electricgecko

September

Als ich nach Berlin kam, aus dem Durcheinander meines Lebens in das Durcheinander der Stadt, gab es eine Gruppe, die sich ausnahm in ihrer Ehrlichkeit und Schönheit zwischen all dem Schutt, den Optionen, den Drinks, der Sonne über dem Brunnen vor dem Dom und den Hackeschen Höfen, die damals noch ein Ort waren. The Aim of Design is to Define Space spielten Rock der klang wie Rave, und alles sah besser aus als bei den anderen. Sie sagten was ich damals hören musste. Der Moodboardpop des allzu geradeaus betitelten Depeche Mode wird mich immer an den Besarinplatz erinnern, die Türme des Frankfurter Tors, den Blick auf die Volksbühne aus der S75. Und daran, was wichtig ist (Frisuren und Schuhe).

Im vergangenen Jahr spielten Aim ein Konzert am Schlesischen Tor und nun gibt es neue Musik, eine 12″ und wohl ein Album, ein weiteres Konzert (Dialog mit der Jugend, the grown-ups are tired), das Alex und ich besuchen werden.

Es gibt nun eine neue Geschichte über diese Stadt zu erzählen, gleichermaßen dunkel und perfekt ausgeleuchtet: Aim #@%!$, das erste Release seit elf Jahren, nach der Volksbühne. Das ist alles, 5K-Schranz, Wut, Klugheit, Schönheit, die eigene Sprache, die rasierten Seiten, das tätowierte Herz. 1992, 1994, 1997. Teile von uns waren immer hier.

One might say that everything was better back then. The girls were prettier, the parties wilder and the drugs better. Back then, The Aim of Design is to Define Space was the best band, which was more Berlin than Berlin was the Aim of Design is to Define Space.

Am Ende dann Schulzkys Aimriff, das immer sein muss, auch für mich. Good fucking day, ihr Bauern.

Das Atonal fügte sich auf neue Weise in dieses Jahr. Es gab nichts zu feiern, es gab nichts loszulassen. Es gab die Notwendigkeit von Input und Freiheit, die Notwendigkeit der einzigen Form von Spiritualität zu der ich in der Lage bin1. In einem weiteren Jahr stand ich also mit Hannes und David im Exoskelett des Industriezeitalters, wir tranken Wasser mit Wodka darin und sahen unsere Zukunft vor uns ausgebreitet.

Das Lineup 2019 kam uns entgegen. Viele der Projekte operierten hochkonzentriert, das Programm der Hauptbühne ließ sich ohne Pausen verfolgen. Im Ergeschoss wurde weniger instagramtauglich dekoriert und mehr inszeniert; die Disziplin Tanz ist eine ebenso naheliegende wie richtige Ergänzung für diese Veranstaltung.

Wie bereits vor zwei Jahren bemühte ich mich um Notizen, also darum, festzuhalten, was Raum und Sound mit meiner Kognition taten. Es erscheint mir relevant als Ergänzung der reinen Macht des Atonal im Jahr 2019.

In keiner spezifischen Reihenfolge oder Sprache:

Lee Gamble practises mantis origami and everything is liquified, the concrete carpace of Kraftwerk magically transformed. The ghost of raves past infects every bar Gamble is launching into the cavernous hall, all grooves that have been, resurrected to serve grim new purposes. We are witnessing 1994 being smashed and sliced into shards, made new, assembling crystalline parts of a bygone era into constructs resilient enough to withstand the atmospheric pressure of 2019. Viewed from the right angle with the right mind, shapes become recognizable, sticking out for a second before being re-incorporated into a heaving sonic architecture. The hall is drenched in blood red light. Everything stops.

As Allesandro Cordini is playing, a rift appears in the crowd and I am suddenly free: Bodies move, the crowd converges, both on screen and in physical space. Staub löst sich von allem ab, und irgendwann auf jedem, denke ich, und dann: This isn’t beauty, This is the rest of it. „Es bedeutet mir die Welt, das hier, alles, an diesem Ort in dieser Stadt in diesem Jahr“, sage ich zu David.

