Posted in Whathaveyou on December 27th, 2023 by JJ Koczan
Belgian festival Down the Hill has begun to unveil its lineup for Aug. 30-31, 2024, with Rotor at the top of a bill that, as the fill-in-the-blank-style poster (which I dig) underscores the point there’s more to come. Not that Rotor couldn’t headline, but yeah. They’re joined in this announcement by Full Earth, the Kanaan offshoot who don’t have a record yet but are popping up on bills up, down, here and there, Fuzzy Grass, Briqueville, Vandal X, Kozmotron and Cuberdon, which is less than half of the total number of acts who will play. There are 17 TBAs on the poster below. Yes, I counted before I saw the number in the festival’s post.
I’ve been writing about Down the Hill for a few years now, and I’ve never been or anything like that, but all accounts I’ve seen and heard tell me that it’s a laid back, vibe-centered time, and in theory and practice I think that’s a thing worth supporting. August is a while off, so I don’t know when the next reveal will be made, but tickets are on sale as of Dec. 27, which might be today by the time this gets posted — it’s 4AM Xmas Eve as I write; I have no answer for why I’m awake but at least I’m getting shit done — and if you’d like to keep up also, the fest’s Facebook and site are linked below.
To wit:
Down the Hill 2024
Here they are, the first small load of bands for Down The Hill 2024
Posted in Reviews on April 13th, 2023 by JJ Koczan
Oh hi, I’m pretending I didn’t see you there. Today the Spring 2023 Quarterly Review hits and — if Apollo is willing — passes the halfway point en route to 70 total records to be covered by the end of next Tuesday. Then there’s another 50 at least to come next month, so I don’t know what ‘quarter’ that’s gonna be but I don’t really have another name for this kind of roundup just sitting in my back pocket, so if we have to fudge one or expand Spring in such a way, I sincerely doubt anyone but me actually cares that it’s a little weird this time through. And I’m not even sure I care, to be honest. Surely “notice” would be a better word.
Either way, thanks for reading. Hope you’ve found something cool thus far and hope you find more today. Let’s roll.
Quarterly Review #31-40:
Rotor, Sieben
Seven full-lengths and a quarter-century later, it’s nigh on impossible to argue with Berlin instrumentalists Rotor. Sieben — or simply 7, depending on where you look — is their latest offering, and in addition to embracing heavy psychedelia with enough tonal warmth on “Aller Tage Abend” to remind that they’re contemporaries to Colour Haze, the seven-song/38-minute LP has room for the jazzy classic prog flashes of “Mäander” later on and the more straight-ahead fuzzy crunch of “Reibach,” which opens, and the contrast offered by the acoustic guitar and friendly roll that emerges on the closing title-track. Dug into the groove and Euro-size XXL (that’s XL to Americans) riffing of “Kahlschlag,” there’s never a doubt that it’s Rotor you’re hearing, and the same is true of “Aller Tage Abend,” the easy-nodding second half and desert-style chop of “Schabracke,” and everything else; the simple fact is that Rotor these 25 years on can be and in fact are all of these things and more besides while also being a band who have absolutely nothing to prove. Sieben celebrates their progression, the riffs at their roots, the old and new in their makeup and the mastery with which they’ve made the notion of ‘instrumental heavy rock’ so much their own. It’s a lesson gladly learned again, and 2023 is a better year with Sieben in it.
Athens-based sludge-and-then-some rockers Seer of the Void follow their successful 2020 debut, Revenant, with the more expansive Mantra Monolith, enacting growth on multiple levels, be it the production and general largesse of their sound, the songs becoming a bit longer (on average) or the ability to shift tempos smoothly between “Electric Father” and “Death is My Name” without giving up either momentum or the attitude as emphasized in the gritty vocals of bassist Greg “Maddog” Konstantaras. Side B’s “Demon’s Hand” offers a standout moment of greater intensity, but Seer of the Void are hardly staid elsewhere, whether it’s the swinging verse of “Hex” that emerges from the massive intro, or the punkish vibe underscoring the nonetheless-metal head-down chug in the eponymous “Seer of the Void.” They cap with a clearheaded fuzzy solo in “Necromancer,” seeming to answer the earlier “Seventh Son,” and thereby highlight the diversity manifest from their evolution in progress, but if one enjoyed the rougher shoves of Revenant (or didn’t; prior experience isn’t a barrier to entry), there remains plenty of that kind of tonal and rhythmic physicality in Mantra Monolith.
