The long announced Heerler Kwark-fest promised to become an all night event, which it eventually turned out to be, with the last band playing at 5:30 or so. Organised by Kwark Records [website], which are the same people behind the Dutch noise-projects M|A|N (Kamiel and Milan) and LSD Mossel (Rudy, with Roel manning the PA), and taking place in a squatted office-building in Heerlen, this event also promised to be *mmh* flexible and drenged in a good we care fuck and whatever attitude that’s so typical for the grind- and blèh-noise-scene that lies at the root of Kwark Records (though the label itself is more impro junkharsh-oriented). At first it looked as if this night was going to become a Holland-Belgium-thing, but with the addition of Jon Eriksen (Se) [myspace] , Sten Ove Toft (Se) [myspace] and Utarm (No) [myspace] (hereafter refered to as The Scandinavian Threesome) the fest grew a bit more international – As things go The Scandinavian Threesome got the doubtful honour of closing the festival – the further you’re coming from the higher you’re on the playlist, which in this case meant some 4:30 in the morning, if all went according to schedule. Nice.
Below is an attempt at writing a review – I tried to get the order in which the bands played right, but must admit that I don’t remember things that exactly anymore. Kwark Records has recently published some pics of the event on their site, which you can find over here.
Flyer with original line-up
The fest itself got a big of a slow ‘n lazy start at 20:30 – Guess the amps needed some time to warm up. Pig Molester (Belgium) [mySpace] opened the fest wearing his classic pig-mask (one has to live up to its name): harsh-noise, drones, clicks ‘n fast glitches and back – this guy keeps sailing an ever changing course within the span of his set, old-school pedalling a galore. Has got a bunch of truly nice releases out, if you’re into the harsh spectrum of the scene you might be interested in checking out his stuff.
M|A|N did a good job rolling on the floor and over each other: two crossdressing human noise boxes: a mike and two pedals each, that’s all they need to party. Released quite some things on their Kwark Records-label.
Third time I saw Totem Blast Frequency, still the same sturdy guy manning a Roland MC505: blamblamblammings at 240 bpm – some of the stuff he did at Heerlen was actually pretty good, but then again, some turns at the knobs resulted in some cheesy sound-effects, that kinda killed the beat – imho his set at TAC, in Eindhoven, some time ago was a tad better.
No John (vs Impostor) (both affliated with the recently founded Fausse(s) Couche(s) [website]) did a pretty calm drone-set from behind a laptop, using processed feedback and voice – laptop ain’t as cool as guitar (the first No John-set I saw was with guitar), but this kind of slowly crescendoway creeping dronemusic is still okay with me – At first I thought Kamiel had been joking when he pointed out in his mail to the bands that if they didn’t get hold on a matrass that that wouldn’t be much of a problem as “the floor is soft enough” – but the thick carpet that covered the floor (remember: it used to be an office-building) was indeed mucho soft, and for a while I felt like camping, a beer at hand.
Terg [website] was harsh as fuck. Jolly good aggression, and people standing upfront. Cool. Watch the movie below, it’s his entire set, dude.
Terg
Krokodillenland [mySpace] – Belgium’s youngest noiseband – for the occasion was just a duo (normally they are with 5), no Dennis Krokodil but Kire was one of the two: steady guitar-solo’s against an electronic wall – Kire: the Axl Rose of the Belgian noise-scene.
Krokodillenland
Jack The Tripper were the first that did a set that exceeded the 30 minute-length. Pysched out drowned beats, feedback, fast clippings and static noise under a strobo-sky. Like in a nuclear disaster-film, man.
Jack The Tripper
Diskoster did what he was best at: rolling and making a mess, screaming the guts out of his body, loosing his glasses in the action, bruise his head with the mike, loose the mike, forget the mike, accidently unplug his gear, loose power, throw it all on a heap. Heavy accidental shit.
Diskoster
As if my own Portable Noise Kremator-set [more info] was accident-free, the classic way: get at a venue with too much gear, only use half of it and throw the remainder on heap, throw a pint of beer over the gear you’re planning to use to make it more sticky, get lost in a cable-hell, start off without a soundcheck to discover your plectrum has gone pook-a-bye. I’m not sure if people have noticed it, but actually I didn’t play during my 3 minute-set: I was looking for that damned plectrum.
Luckily enough the follow-up set together with Cybele [Blue Shift, mySpace] saved things: having forgotten her violin on the train the evening before she played on my guitar, doing voice with me manning the effects (pushing buttons and pulling knobs) – Nice. Hope to get hold on the recordings in some near future.
Vulvax [myspace] literally went through the ceiling, and marked the start of the party-part of the fest. This Fckn Bstrds-spin-off-project (a duo for the occassion) is highly recommended to cheer up all yer parties.
Vulvax
Odal [myspace] is another must-see, and must-book noise-dude. You have to take some frontal male nudism with it though, so this one is for those that like to see dick (if not you can always ask him to come as Dr. Bibber). Active in the scene for over 20 years now, Peter has plenty of stories ’bout the early years, like how he used to trade Dutch porn-magazines against releases from Merzbow, as it was (and still is) quite difficult to get hold on this type of magazines in Japan, due to their strange laws on what can be shown and what not (if this interests you, look it up on Google, their laws have resulted in quite a particular breed of manga-comics).
Odal
The Scandinavian Threesome did a good job too: harshnoise a galore – I had expected them to do a solo-set each, but maybe they changed plans and decided to do a collab-session when they realised that they weren’t going to play before 4 in the morning.
The fest was eventually closed by two guys doing deep Sunn-o))) oriented guitardrones, and eventually Diskoster joined them on drums (“Suddenly there was a drum”), but that I didn’t see anymore.
And here’s some shots taking the morning after (testing my picasaweb-account), so please click (Rat! You need to have a Google-account to do that! Or not?):