Mitra render the world in ice at psychotropic resolution. Like shaping a monument from pink noise, some imaginative somatic architecture made from organic matter, perpetually in the process of melting or freezing, ever transitioning. A 5K temple ruin in the shader world. Far away, a small figure is wailing, draped in light, veiled in concrete. A voice endlessly reverberating. The profound, old beauty of her song is almost too much to bear. I wish it would stop and continue for ever. The particle equalizer as an emitter of architecture is followed by the magic of a repectfully receding virtual camera, as distant dwellings slowly fade out of view.

Soft/hard, coexisting like matter and antimatter, creating perfect stasis. Ich bin hier mit niemandem, ein Haus stürzt ein in perfekter Stille, und darum in Zeitlupe. The silence of walking in empty nights. The silence of imagination. The silence after they stop. The silence after pressing play. Der dringende Wunsch dieser Gruppe, hier und jetzt nicht zu existieren, aufzugehen in konzentrierter Musik. Vor vier jahren schrieb ich über Severe: „Kein Zögern, keine Unsicherheit hier. (…) Klar, präzise, mit überaus hoher Dichte.“ (My Disco)

Über die Performance von Objekt und Ezra Miller schließlich kann ich wenig Kluges sagen, die Notizen sind undeutlich, bereits als ich sie schreibe. Dieses Set ist eine Kata aus Licht und Sound, deren Bewegungen mit jeder Wiederholung an Kraft und Nachdruck gewinnen. Dieses Licht: zumeist in der Horizontalen in das Publikum gerichtet, Licht der zweiten Person Plural: Wir sind die Empfänger, wir sind die Leinwand. Schließlich, der Moment dieser beiden Tage: Das Vocal-Sample und dann Love inna Basement, niemand hier kann es fassen, jede Konzentration explodiert. Für zwanzig Minuten ist hier nichts zu denken, reine Körpersache, ansatzlose Ruhe im Pandämonium. Das große Rave-Versprechen ist wahr (es ist nun genug gedacht worden).

Pablo’s Eye present a performance about weather, visuals sublimating, ever-new suns rising and fading away. There is a generality, an all-encompassing perspective to this performance, that transcends the boundaries of even this venue. „He wondered what new weather she had divined/It was night and the city orange“.


  1. In dieser Hinsicht sind die Nächte im Kraftwerk vergleichbar mit den Tagen in japanischen Gärten: eine Bank, ein Teehaus, eine Kathedrale und die Unfassbarkeit der geformten Umgebung. 

Juli

The mezzanine level of Sightglass is bustling at this time of the day, making the fact that the lower floor is designed to hold a maximum of ten patrons at full capacity all the more commendable.

Along the bar, a free as in coffee startup consultation is taking place, the vocal fry soothing over whatever deep domain experience, human ressources and management background is relayed to two young trucker-jackeded entrepreneurs. The phrase fermented time is uttered and followed by a pause for added effect.

Despite the amount of business conducted in the former warehouse, the overall mood remains calm and Californian. It’s friday after all. Down below, the barista adjusts the small red comb in his sizeable afro after pulling what is presumeably the four hundred twenty second espresso shot of the day. He wipes a hand on his Queen shirt, skull motif. It has been a long day. Outside, the clouds lay heavy and low on the sightlines to downtown and Telegraph Hill. A single slim figure disappears into the haze. The dogs keep barking and a week proceeds to wind down.

Sightglass Coffee, SoMa, San Francisco.

Mai

The thing is, everybody wears very good sneakers: With tight fitting sweatpants, peaking below striped djellabas and dashikis, combined with dresses, tracksuits and leggings are the chunky, the limited and the collaborative, gleaming white or radiating volt, pink and, sometimes, a multitude of iridescent. Intermediate-level Vapormaxes (Utility, Flyknit, Plus) seem to be stakes to play dans la rue, one-upped by 720s, Kiko Kostadinov’s Gel-Delvas and the bulbous sculptural offerings Han Kjøbenhavn and Puma have been putting out lately. The general selection slants soccer and running, mediterranean street kid and La Haine. Athletic footwear choices speak of discernment and respect for the urban space: look good when stepping outside, you owe the streets of Marseille.

