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Stars of the Lid: musical LSD without side-effects

An unprecedented, warm-blooded psychedelic happening.
25 januari 2002, Zaal België, Hasselt (B)

Tekst: Bas Ickenroth

Publicatiedatum: 20 februari 2002

On paper an interesting night: Loscil, Velma and Stars of the Lid performing in the perfect venue for listeningpleasure. It didn't went completely alright.

Loscil started off the evening. Loscil isn't more than one man behind a labtop and samplebox, so as you can imagine the visual aspect is not his strongest point. Unfortunately, Loscil's minimalistic soundscapes with a vague foundation of techno were not interesting enough to keep the attention for all the fortyfive minutes performance, especially since there was nothing to watch except the man himself. If he had had some sort of projections or images at the backdrop, things would have looked much better, as his music has quite some soundtrack qualities. On another critical note: his outstanding record 'Triple Point' has an original minimalistic approach, but live Loscil fell into the trap of adding sound on sound in a somewhat predictable way. But at the end, the overall impression was a pleasant one.

Next was the Swiss band Velma. According to the presskit, Velma would be somewhere in the vicinity of Can and Tortoise, and that seems interesting, to say the least. Unfortunately, Velma found the visual aspect of their performance far more interesting than their music. All bandmembers had the same nerdy outfit and dito glasses, looked for minutes straight into the venue and audience without making any sound, and when they moved it was in a completely thought-of-before and directed manner. If this was linked to great music it would have been okay, but Velma was only brilliant on far too less and short occasions.Most of the time their music was from the same level as their annoying stage-act. Repetitive patterns can be beautiful, if the pattern itself is interesting, and if there's some dynamics added. Not this band, who achieved to play the same riff, the same drumpattern, and same four lines of lyrics repeating for more than ten minutes without any variation. The only good moments were the beginning of the gig (one and a half minute of wild noise, followed by four minutes of total silence), and the last ten minutes, were at least they proved to be great musicians by playing as tight as a machine, and by the drummer who finally discovered the word dynamics in his dictionary.

Luckily, Stars of the Lid brought redemption. They understood that two men creating soundscapes with guitar, samples and effects are no fun to look at, so they hid themselves almost behind their backdrop, to leave the necessary space for the projections. The images projected were atmospheric, colourful and psychedelic, and perfectly in sync with the music which had the exact same atmosphere. Their last, brilliant, record 'The Tired Sounds Of...' is a very warm and peaceful ambient piece of work, but in a live setting Stars of the Lid transformed into the perfect psychedelic experience. They only played for an hour, but that hour was from the first to the last minute filled with melodic soundscapes and ongoing drones, and linked with the perfect fitting projections, the whole became an almost surrealistic experience. As if musical LSD was being spread out of the speakers over the (sitting) audience, without any negative side-effects. A stunning experience.

http://www.kindamuzik.net/live/stars-of-the-lid/stars-of-the-lid-musical-lsd-without-side-effects/1320/
Meer Stars of the Lid op KindaMuzik: http://www.kindamuzik.net/artiest/stars-of-the-lid