World tour review: Rotterdam, Den Haag, Groningen

14.09 Rotterdam, City Art gallery

Never been in Rotterdam. The venue is nice and quite big gallery in 3 floors, full of metal sculptures made by owner Chris Ripken, also many drawings. We talked a bit about the history of this place and the future. Seems like the future is a bit hazy, cause the local government wanna close it. Hope this won't happen and meantime I was glad to perform there. On the bill also trio of butoh dancers Konpaku. Interesting combination. 

So, for the show I got a bit vintage speakers and amplifier, which sounded not so powerful and at times it felt really weak, so my show this time was a bit more calm I would say, more atmospheric, the way I usually do in gallery type of spaces. 

Konpaku dancers started by lying on the ground and moving slowly as the music background was evolving. White painted faces, black and red/brown dressing, mimics and again strange movements. I probably didn't get the idea of what was it all about, but no problem, just took at as visual happening - hallucination. 

This was the first time I've seen something like that after local artist Benas Šarka, so this was not a wow thing, but I'm looking forward to explore it more in occasion. 

In general it was a nice evening, with not so many people, but was glad to see at least 3 Lithuanian guys ; )

16.09 Den Haag, Villa te Koop

I've never had a show in the house were I basically live. So I just had to go downstairs, to the basement and am at the show place. What a comfort! So i'm staying here basically the whole time till my journey to S. America. Vaida, the host of the show was stressed that we will loose audience, because the other place did another experimental music night. This made me stress a bit too, so I called some lithuanians, and luckily a dozen of around 10 came. So, the room was full. Good.

That Black performing

The show was started by the short theremin improvisation by Spanish man Biyi Amez. Then german guy Emerge continued. Playing by two samplers and some acoustic amplified objects he did some slow strokes on delay plus some dark drones, which after a while got a bit boring, but then the same theremin guy joined by bringing some variety, some brighter colors, though it was quite long, so a few people left the room, and later me. 

The next was That Black - ukrainian guy who is living now in Moscow and who is just starting the production of very interesting and powerful synths, which seems like soon gonna be famous. So he came on his first EU tour. Quite excited and enjoying. His show at Villa was the top of the night. Using the body and gear on his body, he did a plastic performance with steps-beats, atmospheric noises-hands and voice. It was really powerful, plus he was turning around almost all the time as new techno sufi. In the end maybe I wanted to hear some new sounds, as those were already predictable, but in general he made this night. 

My show wasn't so good this time, although reactions were not bad really, but somehow I felt that things are not going so well when playing, but maybe it's just my self-criticism. 

Anyway the room was full and all were happy about this event. 

17.09 Groningen, Il sole in Cantina

After long delays on Flix bus (be careful with this company) I finally reached Groningen at 9pm. Luckily the show is only at midnight even if I don't like to play so late ; ). My dutch friend Resonan, with whom we are communicating, trading  records for more than 10 years, met me and then we met Leonardo from Il Sole in Cantina. He's italian guy and from the very first moment I felt high energy and it kept being like this the whole evening. Leo brought us to the host place were I met Davide, the owner of the venue and his woman Lia and some other people. All were either Italian or Portuguese and I was so glad to see Southern people here in Northern city of Netherlands.

The venue is the nice clean basement which exists almost 20 years! The ceiling though is so small that at first I felt a bit claustrophobic, but then I got used to it. Was also a bit worried about small speakers, but Leo said, don't worry they are very powerful. 

I was the only one that night on the bill. Usually like when someone local is for the warm up, but all warm-heat thing was in my hands. And I did it. Everyone seem that enjoyed. Two girls came up after the show and said it was like on drugs, on a peak. They couldn't say what kind of drugs it were, something like ecstasy, but not... ;) .one of them also said that she will take interview with me. Leo gave also some interesting thoughts about what I do and this is what I need besides all the usual "nice show", "great performance", or silence which means I sucked ;)

There were not so many people at the show, something between 10 and 20 I guess, but there was at least one Lithuanian guy, which is good ;) 

Anyway I had a really great time in Groningen and really gonna come back there one day. Here are 29 seconds of the show which was streamed by the way.

Soon reviews from Munster and Ghent shows. Thank you for reading,
Arma