Marseille is an impressive, varied assembly of architecture. Both the elevated and the mundane are housed in thoughtful (or at least, deceisive) structures that weave into a gritty, dense fabric that presents its scars as proudly as its triumphs.

A young man passes, his architecturally sculpted upper body squaring Rue d’Aubagne. Grey technical fabric spans voluminius chest muscles, disproportionally slim legs stick out from boxer’s shorts in shiny leggings, their panelling suggesting a martial future for everybody. His hair is cropped into a precise fade. Above the left ear, a succession of shaven vertical lines combine with a longer horizontal one: a thick barbell, the straightest possible, most elegant commitment to his sport, to be renewed daily, during morning routine.

April

Everything at Winsome, Los Angeles, radiates comfort. Woods and leathers are light, the space is airy and, at this time of day, mostly empty. Everything about layout, menu and personnel suggests American diner, albeit re-colored, re-tooled and re-cast to fit the Silver Lake set. A backdrop against which meaningful glances may be exchanged, plans made, and, most importantly, intents are declared as loudly and clearly as possible.

Two tables over, masculine drawls discuss cast and casting for an upcoming project. It is repeatedly referred to as a „feel good movie“, a group of words that seem purposefully assembled to enable maximum vocal fry. The granola is served with strawberrys, and it is excellent, as every granola in California tends to be. Ice teas are ordered before, after and with everything.

„Martinis are better in daylight“, another declaration, made over the faint clinks of clear ice cubes in thin-walled glasses, as another day, and another power brunch passes on the patio, in bright sunlight and stark shadow.

Winsome, Silver Lake, Los Angeles.

Dezember

Self-discipline is empathy with your future self, las ich zu Beginn des Jahres irgendwo auf Twitter. Das ist gut gesagt, wenn 2018 etwas gelehrt hat, dann dass kurzfristige Gratifikation möglicherweise unser größtes Problem ist. Es ist Kunst, sich zu unterwerfen, alle Konsequenzen und vor allem die schmerzhaften anzunehmen. Weil es nur dann die Chance gibt, den Dingen Gewicht zu verleihen, weil sie nur dann wirklich existieren. Gleichzeitig muss man wissen, wann und wo der Schnitt zu setzen ist. Sich mit gleicher Eleganz, Sicherheit und Würde lossagen, den Moment sezieren und gerade auf diese Weise das Neue zu schaffen. Beides, Unterwerfung und der Schnitt, sind notwendige Teile des Vertrauens in den Prozess, nicht seine Resultate.

Das war in diesem Jahr weiterhin zu lernen, wiederum in Japan: Auf dem Weg durch die unbeschreiblichen Wälder von Wakayama und am Tag des Taifuns in Kyoto, den ich in einem Bunker neben Hōkan-ji verbrachte. Es war zu lernen in London, wo ich Hōjōki las (Architektur und Geisteszustand, natürlich), als wir Subhuman Inhuman Superhuman und das Dach der Triennale für uns hatten, als in der Ferne der Frühling begann. Es war zu lernen bei Dan Flavin in München und angesichts Ryoji Ikeda’s Point of no Return (2018).

Demut, Unterwerfung, langfristiges Denken, weniges könnte unzeitgemäßer erscheinen. Ich denke, es ist der Weg der kommenden Jahre: weniger Freiheiten und weniger Gratifikationen. The wrong roads are being paved in an increasingly automated culture that values ease, und darum müssen wir gegen diese Form der Zugänglichkeit sein, und gegen Komfort. Der einfache Zugang zu allen Dingen ist eine Einladung, sich mit Anspruchsvollem zu befassen — nicht zum Versinken im zuerst Vorgefundenen. Zukünftige Infrastruktur muss die Verfeinerung ihrer Inhalte hervorbringen, nicht die Erhöhung geistlosen Durchsatzes. Es ist weiterhin an uns, diese Strukturen zu bauen. Grace as defiance, Musik des Jahres 2018.

