From Clay Pig Sent Sat, May 16th 1998, 19:32
Well, with the slightly negative review that someone gave of the New York show, I wasn't expecting a great show, but it was. This time, Mike came out first with a small table of equipment. He really never looked up until he was finished, but the knob-twiddling is all i came to see. What I heard was a much harder and more abrasive side of Mike .. he played some things off of Lunatic Harness (notably Lunatic Harness, and Approaching Menace) The happy-hardcorish version of Brace Yourself Jason was very cool but a lot of the melody in mike's songs seemed too low and was covered by all the mad drill'n'bass beats. This wasn't necessarily a bad thing tho, because tracks like his last (Mr. Angry remix i believe) made the show. He also played one fairly droney track (does anyone know what this was?) Overall, Mike's set was very abrasive and I was loving it. Most people didnt dance very much (i was moving as much as I could ;) but surprisingly they seemed to enjoy it. Some of Mike's new stuff seemed fairly predictable (beats cut out, a melody or soft beats fades up slowly and the beats kick back in) but the show was still fun. I don't know who did the djing but I found it amusing that about 30 secs of Merzbow was mixed in between sets. Bjork's set was good (though i had never heard much bjork before). The vox certainly weren'y mixed too low, and her peaks made my ears hurt (my own fault .. i was cursing myself for forgetting earplugs) Mark Bell and a string octet made her show more enjoyable for me. A track (im guessing called 'Violently Happy') had everyone dancing and the show went up from there. She played 2 encores . I don't know what they were but I enjoyed them immensly. Anyone know them? Not a perfect show, but I had a lot of fun. np: mu-ziq - spikehead -- ~~Steve Collins~~ "Sometimes, dreams are wiser than waking." -Black Elk http://www.nfdc.net/home/claypig