Organic roots doom from the trio Moodoom — guitarist/vocalist Cristian Marchesi, bassist/vocalist Jonathan Callejas and drummer Javier Cervetti — captured en vivo in the band’s native Buenos Aires, Desde el Bosque is the trio’s second LP and is comprised of five gorgeous tracks of Sabbath-worshiping heavy blues boogie, marked by standout performances from Marchesi and Callejas often together on vocals, and the sleek Iommic riffing that accounts as well for the solos layered across channels in the penultimate “Nadie Bajará,” which is just three minutes long but speaks volumes on what the band are all about, which is keep-it-casual mellow-mover heavy, the six-minute titular opening/longest track (immediate points) swaggering to its own swing as meted out by Cervetti with a proto-doomly slowdown right in the middle before the lightly-funked solo comes in, and the finale “Las Maravillas de Estar Loco” (‘the wonders of being crazy,’ in English) rides the line between heavy rock and doom with no less grace, introducing a line of organ or maybe guitar effects along with the flawless groove proffered by Callejas and Cervetti. It’s only 23 minutes long, but definitely an album, and exactly the way a classic-style power trio is supposed to work. Gorgeously done, and near-infinite in its listenability.
The second release and debut full-length from New Jersey-based trio Altered States runs seven tracks and 34 minutes and finds individualism in running a thread through influences from doom and heavy rock, elder hardcore and metal, resulting in the synth-laced stylistic intangibility of “A Murder of Crows” on side A and the smoothly-delivered proportion of riff in the eponymous “Altered States” later on, bassist Zack Kurland (Green Dragon, ex-Sweet Diesel, etc.) taking over lead vocals in the verse to let guitarist/synthesist Ryan Lipynsky (Unearthly Trance, Serpentine Path, The Howling Wind, etc.) take the chorus, while drummer Chris Daly (Texas is the Reason, Resurrection, 108, etc.) punctuates the urgency in opener “The Crossing” and reinforces the nod of “Cerberus.” There’s an exploration of dynamic underway on multiple levels throughout, whether it’s the guitar and keys each feeling out their space in the mix, or the guitar and bass, vocal arrangements, and so on, but with the atmospheric centerpiece “Hurt” — plus that fuzz right around the 2:30 mark before the build around the album’s title line — just two songs past the Motörheaded “Mycelium,” it’s clear that however in-development their sound may be, Altered States already want for nothing as regards reaching out from their doom rocking center, which is that much richer with multiple songwriters behind it.
Opener and longest track (immediate points) “Queen of Wands” is so hypnotic you almost don’t expect its seven minutes to end, but of course they do, and Italian strange-psych whatevernauts Giöbia proceed from there to float guitar over and vocals over the crunched-down “The Sweetest Nightmare” before the breadth of “Consciousness Equals Energy” and “Screaming Souls” melds outer-rim-of-the-galaxy space prog with persistently-tripped Europsych lushness, heavy in its underpinnings but largely unrestrained by gravity or concerns for genre. Acid Disorder is the maybe-fifth long-player from the Italian cosmic rocking aural outsiders, and their willingness to dive into the unknown is writ large through the synth and organ layers and prominent strum of “Blood is Gone,” the mix itself becoming no less an instrument in the band’s collective hand than the guitar, bass, drums, vocals, etc. Ultra-fluid throughout (duh), the eight-songer tops out around 44 minutes and is an adventure for the duration, the drift of side B’s instrumental “Circo Galattico” reveling in experimentalism over a somehow-solidified rhythm while “In Line” complements in answer to “The Sweetest Nightmare” picking up from “Queen of Wands” at the outset, leaving the closing title-track on its own, which seems to fit its synth-and-sitar-laced serenity just fine. Band sounds like everything and nobody but themselves, reliably.
Like everything, Milwaukee heavy psychedelia purveyors Astral Hand were born out of destruction. In this case, it’s the four-piece’s former outfit Calliope that went nova, resulting in the recycling of cosmic gasses and gravitational ignition wrought in the debut album Lords of Data‘s eight songs, the re-ish-born new band benefitting from the experience of the old as evidenced by the patient unfolding of side A capper “Psychedelicide,” the defining hook in “Universe Machine” and the shove-then-drone-then-shove in “End of Man” and the immersive heft in opener “Not Alone” that brings the listener deep into the nod from the very start of the first organ notes so that by the time they’ve gone as far out as the open spaces of “Navigator” and the concluding “God Emperor,” their emergent command of the ethereal is unquestionable. They work a little shuffle into that finale, which is an engaging touch, but Lords of Data — a thoroughly modern idea — isn’t limited to that any more than it is the atmospheric grandiosity and lumber of “Crystal Gate” that launches side B. One way or the other, these dudes have been at it for more than a decade going back to the start of Calliope, but Astral Hand is a stirring refresh of purpose on their part and one hopes their lordship continues to flourish. I don’t know that they’re interested in such terrestrial concerns, but they’d be a great pickup for some discerning label.