Winter

  • Regis – Blood Witness
  • Lucy – The High Priestress (Blawan Remix)
  • Vuurwerk – Warrior
  • Gaika – Little Bits
  • Inhalt – Occupations (Black Merlin Remix)
  • Front 242 – Don’t Crash
  • Ital Tek – Memory Shard
  • DJ Boring – Winona
  • Xmal Deutschland – Qual (12″ Remix)
  • Joey Bada$$ – Piece of Mind
  • Sabre – Holy Water
  • /\\Aught – 6
  • Joey Bada$$ – Escape 120
  • S. Olbricht – Ovacrwded (Slow)

Frühling

  • Acronym – Planetary Boundaries
  • Felix K, Marcel Dettmann, Sa Pa & Simon Hoffmann – Rauch
  • Lee Gamble – Dollis Hill
  • Alva Noto – Uni Version
  • Topdown Dialectic – 20170804–05
  • Marcel Fengler – Sphinx (Alva Noto Remodel)
  • Lootpack – Loopdigga
  • Seelow – TFE XX4 B
  • Obscure Shape & SHDW – Am Ende der Welt
  • Pom Pom – Untitled (O–Ton 111/A1)
  • Somewhen – Kilo
  • Le Tigre – Deceptacon
  • Jeru the Damaja – Whatever
  • Efdemin – Sirius

Sommer

  • Trust – The Dazzle
  • GZA – Duel of the Iron Mic
  • Shed – Lumber Fix TT
  • Kareem – Your Markets are Volatile
  • Rin – Avirex
  • Heathered Pearls – Under The Bridge (Fort Romeau’s Amerikas Cities Mix)
  • Skee Mask – Flyby Vfr
  • Gang of Four – Damaged Goods
  • Dabrye & MF Doom – Lil Mufukuz
  • Shed – Well Done (303edit)
  • Phase Fatale – Reverse Fall
  • Drexciya – Andreaen Sand Dunes
  • Jan Jelinek – Tendency
  • Joey Bada$$ – 95 Til Infinity
  • Kareem – My Degree is a Black Belt

Herbst

  • Skee Mask – 274
  • Sei A – Space in Your Mind (DJ Tennis Miami Dub)
  • Wu–Tang Clan – Wu–Tang Master
  • Belief Defect – Deliverance
  • Demdike Stare – Savage Distort
  • Kamaal vs. Wu–Tang – Catch the Criminal Loop
  • Ital Tek – Reflection through Destruction
  • Xmal Deutschland – Polarlicht
  • Vril – Haus (12″ version)
  • Warsaw – The Drawback (All Of This For You)
  • Objekt – Secret Snake
  • Belief Defect – Disembarking Horizon
  • Warsaw – At a later Date
  • Lee Gamble – Motor System
  • Yann Cook – Time Bend
  • Sisters of Mercy – Alice

Winter

  • Clouds – Base Damage
  • Zuli – Archimedes (featuring Abyusif)
  • Absolute – Malfunction
  • Zuli – Ahmed?
  • Clouds – Dark Leviathan Krew
  • Lee Gamble – Kali Wave
  • Operation Ivy – Freeze Up
  • … But Alive – Antimanifest
  • Clouds – Skulcoast
  • D.A.F. – Absolute Körperkontrolle
  • Stable Mates – Good Soul
  • Delf – Meditation
  • Gila – 106 Slipper
  • Khotin – Water soaked in Forever
  • Xmal Deutschland – Niemandsland
  • Ludwig A.F. Röhrscheid – Velocity

Sets

Four days in September, I lived in the refurbished remains of a 1970s apartment building, constructured for a long-gone working class in Kyoto. I laundered my clothes in its cellar, I slept beneath its raw concrete ceilings. I witnessed the strongest taifun through its latticed windows, the rain slashing around Hōkanji, which stood unimpressed, as it has forever. Within the howl, all fell silent. I remember overlooking Higashiyama, its houses made from aging wood (noticing how its particular gradient is determined by age and exposure), the trees and rocks – as if all this was my home. As if it had years of my life to emblazon itself into my brain. A concrete box in a taifun, my love and me inside, and our clothes hanging to dry on an extendable fishing rod across the room. A day to itself, in this year of change and momentum (at RC Hotel, Kyoto).

