ANNULLATO IL CONCERTO DEI SAROOS
A CAUSA DI UN’AVARIA DEL LORO FURGONE
CHE LI HA BLOCCATI PER STRADA
mercoledì 9 febbraio 2011
sPAZIO211
presenta
SAROOS
(CONCERTO ANNULLATO)
(Florian Zimmer from Iso68, Jersey +
Christoph Brandner from Lali Puna, Console
+ Max Punktezahl from the Notwist, Contriva)
doors: 21:29
ticket: 6 euro
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SAROOS
Berlin- munich based trio Saroos read a lot of sci-fi, so it should come as little surprise that the music they make sounds downright otherworldly. Florian Zimmer (Iso68, Jersey), Christoph Brandner (Lali Puna, Console) and Max Punktezahl (the Notwist, Contriva) are as much scientists as they are composers and instrumentalists — they’re obsessed with sound as particles in motion, and devoted to creating stylistic collisions that pop as much as they probe.
The group’s 2006 self-titled debut was released quietly by the Notwist’s Alien Transistor label in 2006, but the break-steeped post-rock and electronica contained therein showcased Zimmer and Brandner’s ear for Two Lone Swordsmen-meets-Slint experimentation. Anticon’s Alias even stopped by for a collaboration, on the song “During this Course,” and Punktezahl ended up joining when Saroos hit the road with his better-known band. Knowledge both arcane and empirical suggests power in threes, so it makes sense that the band has hit its stride since. In 2009, Saroos covered post-punk legend Graeme Jefferies for Morr Music’s Not Given Lightly compilation, a tribute to the obscure but excellent ’80s New Zealand alt-rock scene. Later that year, they got to work on a stunning second album, See Me Not, which finds cLOUDDEAD’s Odd Nosdam in the role of producer and unofficial fourth member. But what does Saroos sound like? Exotica gone even wilder — abstract and shadowy. Or dub in reverse, where solid grooves emerge from skronk and noise. Like beats coated in dust, pusher through space by an astral zephyr. Or a huge wall of sound, frayed at both ends, whose core is a woven mass of impenetrable sonic particulate. And still, the effect isn’t one of claustrophobia. The Saroos sound is, as is its makers’ wont, something to be explored, something to get lost in.
Saroos – “See me not”
“Upon everything was a haze of restlessness and oppression; a touch of the unreal and the grotesque, as if some vital element of perspective or chiaroscuro were awry.”
So wrote H.P. Lovecraft, the science fiction legend, about an otherworldly scene in his short story The Colour Out of Space, though he might as well have been describing the second album from German trio, Saroos. On the -produced See Me Not, members Florian Zimmer (Iso68,Jersey), Christoph Brandner (Lali Puna, Console) and Max Punktezahl (the Notwist, Contriva) achieve a rare synchronicity that lends their poly-genre instrumental compositions an uncanny air, like something beamed in from a different dimension. Equal parts Krautrock, musiqueconcrete, post-rock and No Wave, the album is both timeless and rooted in history, noisy and bound to a groove, completely foreign and, yet, surprisingly familiar. On the opener, “Lobster Claw,” a lazy, hypnotic rhythm gets devoured by five kinds of skronk. The full-bodied “Daylight Chant” brings to mind the sort of experiments pioneered by Tortoise and heard in contemporaries like Jaga Jazzist, until the midway point, where what sounds like a reversed Mariachi sample and a clanging hip-hop beat rule the day. “Fog People” likewise blurs the lines between what’s recorded live and what’s of electronic origin, dipping into extremely dark dub on its way toward absolution. Throughout “See Me Not”, melodies and sounds shift shapes, stall, explode, collide or get trapped in loops. Some wobble through tracks, demolished particles. Others vanish, all in the name of constant flux. The low end on “Scott” is particularly suggestive ofNosdam’s presence — that purple crush heard on records from cLOUDDEAD, or in his This is My Element sound track. While parts of the record were recorded in Berlin and Weilheim, Nosdam became a fourth member of the band when Saroos came to Berkeley to work in his studio. Consider it part of the cultural exchange initiative kicked off by Themselves joining the Notwist in Weilheim to make 2005’s 13&God. The results of this international collaboration are equally bewitching, as testified to by the taut autumnal beauty of “Yukoma,” and the buoyant yet ethereal closer, “Outrigger.” Accordingly, See Me Not sees its release via Anticon in the States, and on the Notwist’s Alien Transistor elsewhere.