Slow-churning intensity is the order of the day on Scatter Yr Darkness, the eight-song sophomore LP from now-Italy-based solo-outfit Golden Bats, aka Geordie Stafford, who sure enough sprinkles death, rot and no shortage of darkness across the album’s 41-minute span, telling tales through metaphor in poetic lyrics of pandemic-era miseries; civic unrest and disaffection running like a needle through split skin to join the various pieces together. Echoing shouts give emphasis to the rawness of the sludge in “Holographic Stench” and “Erbgrind,” but in that eight-minute cut there’s a drop to cinematic, not-actually-minimalist-but-low-volume string sounds, and “Breathe Misery” begins with Mellotron-ish melancholy that hints toward the synth at the culmination of “A Savage Dod” and in the middle of “Malingering,” so nothing is actually so simple as the caustic surface makes it appear. Drums are programmed and the organ in “Bravo Sinkhole” and other keys may be as well, I don’t know, but as Stafford digs into Golden Bats sonically and conceptually — be it the bareknuckle “Riding in the Captain’s Skull” at the start or the raw-throated vocal echo spread over “The Gold Standard of Suffering,” which closes — the harshness of expression goes beyond the aural. It’s been a difficult few years, admittedly.
Straightforward in a way that feels oldschool in speaking to turn-of-the-century era heavy rock influences — big Karma to Burn vibe in the riffs of “Hollow,” and not by any means only there — the debut album Mammals from Danish trio Zeup benefits from decades of history in metal and rock on the part of drummer Morten Barth (ex-Wasted) and bassist/producer Morten Rold (ex-Beyond Serenity), and with non-Morten guitarist Jakob Bach Kristensen (also production) sharing vocals with Rold, they bring a down-to-business sensibility to their eight component tracks that can’t be faked. That’s consistent with 2020’s Blind EP (review here) and a fitting demonstration for any who’d take it on that sometimes you don’t need anything more than the basic guitar, bass, drums, vocals when the songs are there. Sure, they take some time to explore in the seven-minute instrumental “Escape” before hitting ground again in the aptly-titled slow post-hardcore-informed closer “In Real Life,” but even that is executed with clear intention and purpose beyond jamming. I’ll go with “Rising” as a highlight, but it’s a pick-your-poison kind of record, and there’s an awful lot that’s going to sound needlessly complicated in comparison.
Grounded to the Sky is the third LP from Germany’s Giant Sleep, and with it the band hones a deceptively complex scope drawn together in part by vocalist Thomas Rosenmerkel, who earns the showcase position with rousing blues-informed performances on the otherwise Tool-ish prog metal title-track and the later-Soundgardening leadoff before it, “Silent Field.” On CD and digital, the record sprawls across nearly an hour, but the vinyl edition is somewhat tighter, leaving off “Shadow Walker” and “The Elixir” in favor of a 43-minute run that puts the 4:43 rocker “Sour Milk” in the closer position, not insubstantially changing the personality of the record. Founded by guitarist Patrick Hagmann, with Rosenmerkel in the lineup as well as guitarist/backing vocalist Tobias Glanzmann (presumably that’ll be him in the under-layer of “Siren Song”), bassist Radek Stecki and drummer Manuel Spänhauer, they sound full as a five-piece and are crisp in their production and delivery even in the atmospherically minded “Davos,” which dares some float and drift along with a political commentary and feels like it’s taking no fewer chances in doing so, and generally come across as knowing who they are as a band and what they want to do with their sound, then doing it. In fact, they sound so sure, I’m not even certain why they sent the record out for review. They very obviously know they nailed what they were going for, and yes, they did.
It’s telling that even the CD version of Green Yeti‘s Necropolitan breaks its seven tracks down across two sides. The Athens trio of guitarist/vocalist Michael Andresakis, bassist Dani Avramidis and drummer Giannis Koutroumpis touch on psychedelic groove in the album-intro “Syracuse” before turning over to the pure post-Kyuss rocker “Witch Dive,” which Andresakis doing an admirable John Garcia in the process, before the instrumental “Jupiter 362” builds tension for five minutes without ever exploding, instead giving out to the quiet start of side A’s finish in “Golgotha,” which likewise builds but turns to harsher sludge rock topped by shouts and screams in the midsection en route to an outright cacophonous second half. That unexpected turn — really, the series of them — makes it such that as the bass-swinging “Dirty Lung” starts its rollout on side B, you don’t know what’s coming. The answer is half-Sleepy ultra-burl, but still. “Kerosene” stretches out the desert vibe somewhat, but holds a nasty edge to it, and the nine-minute “One More Bite,” which closes the record, has a central nod but feels at any moment like it might swap it for further assault. Does it? It’s worth listening to the record front to back to find out. Hail Greek heavy, and Green Yeti‘s willingness to pluck from microgenre at will is a good reason why.
