Robert Galbraith summarizes Moogfest 2011 as Thomas Fang (portfolio) offers a visual archive of the festivities.
[Moogfest October 28th-30th, 2011] Asheville North Carolina’s annual Moogfest is a three day music festival dedicated to Bob Moog and the wonderful influence that his instruments have had on electronic music. Asheville is the current home of Moog Music and the city in which Bob spent the last years of his life. Based off my experience at last year’s festival, my expectations were set very high for this year. I can happily say that not only did the festival meet those expectations, but exceeded them. The format and venues were primarily the same as last years but there were a couple of minor changes. The biggest change was the Animoog Playground outdoor venue, this was a smart addition on the organizer’s part because it allowed for multiple larger acts to play at the same time.
Austra kicked off the musical part of the festival with a bang. Their blend of dark dance music and ethereal vocals was spot on. Vocalist Katie Stelmanis long with her twin back-up singers were captivating. They played tracks from their excellent debut Feel It Break as well as one unreleased track. My only complaint for their show was that it was too short, clocking in at just over forty minutes. Grimes (currently on tour with Austra), was a hot mess. As a one woman show, Clare Boucher, danced on the edge of chaos and somehow managed to pull it all together. Using a hardware based setup, she seemed intent on keeping everything as real as possible bouncing from sampler to keyboard and vocals while dancing at the same time. Between vocal parts she would swing her microphones over her shoulder and banter with the audience. What she made up for in technical chops, she made up for in performance and charisma.
The most visually impressive set award has to go Amon Tobin. His ISAM live set-up was nothing short of mind blowing. A series of interconnected rectangular blocks spread across the stage and approximately twelve feet high. Abstract and futuristic imagery was spread across the cubes and in sync with the scattered beats and processed synthetics of his ISAM album. In the few moments of silence, yells from the crowd of “Oh My God!” and “This is Amazing!” could be heard. Amon could be seen briefly in his control cube manning the helm. With ISAM, Amon Tobin has not only set a sound design standard but also the visual one by which other artists will be judged by for years to come.
Brian Eno‘s Saturday afternoon Illustrated Talk was intriguing and thought provoking. Taking on his southern persona of “Rambling Jack Eno” he went over the topics of Riley and Reich (and their influence on his music and art), societal hierarchies, surrender, evolution, and his personal experiences dealing with the various bands he has produced and worked with over his career. Similar to a college professor he accompanied his talk with a series and slides, overheads and scribbles. Throughout he interjected a unique perspective and somewhat surprising sense of humor. At the end of his two hour talk he had an extended question and answer with the audience and was extremely patient and polite — even with the most gushing and obsessive fans.
His 77 Million Paintings multimedia installation was also impressive. Using a set of large monitors he assembled an ever-changing generative piece based off a set of 300 of his own simpler pieces. The installation was set up so that changes were made so slowly that you would barely notice that the piece was changing. This was housed in a large room in the Asheville’s YMI Cultural Center with rows of large couches and Eno’s generative music piped in — both of which added to the effect.
This year’s festival was well represented by influential and classic acts. As could be expected, Tangerine Dream were dramatic and grandiose. Edgar Froese was clearly in charge behind his rack of synthesizers producing epic and moving beds of sound. The synthetics were fleshed out by drummers, occasional horns, and Pink Floyd-esque guitar work. Roedelius was on the more sedate end of the spectrum using a mix of tapes, live piano and mixing. The pieces were mostly long form and full of ambiance. Suicide was a sharp contrast and were one of the “can’t miss” acts of this years fest. Performing a rare set of their classic debut album, it was like seeing a piece of history being performed before my eyes and ears. The sound was raw and brutal, even more so on the original recordings. Their setup was minimal with Martin Rev, behind a pair of keyboards and effect and Alan Vega manning the microphone. The first couple of tracks Alan’s voice was buried below the noise but this was quickly remedied. They engaged in minimal banter with the audience, stopping for Alan to bum a cigarette from an audience member and to make some indecipherable comments about the occupy movement. Despite their age (Alan Vega is 73) they put on one of the most energetic performances of the festival.
Due to being scheduled at the same time as Brian Eno‘s discussion, I was unable to catch Tara Busch‘s Saturday presentation with Dan Deacon. Luckily, she had a second film scoring event on Sunday which was excellent. She performed a live soundtrack to the classic “Red Balloon” and the silent “Suspense.” Using her voice, Minimoog Voyager, bells and flute, she provided backdrops that were both haunting and whimsical and added new depth to both pieces.
While the above are some of the musical highlights (from my perspective), there were many excellent performances: Crystal Castles were full of energy and had a great dancey vibe. Zomby spun a set of tracks from his own releases and interjected some elements of techno and dirty-south hip hop. M83 was fleshed out with a full live band and had a definite ’80s vibe at times sounding like a mix of the Mix of the Thompson Twins and Peter Gabriel.
The festival had very few negatives this year and were mostly logistical and unusual check in/check out requirements for the various venues. It should also be noted that two of the artists scheduled to play had to cancel at the last minute — Little Dragon (band member illness) and Glasser (her flight was unable to get out due to the Northeast’s early snowstorm).
Asheville is a perfect place to hold a festival such as this as there are a fair number of clubs and larger venues all within walking distance and has a unique artistic culture and great food. As with last year, I’m sure that had Bob Moog been in attendance he would have been more than pleased.
All photos by Thomas Fang.
