(audio) Christoph de Babalon live in Berlin, 27 Nov 2009

Most people know Christoph de Babalon for his groundbreaking debut album If You’re Into It, I’m Out Of It. Well, that was put out over 10 years ago, and since then he’s sorta been flying under the radar having released only a few EPs and 12”s since then. But it was just last year that he released Scylla & Charybdis on his own label Cross Fader Entertainment, and has upcoming releases on Zhark and Falsch.

Hopefully this means that he’ll be playing live with some regularity, because he plays the sort of gloomy industrial that I like. I can only imagine how he went over when he opened for Radiohead for a tour of southern Europe in 2001.

Christoph de Babalon live at Raum 18 in Berlin, 27 November 2009.

stereo board mix

Nady stereo condenser mic for room/audience

Focusrite Saffire Pro24 preamp/interface

Logic 8 for recording, editing, mixing

Soundtrack Pro for mastering

MacBook Pro

website Soundcloud FB Bandcamp

(audio) Enduser live in Budapest, 11 Dec 2009

Enduser cruised on in to Budapest to play a club called A38 which was the bottom deck of a boat (is that called the poop deck? I dunno) that was permanently docked on the Danube. Upstairs was the restaurant/lounge with some cool jazz playing and downstairs was the noisy electronic.

You might think that a venue like this would have a sub-standard sound system, but the exact opposite was the case. I’ve been to every fancy schmancy hoity toity club in Los Angeles and many of them have spent millions on their sound systems, and A38’s sounded better than all of ‘em. This place knocked off my feet.

Furthermore, the placed was packed with about 1000 crazy people dancing like it was the last night of their lives. Totally amazing. I went to an Enduser show a few years ago in Las Vegas which was on Cinco de Mayo which fell on a Saturday that year so you’d think that on a big party night in a big party town that the place would be rockin’. Not so. Not even close. I think about 10 people showed up, 2 of whom were my girlfriend and I who drove in from LA. Which do you think was the better show? Ya, these Europeans know how to do it right.

Enduser live at A38, Budapest, Hungary, 11 Dec 2009.

stereo board mix

Nady stereo condenser mic for room/audience

Focusrite Saffire Pro24 preamp/interface

Logic 8 for recording, editing, mixing

Soundtrack Pro for mastering

MacBook Pro

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(audio) Imminent live in Munich, 30 October 2009

In the 90s, Somatic Responses and Imminent Starvation pretty much set the standard for nu-industrial. While SR continued their barrage of releases throughout the years, Imminent took a decade off to pursue some of his other projects like Axiome, Torsion, Ambre, The Incredible Three, Urawa and others. The break apparently did him good, because the album he released under the Imminent moniker after all those years was Cask Strength, which is without question a monumental achievement and the best album of his career.

I caught him at Feierwerk in one of my favorite cities of all time, Munich, on Halloween weekend in 2009. The show served as sort of a record release show as the album officially came out earlier that week, which was awesome because he played a bunch of tunes from that new album as well as some choice cuts from his previous magnum opus Nord.

Imminent live at Feierwerk, Munich, 30 October 2009.

stereo board mix

Nady stereo condenser mic for room/audience

Focusrite Saffire Pro24 preamp/interface

Logic 8 for recording, editing, mixing

Soundtrack Pro for mastering

MacBook Pro

website

(audio) Techdiff live in Vienna, 12 June 2010

At the forefront of The New Wave of British Breakcore is Techdiff, who hasn’t released all too much up to this point, but whose Coronation of a Cursed King EP is a revelation and is required listening. And he’s got plenty in the works as well as a couple European tours under his belt with plans for more.

This show in Vienna was at the tail end of one of those Euro tours where he played a handful of shows in and around his home turf in the UK and went through Germany including a stop in Berlin and on through parts of Russia and then looped back through Austria and the Czech Republic.

One interesting thing about his performance- this was the first time I saw anybody use a Wii controller as a MIDI interface musical remote control controller to manipulate the sounds coming out of his computer. Neat.

stereo board mix

Nady stereo condenser mic for room/audience

Focusrite Saffire Pro24 preamp/interface

Logic 8 for recording, editing, mixing

Soundtrack Pro for mastering

MacBook Pro

FB soundcloud

(audio) Merzbow live in Vienna, 18 May 2010

With more than 300 releases to his name, I’m pretty sure Merzbow is one of those artists who doesn’t really need an introduction.

He’s done plenty of collaborative work as well, and he played a handful of dates in the winter of 2009 and the spring of 2010 with superstar Hungarian drummer Balázs Pándi.

stereo board mix

Nady stereo condenser mic for room/audience

Focusrite Saffire Pro24 preamp/interface

Logic 8 for recording, editing, mixing

Soundtrack Pro for mastering

MacBook Pro

website soundcloud