Oubys (Testtoon Records), 20.15 hrs - 21.00 hrs

So yes, we survived the onslaught of past weekend, opened up by highly impressive performances by nsi. (note : the set was entirely recorded, except the first 8 minutes - thx Yves! - so let’s hope this ends up on the internet in one form or another…) and the gentile guys from Sheffield, SND. The entire Substance crew was impressed how well the night went, bringing smiles to their faces, even at 6 in the morning, while some of us were crashing, physically. The life of an organiser. There’s nothing romantic about it, so take it or leave it.

As last year, the first musical notes on saturday were brought forward by none-other than our very own resident dj Special K. One might ponder what’s so special about this particular, egnimatic ‘K’ persona. Well, nothing much really… He’s as common, except for his wild hairstyle, as you and me, and he takes his job with ease, and an immense amount of concentration at the same time, whilst not losing touch with his audience for one nano-second. Talented & incredibly gifted, he’s one to look out for in the future!

More near than the far future, K paved the path for Bruno Pronsato, who stood up and delivered what he does best, simple, yet effective dancefloor material with enough diversity to keep the listener/dancing crowd in a state of daze & awe. Job well done, Steven!

As the man who stood up, took the decks, bringing what none of us could ever imagine, even in our wildest imaginations… Those in the know of Marcel Fengler’s Mnml Sggs mix, getting praised reviews all over the net, already had a small peek of what to expect, but Fengler, flying in on time, thanks to swift airlines, and our swift all-round driver Evad, shredded the place to pieces, at one particular moment during the night taking it very literally… No words can express it, to be honest… Quoting Marcel, mailing me the day after : ‘pure dope‘. View for yourself here.

Looking back, two days to cherish. Many thanks, love and gratitude to all artists, volunteers, people who beared with us during months, enduring patience and time… you’re all in our hearts.

What’s in store for the future? You’ll find out, eventually.

Yesterday, all my troubles seemed so far away… Yes, listening to the Beatles (imagine…) at the Vooruit backstage, setting up stage for day 2, and closing day, of the Resonance Ghent festival, edition 2010. Steven Ford, nom d’artiste Bruno Pronsato has entered the building, and Marcel Fengler has yet to catch a flight, outbound from Stockholm, where he delivered an amazing (so we heard) dj-set yesterday at the Skyddsrummet night. Things look promising! Tickets still available at a Fnac store near you, and many more addresses…

Opening up for them & sharing a common love for Cluster’s Grosses Wasser LP, Tobias Freund & Max Loderbauer (nsi.) delivered an amazing, fully improvised set of tension-full electronics, reminissing the best of German 70’s avant-garde (think minimalist Cluster, Harmonia, Roedelius…) combined with contemporary minimalistic techno. Fully recorded, let’s hope this live-set will see it’s way on the internet in any form…

Followed by SND, who brought the best in abstract cut-ups, largely based on their most recent release ‘Atavism‘ (Raster Noton - 2009), 100 % digital warmth washing over an intrigued audience in waves. It’s funk and 2-step combined, but not as a general audience knows it.

In the meantime, downstairs at the Concerthall, deejays Mate & Fudge of Ghent’s very own After12 collective, took opening hours for an exclusive night of bass-heavy music, that we can hardly call ‘dubstep’ anymore, entitled SUBSTANCE. The dubstep form has incredibly evolved over the course of the last year, constantly shifting, creating new hybrid forms, proven by absolute highlight of the night Slugabed, bringing an inspired Serato set (even with an incredible hangover - get well soon, Craig!), right after Paul Spymania, who luckily took along some ragga 7-inches along with him from home. Good choice, surprising, and most excellent. Designated by BBC Radio 1 bassqueen Mary Anne Hobbs ‘one to keep an eye on’, Untold hit the audience with subtle, compact basslines and clean percussion, his trademark sound, while Paul Rose, a.k.a. Scuba brought the 500+ attendees what they came for, streamlined quality, in the very same line as his just-released Substance mix album, released only a few weeks ago on Ostgut Ton. 4:30 am, and time for 2562. His far-from-typical sound, drenched in atmospherics, with lots of attention for the use of time and space, combined with classic Detroit-ish, influenced techno kept the audience shouting for more… Sadly, 6 am, and time to close the venue down, getting ready for the following day, here and now.

