glitchcraft

 

finally made it to staalplaat working space in neukölln last night to see glitchmaster phillipe petit scratch it up with schneider tm and four more dronesters. i've been trying to get more out of staalplaat after hearing them perform years ago at an electronic festival in budapest. that evening's soundscape featured a dozen or so tiny speakers splicing together sounds from at least as many sources with the help of some sort of disturbed algorithmic intelligence. in the charged darkness of the hungarian club it seemed a soundtrack created to accompany the dying dreams of an errant astronaut. but the best laid plans of mice and men to get down to the old staalplaat space on torstrasse came to naught, so i was pleasantly surprised when they resurfaced in neukölln last year. last night's performance was a swelling river of bells, bicycles and digital artifacts drowning an electric violin and guitar in the humming detritus of glitch city. many dreams were hatched and then abandoned as the onlookers watched petit and his fellow pioneers attempt to claw through the chrome creased crust of their own excitatory neurons. the staalplaat store itself is filled to overflowing with inexplicable graphic novels, noise 'zines and extensive recordings on various media. i took the opportunity to snatch up their last copy of romain slocombe's 'japan in bondage', a collection of his paintings on the same subjects he so lovingly depicted in 'city of the broken dolls'. thus, at the end of the evening, i was able to pedal my way northward with not only the crumbling blips and fractured bleeps of the performers ricocheting through my skull, but also the fractured femme fatales clutched close beneath my coat.