banks of the aare

jamesreindeer,
mülheim an der ruhr, deutschland
18th june 2013

dyxz.born.rndr - european tour 2013 - blackened tone poems from the industrial district

having said farewell to the skribble-pott family at the 55mm2 festival, dyxz and i drove south down the open autobahn for a little more than two hundred kilometers listening to opium lord and 'dopethrone' in its entirety at full volume with the hi-end turned way down until we reached the rhein-main decorative stamp compound a couple of hours before sundown. we had a day and a half to relax, including a pizza and donut party at the knertz compound with the legendary oskar ohlson and winterismyname, and not least of all linking up with out third man for the rest of the tour, the staggeringly-powerful martin born, our free-jazz legend, wheel-man and all-round unbelievably amazing soul. with our sights set firmly on the road ahead we gathered together and headed south out of mainz towards our first show as a trio with the always wonderful k-gruppe family in karlsruhe.

the weather was a lot better than the traffic as we rode the autobahn south to karlsruhe, but how slowly building storm-clouds and the dry heat could only spell inclemency for later on in the evening, but how it held out long enough for the utterly astonishing vegan barbecue that tomi and the k-gruppe family had laid on for us. quite impossible to put into words and how it quickly had to become the focus of the pre-show activities once the warm hugs and greetings and show technicalities had been taken care of. how much of a delight it was to also get to once again cross paths with bold captain astronautalis, the ever-mighty brock and to become gladly acquainted with oscar and mo, on guitar and drums respectively. how it was also a delight to get to talk with the parenthetical girls over the fantastic aformentioned barbecue.

still, one had to remain somewhat keenly aware that our presence on the line-up for the evening did seem ever-so-slightly at odds with the rest of the program, but how we could only ever treat that as an amusement and a delight indeed. naturally the evenings music began with our dyxz.born.rndr set and, although we had previously planned to keep it a little more on the dark-jazz that blackened-noise side of the coin, i seem to recall it actually being a rather sinister twenty-five minutes or so indeed. but the sound was crystal clear for our part and how the performance was a greatly enjoyable one indeed, although it might be perhaps argued that only a smaller percentage of the audience were ready to bathe in quite such blackened shrouds before the onset of really rather more uptempo tones. but how it was a privilege to grace the stage in every way and yet more so to take in the rest of the evenings' music.

having heard many enthusiastic reports on the parenthetical girls from a number of trusted sources in the lead up to the show, we were all most keen to witness their performance and how they indeed took to the stage with gusto and set about a super-energetic set of songs which had me think of a great number of different influences, but none so concrete that i would dare to hint at in these lines. how it did very much gladden and tickle me that zac, their vocalist very much had an 'ancient mith' way about him and did indeed attempt and successfully scale most parts of the location including a protracted path across the bar, and of course never once missing his queue or breaking his neck. it was definitely a sight to behold and a suitable effective segue from our blackened-shroud jazz-murmurings into astronautalis' full-blown live-rap extravaganza.

as many times as i have had the fortune of performing alongside astronautalis, i can quite honestly state that his performance alongside oscar and mo at the halle14 this night will easily remain one of the most memorable thusfar, not simply as we had the delight of witnessing him with his bandmates for the first time, but also of what became the intimacy of the show due to something slightly more than mere technical difficulties with the sound during the performance. the details need not be discussed, but the upshot of the situation being that the band performed without the aid of the sound system in the location; mo played his drums as they stood, oscar his guitar just running through his amp and andy perfoming his vocals without amplification. i guess this desperate action needed to be taken a mere four or five songs into the set, but how the rest of the performance continued and ended thus and how it really did prove to be a most admirable accomplishment by the good gentlemen onstage, but also a tremendous treat for those in attendance.

still, with the live music concluded in fine style, the rain-storm having rolled in and the mid-week evening wearing on fast there was just enough time to recline a little while in the most-comfortable back-stage area at the halle14 with the ever-splendid young robin, a dog with whom it seems most every passing musician falls in love with, the remains of the staggering barbecue and some rather amusing conversation with the astronautalis troops about something along the lines of a thread involving carmen miranda. but how the time was marching on fast and how we all had different cities to be in tomorrow. we bid the troops fond farewells til next time and started to think about final teas before taking ourselves into the sleeping with keen anticipation of a splendid breakfast with the k-gruppe family in the morning and then the drive further south and over the border into the ever-stunning switzerland.

after a most-comfortable nights' sleep we all awoke slightly blurry-eyed from the late night and early start but we quickly bolstered with tea and sunlight and the brief drive from the location to the k-gruppe family compound. the ever-wonderful tomi greeted us at the door and how we all slowly began to gather around the kitchen table, taking our fill of the amazing breakfast selection and generally relaxing our way into the mid-morning before we would have to think about taking to the road once more, a fine finish to another wonderful karlsruhe episode indeed. with a hearty round of farewells we made our way back down onto the street as the first light rain of the day began to fall and started to think about the journey by the schwarzwald and over the border into the majestic swiss lands.

so, might we quickly take another moment to send so much thanks to the k-gruppe family, everyone involved, everyone who came down, the charming parethetical girls, captain astronautalis, brock, mo and oscar, and how we look forward to seeing you all again at some stage further down the path.

