Photo from Brooklyn Vegan   

I didn’t know who the opener for Bjork was going to be until a day or two before the show, and I basically went into a seizure of joy when West Congo’s electro-trance group Konono No. 1 was announced. Two seemingly inaccessible European artists, both somehow equal parts fun and experimental. I walked into this night with huge expectations (the 90 dollar ticket-cost helped).

Konono No. 1: So freaking awesome! Gah! I know these reviews are supposed to be intellectual and objective but the gut response wins here. They were not, unfortunately, using all equipment made from garbage as made them famous (though certainly some), but they did have giant metal megaphones at the front of the stage for the vocals. This gave the singers that tinny, distant quality from the recordings and made an amusing image next to the unused giant Radio City speakers. There were three people on thumb-pianos (the weird electronic-ish percussion sounds on the album), one functioned as a bass (this was the lead singer’s) and two switched off rhythm and lead duties. Then one guy was on a snare drum and a few cymbals, and one on drums reminiscent of congas and a whistle. There was also a woman whose only joob was a shimmy and shake her hips the whole time. This is now my dream job.    

They seemed to be having a great time, they played 3 songs for about a 40 to 45 minute set, and as great as it was I feel Konono’s music is wholly communal at its roots and they just didn’t know how to translate that feel into a large sit down venue. I desperately wanted to stand up and just start dancing around the way it SHOULD happen at a Konono show, but the few people who did stand up to dance were being yelled at by lazy hipsters who just wanted to sit back and hear hyper-ballad. However, my good friend Dave Napier caught Konono at their Black Cat show in DC and confirms that in a smaller standing room venue, the whole crowd really was instantly launched into an hour long dancing frenzy. I am jealous. Still, the performance was a reminder that Konono is using minimal resources to create some of the most interesting music out right now, and if you’re down for something chill with a solid beat to it, I highly recommend you check out Congotronics.

Bjork: The most fascinating aspect of the night, for me, was simply being in the same space as Bjork. I don’t necessarily mean this in a weird fanatic since, but when she walked out on stage and started singing I was stunned in my dumb realization that she is not some complex idea or alien or superhero, she is just a small person with a big voice and bigger ambitions. I know that sounds ridiculous but it made me sit and think about what she has done and really respect her more than I ever had when she seemed to distant and unreal. But back to the reviewing.   

The live cast included a 12 piece all-female icelandic brass band (with flags mounted on them), Mark Bell on electronics, Chris Corsano on drums, and a keyboardist and another electronic musician I didn’t recognize. There were two large plasma screens using some sort of technology to project trippy neon close-ups of the work the electonic engineers were doing during the set, which was not only really cool but helped me semi-relate to a instrumentation entirely foreign to me. This technology was matched in the impressive light show involving intricate laser and projection work, as well as pyrotechincs such as the giant explosion of flame at the opening hit of Earth Intruders.

Guest appearances ran beautifully rampant that night. Konono No. 1 came out with their thumb-pianos during Earth Intruders (though this moment was actually more awkward that aurally interesting); Antony came onstage for the gorgeous duet from the new record “Dull Flame of Desire”; and Toumani Diabaté came from Japan to play his sitar-like Kora on “I See Who You Are.”

The new material is wonderful and was really tight in a live setting. Antony’s duet with Bjork was phenomenal live (and did not seem as long winded as on recording), and Diabatés work was mindblowing. I read a Time Out interview with Bjork where she said he is the only musician she knew that she could sincerely consider a sage with his instrument, and watching the speed and and frantic beauty with which he played I can understand. The set-list was fantastic mix of old material too, the highlights of the night unquestionably being “Pagan Poetry” and “All is Full of Love” in their new brass-heavy arrangements. However, I must complain, there was no Hyperballad and no Unravel. I heard Chris Corsano (used to working alone) messed up the tempo of hyperballad at Coachella and threw everyone off, so I’m willing to forgive, but there’s no drums in unravel! It’s my favorite song so I was a little dissapointed by ending on the straightforward rave track “Declare Independence,” which seemed to suggest in every way a second encore that never came.

I couldn’t think of a better concert to end my first year living in New York. I remember thinking, this is the place where an Icelandic experimental pop genius shares the stage with a british electronic wonder, an American avant-garde drummer, a Japanese Kora virtuoso, and Manhattan singer-songwriter, and a revolutionary trance band from The West Congo all in one night. It was as if the universal netting of progressive art had been pulled in to a single point in a single moment to remind us that we truly do live in the most exciting times.

Don’t forget to buy Volta and all of Bjork’s other albums at Relative Theory. She’s amazing, blah blah blah it’s all true.

Set-list:
Earth Intruders
Venus as a Boy
Aurora
I See Who You Are
Oceania
Dull Flame of Desire
All is Full of Love
The Pleasure is All Mine
Pagan Poetry
Jóga
Where is the Line
Army of Me
Innocence
Wanderlust
Pluto

Encore:
The Anchor Song
Declare Independence

Internal Links:
Bjork Earth Intruders Single

External Links:
Bjork’s Website
One Little Indian Records
Bjork’s Myspace
Konono No. 1’s Website

This entry was posted on Monday, May 14th, 2007 at 8:24 pm and is filed under CD/LP. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.