Roadburn 2024: Notes From Day Three
Posted in Features, Reviews on April 21st, 2024 by JJ Koczan
In what I hope will be a defining moment of my day if not the rest of my year, I was sitting with Lee downstairs at the 013 for lunch — some greens and cheese; likewise simple and necessary — and I could feel my brain start to move to what I needed to be doing, some quick writing, starting this post, whatever. But I stopped. I reminded myself, out fucking loud, that I had the time to stay. And so I stayed.
That sounds like an small thing, and maybe it was when set against what the day would bring front to back. And I’m not gonna sit here and try to do some middle-aged-dude wellness philosophy here — neither the place nor the time, and frankly I can’t stand that shit you see on social media, vacuous endorsement of a capitalist idea of how to live; fodder for the tshirts they sell at Target — but as this homecoming has been emotional for me, I’m working not to run away from that.
I got through the writing, the minimal actual amount there was, and got to where I wanted to be well in time for when I wanted to be there. Go figure. Place in time.
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Roadburn Saturday. Couch Slut on first at The Terminal, diving deep into avant sludge, noise, hardcore, grindcore and some spoken word over piano — Steve Blanco from Imperial Triumphant guesting — and trumpet, no less purposeful in the light jazz than the most slaughtering parts as they brought the released-yesterday You Could Do it Tonight album to life.
It was my first time seeing them — they’re from Brooklyn, so my only real excuse is I’ve never been cool — and there were times where it felt a bit like gazing at someone’s trauma through the sad and poetic storytelling of their songs, but Couch Slut’s aggressive
confrontationalism was inner and outer, and they didn’t so much put these narratives on display as they did shove them up your nose like a covid test made of concrete.
The last song they played was longer — I hear that’ll happen with records — but I stuck it out through the intended challenge before stopping in at Hall of Fame to see the band put together by students from the Metal Factory music school. This is their second year featuring a group here, and, well, you want to support the kids. I very clearly was not alone in this thinking, as the room was wall-to-wall. The press of the crowd got to me quickly and I ducked out and back down to the 013 in plenty of time to stop in for a few minutes of Annelies Monseré as she opened the Next Stage with a pastoralia that felt folkish but experimental in its use of drone as more than just a backdrop to the four-part harmonies coming from the stage with the ‘band’ she led. Second flute of the weekend behind Tusmørke last night. Same room. Different context.
My next stop was the main stage for Kavus Torabi‘s commissioned piece, ‘Lion of the Lord’s Elect.’ I had no idea whatsoever what to expect from the set and won’t feign expertise on Torabi’s work through The Utopia Strong, Gong, The Holy Family, and so forth, but from melodic drone to two-drummer cacophony, with sax, bagpipes, synth, guitar, it felt like the construction of a psychedelic temple in that vast hall space. Never quite entirely still, never just about the wash, building up and receding back into its meditations — it was far removed from Couch Slut’s raw hurt and reality in general, a cosmic offering rife with float despite the double dose of kit percussion.
Like a lot of this Roadburn has been for me so far, ‘Lion of the Lord’s Elect’ was a chance to step outside of what I know or might chase down on my own. I’ll stop short of saying you have to step outside your comfort zone — remind yourself you don’t ‘have’ to do anything — but a willingness to take on something
unknown is a big part of a commissioned project like this, which only happened because Roadburn made it happen. In its intricacies and overarching flow, proggy noodling and heavier push, it tugged at the limits of where space rock can generally go, and hell’s bells I’m glad I saw it. That hour went fast, and down to the last chime that finished, it was a master’s work. I watched the whole thing.
Feeling antsier today, which might just be fatigue, but still. After Kavus Torabi and co. ended, I moved downstairs to get water and then back up and around 013, looked in on Next Stage, nobody on, and decided to run back to the hotel for a few minutes, take a pill, brush my teeth — the salad/cheese combo had my mouth feeling fuzzy — and take my shoes off for a few minutes. Some of that was nerves for seeing The Keening, the Portland, Oregon, outfit led by Rebecca Vernon (ex-SubRosa) who would shortly perform their 2023 debut, Little Bird (review here) in full on the main stage. The lineup she’s assembled for the tour the band are about to undertake with Bell Witch — they’ll pick up in Spain on a couple days — includes Billy Anderson (too many to list for his production background, all the names tried to escape my brain at once, but he’s handled low end for Blessing the Hogs, High Tone Son of a Bitch and a slew of others) on bass and Nathan Carson of Witch Mountain on drums, as well as Andrea Morgan (Exulansis) on violin and vocals and Christy Cather (Ails, Ludicra) on guitar and some vocals, and if all that pedigree doesn’t do it for you, fine, the band stand on their own anyway.
The main stage has a lot to offer in terms of a flow from one act to the next, and reminds me a bit of years past in how a linear progression is set up throughout the day. That applies less to Kavus Torabi
than to The Keening and the three acts that will follow them, but you can still find threads from one to the other, The Keening into Lankum, into Khanate and Blood Incantation. Or at least you can put a story to it that makes sense in sound. It’s not just one band piled on another. There’s thought, and heart, put into it.