next field report - low dronings from below the
abandoned freight-cars drowning in the heavy rain

jamesreindeer,
mülheim an der ruhr, deutschland
16th june 2013

dyxz.rndr - european tour 2013 - buried deep within the eternal drone

oh, what long, strange and beautiful days and nights we find ourselves amidst. how the road has extended out before us in magical waves and how so many tales have found their way into our hearts, so many beautiful moments to carry and treasure for the evermore. once again i find myself briefly back at the decorative stamp safehouse and with some moments to ponder, to recollect and to try to detail further facts in the case of the dyxz.rndr tour, which most-gladly became the dyxz.born.rndr tour in time for us to travel through deutschland, switzerland and the czech republic in the time since i have been able to word my last transmission.

how it seems so magnificently curious to have to cast ones mind back to only some weeks ago for it to feel like so many moons, but how i can only state that the majestic throes of the 55mm2 festival in mulheim do feel like some beautifully distant dream of a thousand lifetimes ago now. still, how a magnificent time it truly was, a glorious enterprise and how it afforded us such musical treats, such astonishing atmospheres and such warm times with the dearest skribble-pott family members, the souslespaves family members and the whole ruhrpott extended family indeed; not to mention a host of staggeringly talented musicians from near and far.

spread across two days at the AZ in mulheim, the festival was put together by the ever-marvelous souslespaves folk and featured a mouth-watering line-up of stoner-sludge-doom-drone-experiemental-dark-jazz-metal-improv bands, installations, artwork exhibitions and an afterparty effortlessly guided by the skibble-dj's twin-powerhouses in the form of tofuland and frau keludowig. an event to be keenly anticipated for sure and how expectations were soon met and subsequently vastly overwhelmed by the final magnificence of the overall experience.

dyxz and i were scheduled to play on the saturday, but were particularly keen to find ourselves in attendance on friday night that we could witness the observatory take to the stage in all their unrelenting majesty. should you be unfamiliar with the sounds of these astonishingly wonderful folk from singapore then i can only wholeheartedly recommend you investigate their material directly. how they effortless transcend styles and genres, but this night saw them evoking a monolithic display of doomy-stoner riffs juxtaposed with improv-jazz passages and ethereal soothing moments of fragile beauty; a truly hypnotic and mesmerising performance indeed.

with our appetites truly whetted for the saturday, dyxz and i were sure to find ourselves at the AZ in good times and were quickly exchanging the glad-hand with all and sundry and getting ourselves set up onstage in time for our opening-act performance. before long the whole ruhrpott family began to arrive in their droves; far, far too many dear souls to mention individually, but how it soon felt very much like a family gathering in a wonderfully familiar location and a full evening of astonishing music to look forward to. such magical times indeed.

still, how time was marching on and dyxz and i quickly took to the stage, had the lights set down to the darkest possible red hues and began our set; our second official performance together. with great fortune we had managed to have ourselves a particularly successful soundcheck and thusly the performance was nothing less than an absolute pleasure. as i recall we kept the whole performance pretty blackened, carefully extracting the darkest atmospheres we could and evoking a long ease only punctuated by some moments of frightening still. how it felt like the ceremony had worked and the spell had successfully elicited dreams of distant spectral lands, but, moreover, how the response from our dear audience was most enthusiastic and offered us the greatest warmth imaginable. a true honour and delight indeed.

but it was only the beginning. the night continued with truly marvelous performances from all of the acts; not all of which i was able to catch in full, but i can wholeheartedly report that the mighty colaris did perform exceptionally, perhaps my own favourite performance of the night was from the exceptional orange swan, who i would very much recommend checking out if you can imagine a perfect marriage of stoner-doom and post-rock and a lot more betwixt. perhaps n & [ b o l t ] offered the most hypnotic and mesmerising performance of the night with their astonishing ambient explorations of ulow-frequencies, evoking the path that the legendary earth and sunn o))) have opened up for us all. still, the mighty blckwvs also unleashed epic riffs of low-end majesty to conclude the live room ceremonyltra-. but, furthermore, how each of these performances were effortleslly punctuated by improv sessions from the wonderful dharma and bani from the observatory, treating us to guitar, clarinet and percussion invocations of endlessly permutating fascination; a very real treat indeed.

yet still, the night switched gears in astonishingly effortless fashion as the stage was cleared and the twin skribble-dj legends tofuland and frau keludowig began their back-to-back dj set and how i can only report that they absolutely destroyed the dancefloor for the rest of the evening. an impossibly effortless blend of astonshing idm-related sounds which only served to offer the party people such magnificent rhythms to dance to, but also offered astonishingly mind-bending sounds for the avid listener to try to get their heads around; art and dance beautifully married in one cohesive whole, as always. the skribble-dj teams speciality indeed. for my own part i found myself moving between the dancefloor and the comfort of the sofas to take in the myriad hypnotic sounds and the always fascinating and warming conversations with the skribble-family.

but the night grew later and later and how we were all slowly reduced to administering the farewell hugs in increasing waves. how it had been such a special time, and how fitting it seemed as a final farewell to the skribble-pott family for dyxz and i as it would mark the beginning of our touring officially, our next stop being karlsruhe and then beyond. but what better way to temporarily end our time in our spiritual home than to share such a dear and wonderful evening with such dear and wonderful souls. how we would ride south with a great warmth in our hearts and a flickering light to which we knew would would soon return.

...so, might we once again offer such great thanks, warmth and love to the whole skribble-family, the whole souslespaves family, the whole shiny toys family and the whole extended ruhrpott family... glory days and nights indeed...

next field report - blackened tone poems from the industrial district

jamesreindeer,
mainz, deutshland
14th june 2013