NAROD NIKI, the only laptop supergroup in the world!
Support: THE EGG (CA) - THE MOLE (CA)
Video: TRANSFORMA & PFADFINDEREI (DE)
30. September 2004 | 10:00 pm
Volksuehne am Rosa Luxemburg Platz, Berlin
Paralleling Berlin´s first “Popkomm” club transmediale, Montréal's MUTEK Festival and the Volksbuehne theatre will present the Europe-premiere of the electronic all-star band NAROD NIKI. Also appearing for the first time in Berlin the two newcomers to Montréals flourishing micro-house scene The EGG and The Mole, who swept the awards of this year´s MUTEK Festival. Berlin´s most outstanding visual-collectives Transforma and Pfadfinderei will round out the show with a live-video environment.
NAROD NIKI is a collaboration project founded by Ricardo Villalobos that was presented for the first time at last year´s MUTEK Festival. The idea of the project is to bring together a number of techno masterminds to do a live jam, hiding their identities behind a collective alias to keep the attention dedicated to their music. Ritchie Hawtin, Dimbiman, Monolake, Akufen, Dandy Jack, Daniel Bell, Cabanne and Luciano got together in Montréal, demonstrating that realtime-improvisation and party-factor don't necessarily exclude one another. No surprise – as all names involved stand for first-class innovative dance music and feel well at home in all parts of the world with their message.
The exact line-up will of course stay secret. Still, it should be quite obvious that the list of artists at this event can be nothing but long and extraordinary !!
The event is a cooperation with the Volksbuehne theatre and part of the fifth and last of its „Club Neustadt“ series. Transforma and Pfadfinderei will create visual fireworks, together creating a video-environment inside the stunning „Club Neustadt“ stage-set, designed by Bert Neumann, which is a wholly functional imitation of a city inside the theatre's building.
You won't find anything better in Berlin these days! Be surprised!
see also:
> www.mutek.ca
> www.volksbuehne-berlin.de
PRESS VOICES:
"...the Emerson Lake & Palmer of minimal techno."
Montreal Mirror
"I can only explain it as the most interesting, the best, and the most inspiring thing that I have ever been a part of — and that I've ever seen — that had anything to do with electronic music. Seeing Kraftwerk was amazing, but being up there and being part of something that was so spontaneous and fun and aggressive; it doesn't even seem like it happened, it was so special."
Ritchie Hawtin
„When the three-hour jam ended at 4 a.m., the crowd cheering with the lights on, it seemed like we were only just getting started... indelible memoirs...we were stunned: this is, after all, what we are here for, and this is the social found in the sonic.“
Tobias C. van Veen
“Fuck the garage rockers playing Letterman, I thought: this was rock 'n' roll. All of a sudden, with all the brutal poetry of a creation myth, electronic musicians had finally found a way of playing together that drew upon the strengths of collective effort and flaunted the risks that have always made rock 'n' roll so rule-floutingly appealing. The White Stripes may plumb the canonical catalogue, but this is the real deal-with-the-devil shit.”
Philipp Sherburne
Detailed information:
NAROD NIKI
NAROD NIKI is based on Ricardo Villalobos' idea to combine international masterminds of minimal techno for a one-time improv-techno-all-star band. Using a special variation of Ableton's Live software for synchronisation, this on-the-fly monster-jam will transform the Volksbühne theatre into one big dance-floor.
NAROD NIKI has been realized only once before, at the Mutek Festival in Montréal 2003. Hours of powerful beats and sparkling ideas left nothing but exhausted bodies, open mouths and overwhelmed musicians. A cutting-edge experiment – with Thomas Franzman (Dimbiman), Dandy Jack, Cabanne, Akufen, Luciano, Richie Hawtin, Dan Bell, Ricardo Villalobos and with Robert Henke (Monolake) operating the central mixer, which John Berry – at that time the North American manager of Force Inc. – enthusiastically commented as "the most important thing to happen to techno in 10 years.“
NAROD NIKI is an idea as simple as ingenious, that can only be born in one of those inspired morning hours after a long rocked-out night. There are many talented electronic musicians out there happy to collaborate and improvise – but there are hardly any opportunities. With NAROD NIKI, a flexible and open platform has been created by placing the individual artist's identity behind communication, collectivity, skills and shared expertise.
Narodniki (Russian for „friends of the people“) was the name for idealistic Russian social-revolutionary intellectuals who in the 1860s-1890s left their surroundings to secretly live and work with the working class in order to infect the rural population with the idea of revolution. Most of these intellectuals were discovered and killed or sentenced to exile. For the Narodniki, the rural village community was the sprouting seed of the coming socialism. And though they ultimately failed ended as a terrorist movement and under massive repression, it was the Narodniki who spread the roots for the first Russian revolution in 1905.
The project has a special relation to both Mutek and club transmediale, as most of the involved musicians have presented solo shows at either one or both festivals. And though we are not allowed yet to give the names of those who will plug in their machines at this second NAROD NIKI formation at the Volksbühne, be assured that we all know them – and love them.
NEW FORMS OF COLLABORATION
The music industry often complains about the economic consequences of culural techniques such as file-sharing. For musicians, on the other hand, these techniques create innovative forms for production and artistic collaboration. New technical opportunities always generate new artistic practices in a new social context.
From this perspective, the cross-over between music and technology cannot be reduced to its economic value. With its power to form networks, scenes, and all kinds of communities, music is often a catalyst of social transformation. And despite – or maybe even because – of its unavoidable ties to commercial distribution, music is a cultural phenomenon first of all.
NAROD NIKI addresses one of the central problems of minimal techno as well as other areas of the music industry: lack of cooperation. In the words of Ritchie Hawtin: "Collaboration has to be the way to help electronic music grow again ... It's another way of progressing things. The last couple of years, it seemed as if people were getting a little too serious about things and being closed off and not sharing ideas. There has to be a greater openness within this sort of music. If you share your ideas, you can go much further, much faster."
NAROD NIKI stands for the best traditions of techno itself. The creation process of techno music has always been tied to the idea of artistic innovation within open social situations. But the original spirit has been lost. At a time when techno has become a replaceable format, NAROD NIKI reconstructs its original idea under the conditions of up to date software and technology.
CTM, MUTEK & VOLKSBÜHNE
Ever since their beginnings in the mid- to late 90s, the two festivals club transmediale – international festival for electronic music and related visual arts berlin – and Mutek – musique, son et nouvelle technologies – have been working on similar goals. Both are dedicated to the promotion and presentation of contemporary experimental electronic music, merging subculture and academic tradition. In addition, they make a strong effort to showcase these kinds of productions and place them in the context of global media culture. Questioning the role of music developments and its share in technological and cultural transformation processes is one of their main interests.
MUTEK and club transmediale have been cooperating since 2002 in exchange of content and information as well as presentation of artists, bringing together the scenes of Berlin and Montréal.
The Berlin NAROD NIKI appearance, presented by club transmediale and Mutek, will take place independently from Popkomm. Those artificially maintained music-industry trade fairs, that regard music only from the perspective of profit and judge artistic content only by economic values contradict the collaborative idea of this project.
The more we are pleased about the collaboration with Volksbühne theatre – an institution that has successfully expanded its cultural commission and role in the field of music in the recent years. Volksbühne therefore servers as more as a self-evident venue for the NAROD NIKI-project.
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