I took pictures for two songs of The Keening and went up to the balcony for “Little Bird,” which Vernon dedicated to the people of Palestine, and the rest of the set. After a couple minutes I had to sort of force myself to put the camera down, put my phone away, repeat my various mantras about Freeburn this and that, living the thing instead of just covering it, etc., and I think I was probably better off for that. Little Bird, which has only grown on me since last year — and I liked it plenty when it was reviewed — culminates with “The Truth,” the studio version of which is 17 minutes long. No, I didn’t time it from the stage, but it was no less expansive in-person in its multi-movement unfolding and almost chaptered feel. Vernon’s voice is seething at times, the patterns of her lyrics rooted in ’90s post-hardcore emphatic repetition but so far removed from that thing as to be her own. I’d been looking forward to seeing them since I found out I’d be at Roadburn, and I’m not saying I wasn’t going to check out Khanate in a couple hours, but in many respects they were my priority of today and the fest overall. They did not disappoint, and Morgan nailed the operatics later in “The Truth,” making it all the more gorgeous and stirring. I hope the tour goes well, hope they do more.
Back and forth a bit in the break, but the truth is I was tired, found a corner, and stayed there, so it wasn’t much more than getting water. I ate a pack of almonds I brought from home and had tucked in my camera bag. I did a couple Hungarian lessons on my phone. I did not socialize. I 
waited until about 15 minutes before Lankum went on, then went to the photo pit to do the thing. There’s always one lonely day at Roadburn. Should’ve been yesterday, was today.
Even Lankum’s line check was heavy, though, and it was mostly the four of them singing. That was a thing to dig, even if Irish folk ‘n’ drone isn’t exactly going to pull you out of your own head most of the time. I recognized “Go Dig My Grave” from last year’s False Lankum later in their set and I very obviously wasn’t alone in that. The main stage room was as full as I’d yet seen it — true I wasn’t in it at all on Thursday, when Chelsea Wolfe played, so if you want to just take that to mean “quite crowded indeed,” go ahead — and with arrangement dynamics that came through in vocals that moved into and out of four-part harmonies, found instruments swapped out between songs and persistent low end hum that I think came off the big drum in back that threatened to swallow melody and audience alike and I’m pretty sure was on purpose, Lankum harnessed traditionalism to suit the purposes of their craft, whether it was an original piece or not. When they left, the P.A. played Cinder Well’s “No Summer,” and that felt right.
Khanate were next.
It would not be my first time seeing Alan Dubin (O.L.D., Gnaw, etc.), Stephen O’Malley (SunnO))), Burning Witch, etc.), James Plotkin (O.L.D., Lotus Eaters, Atomsmasher, etc.) and Tim Wyskida (Blind Idiot God, Insect Ark, etc.) together on stage. One dark, deeply inebriated night two decades ago, I was in their presence as they played a Southern Lord showcase at SXSW that also featured Outlaw Order, Earthride (RIP Sherman), Place of Skulls and Graves at Sea.
Yes, I had to look up when it was. And no, I’m not telling you that to be cool. I’m not cool. I’m just old. But Khanate were my prevailing memory of that evening, the singular bleakness and scathe that they wrought, and while I’ve seen the component members of the band in other projects since, there was no question that their performing together under the Khanate banner for the first time in reportedly 19 years was one of the most crucial opportunities Roadburn 2024 provided. There’s a reason they were the first band announced for the fest. It was a big fucking deal.
Their surprise 2023 album, To Be Cruel (review here), underscored the aural black hole they’ve always been. It wasn’t about reinventing their approach so much as about being brave enough to try to make those awful sounds again. Understand: Khanate stand at the end point of music, extreme enough in their mission and end result that nothing but hyperbole can rightly apply. Save for O’Malley tuning between songs, they offered no moments of respite or safe pockets in which to dwell. No cathartic release. They stood close together on stage under stark spotlights. No video screen. Nothing to distract you from the punishment on offer. The only flourish around O’Malley’s glacial riffs and Plotkin’s coinciding rumble was the caustic feedback either of their own or of Dubin’s making with his sampler, noisebox, or whatever the fuck it was. No rescue came. No melody. No letup. “Kick a helpless thing,” and the crowd was the helpless thing. If it was arthouse, it was the moldy basement underneath that smells like rotting meat and no one knows why.
At the Hall of Fame, Full Earth would play nearly the entirety of their own set during Khanate’s. Not a conflict of note for most here, I would think. I did abscond up there to try to see them at least for a few minutes, but the line was out the door — classic Roadburn 
indication that you’re not getting in — and yeah, I’ve got a pass, but I figured all was well, I was glad a whole bunch of other people would get to the show even if I didn’t, and hightailed it back to the 013. Gotta get your steps in. I’m pretty sure Khanate were still playing the same song when I got back. No summer here either. Lonely day at Roadburn? Fuck you, here’s shit-coated obliteration instead.
And maybe I was done when they were. A long, long time ago and talking about another band, I told a guy I knew that it wasn’t about the notes they were playing, or the notes they were not playing, but about the spaces in between. That’s truer of Khanate than it was of that other band, and with Khanate, even those tense, empty spaces feel like fingernails on the eyeballs. Thusly bled, I walked back down the row of bars around the corner from the 013 — it has a name, who can remember? — and watched humans having dance parties, talking with friends, drinking, laughing, living. Cognitive dissonance to the fact that the world just ended.
Or didn’t, since there’s still another day of Roadburn tomorrow. See you then, and thanks for reading in the meantime. More pics after the jump.
