Maybe you’ve heard of fabric in London if you’re into electronic music. I have never been there myself but I’ve been enjoying many of their live mixes which they sell online.
We resurrected the Zauberwald at Waldeck Freakquenz 2016, an small forest clearing with surround sound installations. It’s really quite the experience, standing in a beautifully illuminated forest and not being able to pinpoint the exact location where the sound emanates from.
Since we had some black lights, we decided on some last minute crafting. Here is a short instruction on how to build some easy black light objects.
Materials for one object:
about 2,4 m strips of wood (thin)
small nails
hammer
white wool
UV paint
Saw strips of wood each about 80 cm and connect with nails to a triangle shape. Of course you can build other shapes, too.
Put nails into the wood in about 5cm intervals.
Connect the wool to one side and start making patterns (keep it tight).
When you’re done, paint the frame with UV paint.
If you want to build 3D objects, just build two triangles, one slightly smaller than the other, and insert it in the bigger one.
Sadly, my camera is to shit to capture the whole thing at night. But it looks nice. Maybe next year we’ll try something more difficult. Enjoy your crafting!
This is a first. Me liking a German band, with German lyrics. And punk, too! They applied for our festival, Waldeck Freakquenz, probably by accident. Because just every magazine has just been all over them and they’re way too big for us now. But still, the songs stuck with me.
9 Chelsea Wolfe – Abyss (2015)
From the heart of darkness comes this atmospheric album.
8 Bohren & der Club of Gore – Sunset Mission (2000)
Music when I want to block the world out and think of rain and driving through a dark neon-lighted city with fat raindrops in my windshield wipers.
7 UNKLE – War Stories (2007)
Still haunting my playlists after so many years.
6 Waltari – Torcha! (1992)
Waltari, those genre-defying crazy Finns! Saw them live this year and while I’m not too keen on the new album, this renewed my admiration for Kärtsy, because he’s just an absolute joy to watch perform. Also, bitching hairbrush-nostalgics on this album from the 90s. Vogue!
5 Deftones – White Pony (2000)
A masterpiece. Yes, that happened a lot. Along with Tool, Klaxons and Unkle and such.
4 Kylesa – Ultraviolet (2013)
Hypnotic melodic sludge. Kylesa always delivers. Escpecially love “Unspoken” and “Long Gone”.
Again, killer tracks on this album, “I’m no gold”, “Vox tuned D.E.D.”, with all of the drama and all of the fun. Sadly not available for linkage.
2 Kangding Ray – Solens Arc (2014)
Saw him live in March, such a treat. Atmospheric layers of intricate beats. His new album “Cory Arcane” is also out in 2015, but I haven’t yet listened to it as much, so ‘Solens Arc’ it remains for the time being.
1 Leftfield – Alternative Light Source (2015)
This album has such awesome tracks. I really listened to “Bilocation” and “Little Fish” a lot this year. Leftfield are back, cheers!
“A Shoggoth on the roof. Sounds scrazy, no, certifiably insane, but here in our little village of Arkham, Massaschusetts you might say everyone of us has a Shoggoth on the roof. And I’m not speaking metaphorically.” (opening lines)
“Good heavens, are these human cadavers?” Wait, you didn’t know there is a musical inspired by H.P. Lovecraft? Yes, there is. It’s parody of ‘Fiddler on the roof’ and it’s hilarious. If you are not in a place where you can listen, bookmark it for later. Now.
Its performance is apparently cursed (no surprise there), not only due to legal issues.
There are some things that man was not meant to adapt to musical theatre, and A Shoggoth on the Roof has long been regarded as a musical that cannot and must not be produced. The original 1979 attempt to stage it ended in mysterious failure. (cthululives.org)
Emptyset is a Bristol based production project formed in 2005 by James Ginzburg and Paul Purgas. Working across performance, installation and the moving image the project examines the physical properties of sound, through electromagnetism, architecture and process based image making. Their work considers the legacy of analogue media reflecting upon structural/materialist art production and the perceptual boundaries between noise and music. (Homepage)
The video for ‘Collapse’ matches the sequence of process and distortions within the audio, by affecting footage through a series of analogue junctions. As a means of synchronising sound and image an electromagnetic coil was used, which when triggered by the audio outputted from a power amp created corresponding visual distortions. This resulted in the audio directly driving and shaping the signal itself. A cube was used as a structure that could be collapsed throughout the video, shifting from solidity to a series of disparate distorted planes, still locked to the sound but no longer contained in their original state.(Video description on vimeo)
They are performing in Hamburg on December 4th at Körber Forum.
Interview about ‘Collapsed’ from 2012 @ The Quietus
The year is rapidly coming to an end. I believe it’s time for my annual list of recommendations. Canadians are dominating and many of the videos are breathtaking. The genre mix is even weirder than usual – chamber music rock, metal, darkwave, drum’n’bass, folk, synthpop, IDM, post-punk – take your pick.
10 Sigur Rós – Kveikur
It all started with this video.
9 Zardonic – Vulgar Display of Bass
If you need to stay awake during a long car drive or set things on fire, this will get you going.
8 Static X – Machine
Wayne Static died. Another great one gone. This made me get out my favorite Static X album. The beginning is just so in your face. Love it!
7 Grimes – Visions
I have danced around Grimes for years and it was never the right moment. She combines so many things, you can’t pin her down. Recently, though…
6 My Brightest Diamond -This is my Hand
New album! Thias has been a fan for years. She was performing in Hamburg but due to our inability to read calendars correctly we missed the concert.
5 TRUST – Joyland
New TRUST album in 2014! I loved TRST (2012) and now we have new darkwave beats straight from the Great White North.
4 Timber Timbre – Hot Dreams
The window, the view, the second story fall… More Canadians.
3 White Lies – Ritual
It just occurred to me that I have never included this album in a Top Ten list before. I wonder why? It’s just so urban melancholy. Since there is no good quality to be found, listen to three tracks in a promo short film.
2 Black Sun Empire – Cruel and Unsual
Same with Black Sun Empire. This is my running music and I’ve been listening to them for years, yet they weren’t included in a Top Ten. It’s about time! Can’t decide on an album or EP though. They have tons and they’re all good.
1 Clark – Feast/Beast
In 2013, Clark released a 2 CD remix album (Amon Tobin, Battles, mostly himself). As always, it’s brilliant.
We need more visitors to get out of this alive, though. Last time, we had a little over 100 paying happy visitors and we barely made it out in the black. If you would like Waldeck-Freakquenz to continue, bring more friends and family into the enchanted forest with you next time. Tell everyone you know about us. This way, more people will have a great weekend and the team of volunteers will be able to keep on organizing this little festival in the future.
As always, ten spots for bands are open. This stage could be yours for an hour.
FAQ
Which genres do you want?
Basically we had a pretty weird mix last time; indie, stoner rock, ska core, drone, electro and what have you. We are not set in any ‘genre bounds’ – if your band is deemed awesome by our jury, you will play.
How do we apply?
Contact us at festival@waldeck-freakquenz.de with a link to your album or song material.
When will we know?
The jury will convene sometime in March. We will tell you as soon as we know who will get to play.
How do we get there?
You’ll need a car and some directions. If you google Burg Waldeck, you will get wrong hits. The address is Waldeck Weg 1, Dorweiler. But it is sort of in the middle of nowhere.
headbugz 