This night’s line-up…

Sat 6.03 ballroom Vooruit
doors 22.00

<house & techno>

22.00 Special K
01.00 Bruno Pronsato LIVE
02.00-05.00 Marcel Fengler

See you there !

Best,

RG Team

Winter has (officially) passed, spring has come, and all things come to a good end. Or beginning. Depends what one’s view on things is. First of all, an enormous ‘thank you’ to all people involved in the succesfull ResonanceGhent 2009 festival, including all artists, collegues, supporters & volunteers. You know who you are, our gratitude is eternal..

An overview of imaginary & video-footage ::

SpinEarth.TV  - video report by Justin Toland

ResidentAdvisor - day 1

ResidentAdvisor - day 2 (set 1) / day 2 (set 2)

Flickr.com - courtesy of H-N-S

Youtube.com - “Resonance at Limonada” by Francois Van Liefferinghe

Youtube.com - Mokira live (in 5 parts)

Youtube.com - Deepchord presents Echospace live

NightCode.be - Review by Dave Volkaerts

If there’s any visual material you’re willing to send us, please don’t refrain and contact us via info(at)resonanceghent.be

So, what’s next. Not much to tell at the moment, besides some ideas we’re developing as i type. Our goal is to offer some minor-scale - whether in coöp with other like-minded promotors/organisations or not - events during the year until the clock strikes twelve again, and a larger, multiple-day festival is presented once again over the course of the new year.

Also note the two-weekly residency at Bar Limonada where dj’s such as Special K (we hope to upload his intriguing opening dj-set of Day 2 sometime soon with his permission)  & 0106 play out the best in contemporary electronic music..

More news soon.

Sort of .. Yesterday saw the last performance-weekend of the annual Happy New Ears Festival, taking place in my city of birth Kortrijk, which was once a rather dull place if it wasn’t for Woody Allen, Hal Hartley, Emir Kusturica & Roman Polanski retrospectives taking place at cultural centre Limelight where i spent lots & lots of schoolnights in the dark, watching the flickering lights… No popcorn or chips, no annoying cellphones, just good movies, for the love of good movies. And all that - positively - changed when the people behind this centre decided to take some steps further and launched Artscentre Buda, with it’s own independent 3-room movie theatre, which are easily rebuilt to performance/concert-spaces in the blink of an eye.

But, back to where i started off.

First on the bill was a duo performance by French composer Pierre Bastien & British jazz drummer Steve Arguelles. Bastien, who in the eighties begun to make mechanical-based instruments compromised of Meccano machines which play various ‘traditional’ instruments such as a Morrocan bendir, a Javanese saron, koto & violin, has a reputation of bringing ever-unique performances with a twist & dash of surrealism & dadaism. Which brings along the fact that sometimes it’s hard to keep focus, and quite frankly, after 15min. you’ve about seen it. But not this time. Steve Arguelles (who i frankly never heard of before) definately brought extra value to Bastien’s trademark sound by gentle & then again frantic use of  his drumset, accompanied by very subtle effects, courtesy of his vintage delay/echo box & the legendary Sherman Filterbank. Hard to pinpoint who did what exactly at what time, but sometimes you need to let go of the eyes and let your ears feast. And that’s exactly what this duo did to mine. Thank you very much, & please come again.

After a short pause, it was time for ErikM, regular performer at this festival & one of the world’s most notorious turntablists next to people like Otomo Yoshihide and/or Philip Jeck. Since last time i’ve seen him perform, when he gave me an immediate headache with his constant use of high-pitched noises & tones, i’ve decided to leave him aside for now and go for a short walk into town, since next up was - for many an already legendary musician - William Basinski.

