USA tour report (1): Experi-MENTAL festival #6, NY

In a few parts of the report I will write the main thoughts and discoveries, while the untold part will stay more in the level of feelings, which is not easy to describe. Although North America did really really big impact on me, it's other world, which at first wasn't easy to accept, but quite soon it became a pleasant place to be.

Firstly I want to thank the main person - Robert, from PAS Musique, without him it wouldn't happen. Our friendship began in 2011 when I organized concerts for his band in Lithuania. And this time he invited me to his annual experimental music and film festival named "ExperiMENTAL" #6, based in New York.

So, my first tour show was in this festival, but before that I had a few days to adapt to new time, which was very hard. Never experienced such a jet-lag! It took me 5-6 days to recover. I needed also time to get used to so many black people, as they looked sometimes scarry, especially when standing in groups and you think that they can do something bad to you. Brooklyn is chill, especially the place I stayed, but Manhattan is crazy, this flow of people, those tall buildings, traffic, rap music... crazy atmosphere, but somehow I like it! and already miss it ;) I wasn't in places I shouldn't be, and overall can't say that I saw much of the city, but that was enough to be excited and to want to come back ; )

So, the festival (which lasts 5 days - September 25-29th) started in venue called "Spectrum" situated in Manhattan. The first day didn't impress me much, it was ambient / improv / no wave music evening, sitting concert.

The second one was way more better. The other venue "Silent Barn" based in Brooklyn, looked like more a party place, so the atmosphere was easier. The further three days of the festival took part here. Although I missed the amount of people I used to see in the festivals in Lithuania. I understand, there's so much happening in NY that it's hard with attendance, and that's why Robert tries to mix the scenes, so that artists from different circles invite their friends. So, that tells that the whole programm of the festival was ecelctic and I really liked that mix of experimental - noise - psych rock - jazz - breakcore - improv - amient - drone - dance music, etc etc.

The main discovery of this night was Borts Minorts, kind of unrealised aspect of me ;) highly energetic, extreme acrobat, and fun show! here's a short clip from their performance that night:

The other act that catched me was The Use, it's Michael from Pas Musique on electronix, synths and theremin. As he claims, it's electronic glitc hop, idm, psych pop. Listen:

SIS - were three girls, two made kind of dance performance and the other one music and voice. It was beautiful, atmospheric, modern, kind of very actual type of electronic music, but not banal or very trendy looking. And the voice was charming. No suprise big companies are interested in this project:

Third night was mostly noise orientated. And so I played too. Bob Bellerue aka Half Normal, was the one whose noise based on guitar, contact mics, voice and amps I really enjoyed. Solid, serious, quite slow, but effective noise. Bob is the main guy of the well known End Thymes festival. Here's the full performance:

4th night had more guitars and drums, which I kind of missed in previous two nights, so it was Big Plastic Finger and Din Machine, whom I enjoyed mostly. Big Plastic Finger (what a name!) as a band looked a little weird, but the sound was good. Spaced out psych rock avant jazz.



 Din Machine was more jazzy, fusion, more music. More notes to my ears was good for that time.



The last night was films. Experimental short movies. Was good to relax after all those  7-8 acts of music each night.
Overall the festival was organized well. I really wish it would get bigger crowd and more feedback, although I know the organizers are satisfied with this edition. Also I think that it could be less then 5 days and maybe less acts, as it's really hard to hear them all, while you really don't wanna miss any.
So, anyway, this festival was really good introduction to experience (mainly) New York music scene and yeah it's so huge, that I believe next year they will have no less interesting programm.

Visit fest web here: http://emfmusic.com