english italiano
reviews <

kraftwerk aphex twin

Italia Wave Love Festival, Livorno [IT]
18/07/09

Kraftwerk on Italia Wave stage After a part of our jurney on a local train/animal wagon, we arrive at the Picchi stadium in Livorno for the elettrowave evening. Tonight the evergreen Kraftwerk will share the stage with Aphex Twin's genius/madness: unmissable!

By the time we meet some other friends and get lost in the stalls at the end of the football pitch (no original marchandise, I'm afraid) a word starts sounding through the speakers, constantly crescent in pitch: machine machine machine machine machine... here we go! The curtain opens to reveal four men in suit in front of their laptops, while a massive screen behind them displays graphic from the russian constructivism.
In a good hour and a half, the four performe their greatest successes, from Autobhan to Radio-Activity, Trans-Europe Express, Computer World, Tour de France, Aéro Dynamik... sometimes re-vamping them with a modern touch, sometimes, like with the model and numbers, staying stick to the original version.

Every track is coupled by tematic videos, digital and retro clips entertain us (as predictable) more than the performers themselves: the four are almost still in front of their laptops, taken in indecipherable activities: obliterated by the machine, man finds his only reason in being the operator. Concept taken to the extreme when the curtains close for a pause to reopen and show the four substituted by their robotic alter-egos: simple mannequins slowly dancing to the rhythm of The Robots! After the next quick slide of the curtain the four re-appears with their green holografic suits on, to perfectly blend into the video, that now goes heavy digital. Musique Non Stop closes the concert, with the four that, one after the other, perform a little solo and disappear with a curtsy. Ralf Hutter, the only survivor of the original line up, is the last one to leave the stage with an "arrivederci" and "auf wiedersehen". bye kraftwerk, see you soon again!

Aphex Twin on Italia Wave stage It's now time for Aphex Twin, that has the stage re-arranged with two columns of speakers facing him rather than the audience. The beginning of his dj-set is not really impeccable: everything is musically matching (hat off for the effort anyway!), but soul seams to be missed, eventually Richard starts to push and the veil on the audience is finally taken away.

It's incredible how much stuff Aphex can concentrate into his dj-set, to the point you start thinking his entire production is meant to be performed in this way: to a good ear, beats and patterns from some tracks are completely transposed into others, sometimes instead the mixing becomes more linear and tracks are easier to be recognized (not by title, most of the time impossible to remember/pronunce!). He takes from everything he made, from Selected Ambient Works to Druqs, from Ventoline to Iz Us, reaching his peak with Come to Daddy, even more violent live than on record, if ever possible.

With Aphex too, there's no presence on the stage and much is due to stroboscopes, lasers and videos: extremely lisergic, often the simple aphex logo is shown rotating or his famed demonic face deformed real-time, while geometric patterns quickly fade into high impact objects, like a rifle, to pixelated porn clips.
There's room for a blue screen of death too!
Everything is organic, fast and disturbed, in its logic and execution, like his music.

written by Xinod and Miky