William Basinski, a notorious NYC underground figure who first got widely noticed in the late nineties with his release ‘Shortwavemusic’ on the Raster Noton label creates vast works using tape loops & delay systems, shortwave radio static (hence the title…) & found sounds. In 2001 he got to work on what would become his most ‘recognizable’ composition ‘The Disentigration Loops‘, based on old tapeloops (heavily influenced by Brian Eno & Steve Reich amongst others) which had degraded in quality. The rather beautiful and melancholic essence of this composition, released in four series on his own label 2062 Recordings, is that Basinski digitized these loops in real-time, while the tapes slowly crumbled during it’s salvage process, leaving a timestamp history of their demise. For Happy New Ears, he brought a brand new, yet-untitled composition, premiered for the first time… It’s very hard to explain what happened exactly during his performance but the auditive atmospherics in the concerthall where breathtaking. One could hear a needle drop, whilst the people where listening deeply to an ever-continious, yet ever-changing (through it’s demise) loop which will never be heard ever again. And this is precisely what makes his performances so unique & emotional, for the audience as for himself.  As one audience member said: “Thank you William”.

And thank you Happy New Ears. See/hear you next year !

Happy New Ears blog (including video footage & reports)

In a state of humidity and heat we just about survived the annual ten-day festival Gentse Feesten, taking over all major places in the city centre of Ghent, where folk-admirers suddenly see the light of day from whichever rock they came crawling under from (nothing personal…), where dusk falls and people end up standing in puddles of sweat, beer, fast-food, and last-but-not-least urine…

But there’s good news too! So the line-up from the Ten Days Off (formerly known as Ten Days Of Techno) wasn’t that surprising, yet some shows struck a major chord. Day 1 brought us a showcase of the British label DC Recordings with live-acts by The Emperor Machine, Padded Cell and dj-sets by Jonathan Saul Kane aka the legendary Depth Charge & one half of Padded Cell bringing us the best in psychedelic disco-house. Be sure to check out their brand new compilation ‘Death Before Distemper 2‘, the follow-up to (you’ve guessed it…) ‘Death Before Distemper 1′.

Other worthy mentions for Richie Hawtin who absolutely tore the roof of the main Concerthall, Ghent’s own Pitch & Hold (aka Fredo & Simon Halsberghe) who brought us a fine, two-hour, Berghain-inspired techno-set, and the legendary Black Dog who proved that despite the very mediocre recent ‘Radio Scarecrow’ album they DO can deliver a bangin’ old-school breakbeat-techno set.

The price for worst showcase definately goes to German trio The Field who brought an enormously uninspired & unfocused set, and all of this bugged by their live-drummer who had an incredibly tough time keeping the pace up with the rest of the band. Truly truly terrible. Better luck next time.

And sadly, no good news without sad news as well. Brussels’ finest recordshop Le Bonheur ceases to exist at the end of August, and the sympathetic owner Thierry asks everyone with their hearts in the right place for good music in all of its forms to support them one last time. So drop by before the end of August, get your hands on whatever you can get your hands on (prices are cheap - 50 percent discount on everything) and don’t forget to thank Thierry for all his years of hard & splendid work. One address : Antoine Dansaertstr. 196, Brussels, Belgium.

Finally, last night saw the brand new, long expected, new edition of Brussels-based dj Darko’s Statik Dancin’ party concept. Lovely people being there for one thing solely : music; a unique location being the cellar floor of cultural institute Bozar and last but not least headliner Donnacha Costello (wouldn’t be much of a party without a proper headliner, would there?).

Dublin-based producer Donnacha Costello has been paving the road for warm, heartfelt & exciting electronic music in all of its forms for the past decade now with releases on labels as diverse as D1 Recordings, Mille Plateaux/Force Inc. (’Together Is The New Alone‘ - 2001), Raster Noton (’Isol‘ as Modul - 2004), Kompakt and, of course, his own label Minimise launched in 2004. The Color Series, first released in an edition of 10 stand-alone releases and later re-issued & compiled on CD with alternate versions, are to this day a milestone in contemporary electronic music, recorded live on analogue gear without overdubs. These releases (including highlight ‘Cacao’) have a unique trademark sound, blending hypnotic rhythmic and melodic patterns (with elements of the past - think the ‘Leeds Warehouse’ sound) into something infectious, clever as deep.

Curious? You should be.

Donnacha Costello - Looking Back, Facing Forward Mix (Link)
Donnacha Costello - Live in Dublin (Youtube)
Donnacha Costello - Myspace
Donnacha Costello - Minimise website (being reworked for the moment)