One of the most significant things about the urban fabric of Japanese metroplexes is the number and cultural integration of 7-11, Family Mart and other convenience stores: Multi-purpose hubs, more or less 24 hours per day, for all kinds of social strada. They provide grocery shopping assistance to the elderly, free Wi-Fi to tourists, wastebins and agreeable cheap food to everyone. The Famima entrance jingle is one of my strongest and most present memories from my times spent in Tokyo and other japanese cities. These stores cry for ethnographic inquiry beyond William Gibson’s inquisive modelling of the Lucky Dragon franchise in All Tomorrow’s Parties.

Die Kieswege und der Geruch nach Zeder, moosgrüne Steinlaternen, gewundenes Holz, glimmendes Licht in ausgehöhlten Bambusrohren, überhaupt: Bambus. Rinzai-Rot-Orange. Wetteiferndende Zikarden an den Ufern jedes Rinnsals. Das dichte, schweigende Moos entlang sorgsam angelegter, gleichsam planvoll gewachsener Blickachsen.

Walking the streets of Osaka by myself after nightfall, immersed in neon light and concrete, the 1980s endlessly reflected long since their time has ended. I have no purpose here, other than keeping momentum, researching myself in alley corners. 2015 seems a long time ago, I think, as I head back to Dōtonbori to meet a woman under battered Ezaki Glico, research unfinished and thoughts unthought.

September

There was one of the perfect silences in the 100-Meter Gallery of Odawara Art Foundation. You know, the considered kind that includes a faint hum of air condition running at its lowest setting. There was no movement of air. This is what can be learned from the Japanese: Silence. The silence of deferring to the dao of all things, while doing what has to be done by playing one’s part, elegantly. The silence of recognizing each thing’s and each being’s part. The silence of doing nothing when all is done.

Watching the slim, immaculate fingers of the JR East clerk fly over a landscape of unlabeled, but color-coded hardware keys, each press producing the kind of satisfying mechanical click keyboard afficionados have been paying substantial sums for, I wonder whether his fingertips have already flipped open to reveal a set of spidery steel rods, inputting data with superhuman speed and precision. The clerk is wearing a short-sleeved grey button down, embroidered with the vaguely brutalist JR logo. His physiogonomy, attention and complete being could not be more focused. Around him, an assortment of laminated scraps of paper, highlighted katakana phrases, flyers and maps is taped into a Monet-esque array of tranquil color. The dynamic silence of faint office sounds surrounds us.

Everything is permanently going down. The only thing left for us to care about is how we and every thing goes down. This is why leaving small stone mounds along the hiking trail matters. This is why making good rice bowls matters. This is why optimizing your CSS grid matters. Matters of grace are actually this: matter. It’s in defiance of the universe that we apply attention and care to small things. It’s a gesture, and gestures are all we have. Put care and love into every move, in defiance of your insignificance. Create matter by claiming it emphatically and carefully. (On mossy rocks halfway between Hongu-Taisha and Yunomine-Onsen)

You look so grim, Craig said.

August

Everybody and everything at Schumann’s Tagesbar appears to make an effort to contribute to a specific script, emulating mid-century day-drinking and one of the later iterations of the Leisure Suit Larry series of computer games at the same time.

Regulars line the bar on stools upholstered in oxblood leather, having crémants and trying to coax nightlife credibility out of the well-informed and strategically tattooed bar staff. The latter communicates like a disciplined sports team – orders are shouted across the room in shorthand language, matching requested drinks with staff members closest to the required appliance or bottle.

There is a short moment of silence, slightly moving air and long gazes. A party of three enters, surveying the establishment, a shaggy dog in tow. A short tour of the sparsely populated interior seems to end inconclusively and unsatisfactory: „There is no place for us here“, one declares as the group exits stage left.

The same moment, two women in sand-colored robes enter, their faces veiled. Nonetheless, they are recognized and treated to the usual: two slices of apple pie and two iced chocolates.

Underneath it all, faint bossa and tropicana muzak is heard and immediately forgotten, evaporating over ruby-colored drinks and a dazzle of miniature canapés, all traces of crust surgically removed from soft toast slices. Time slows in the most pleasant way.

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