Posted in Whathaveyou on February 6th, 2023 by JJ Koczan
Based in Seelbach, Germany, the Hoflärm Festival will host its fifth edition this August, as seemingly every weekend of Europe’s Spring and Summer fest season seems to increasingly have something going on somewhere at sometime. A glut of cool events is nothing to complain about for anyone who remembers a couple years back when there was nothing — which, as much as one tries to repress those particular memories, I still do — and the lineup here is right on in terms of vibe with Acid King, Mars Red Sky, Messa and Elephant Tree so far at the top of the bill with Rotor, Swan Valley Heights, Mondo Generator, Grin, Black Lung, Eremit, Madmess, Old Horn Tooth and Kvinna rounding out and a few black boxes on the poster like the rest of the lineup has been redacted for the purposes of protecting classified information.
And I won’t argue with Hoflärm adding another six or seven bands, but, I mean, this is already pretty killer on first blush. You’ll note this takes place over three days, so spreading the 20 bands out over that long, it seems like a pretty laid back kind of deal — at least until Mondo Generator starts ripping into Kyuss tunes, but that’s fun too — and not necessarily as overwhelming as some multi-stage fests in Europe and elsewhere. This is the five-year anniversary of the fest, and to see Acid King and Mars Red Sky alone, it’s already got me daydreaming, so I take that as a win.
Details follow as per Hoflärm‘s socials:
Hoflärm – 5th Anniversary – GO FOR THE RIDE
Join us this year for the 5th stony ride to Hoflärm 2023! We are very happy to announce the first bands of the line-up today! We also announce the start of the presale for 05.02.2023 at 5 pm!
Started in 1993, we are more than proud to welcome Acid King! The band around Lori S. looks back on 30 years of band history and will bring their new Album to Marienthal in August.
Mars Red Sky and Elephant Tree will drive you into the sunset with their all time classics like Strong Reflection or Wither! We’re already feeling the vibe around the yard!
A very special highlight we are looking forward to is Messa. The Italian doom band combines the raw and rough sides of doom with the warm summer evenings of the Hoflärm.
Just last year, stoner legend Nick Oliveri visited us with his band Stöner. Nick liked it and had reason enough to come knocking on our door again in 2023. We are looking forward to Mondo Generator, Mr. Oliveri!
We also have visitors from Berlin again, on the one hand we are happy to welcome Rotor, our tractors are running at Vollast! But on the other hand also Grin! We can’t imagine a Hoflärm without Jan, Sabine and Andre! In 2021 the three played with Earth Ship, in 2022 with Slowshine. This year, however, only Sabine and Jan will be on stage, Andre will mingle with the audience while Grin plays their crushing riffs.
Black Lung and Madmess will bring you through our hot afternoons with their heavy psych rock!
Doom over Marienthal: Eremit and Old Horn Tooth will be blasting the darkest riffs into your ears! Live Slow Die Old!
Last but not least, we are happy to welcome 2 bands that have played at the Hof in the past! Swan Valley Heights and Kvinna! Kvinna was the band that opened the first Hoflärm, who of you was there and can remember?
Stay tuned for even more announcements! We have more Bands, as well another Headliner & Co Headliner to announce!
Posted in Whathaveyou on December 27th, 2022 by JJ Koczan
Suitably enough, Rotor‘s impending Sieben is the follow-up to 2018’s Sechs (review here), and if you’re wondering why that’s suitable, it’s because ‘sieben’ is ‘seven’ in German, and ‘sechs’ is ‘six.’ It is — wait for it — their seventh album. Noisolution has the release and will have a limited-to-100 special edition up for sale through their store starting on Jan. 15. Those preorder links are below.
Okay, so maybe obvious plot points here are obvious. Nonetheless, Rotor‘s continual progression as a four-piece presents something to look forward to hearing — no audio yet; so it goes — and if you happen to be in Germany or the surrounding area in April, they’ve got two weeks of tour dates lined up to support the record that no doubt will be accompanied by festival gigs and other doings throughout the rest of 2023. I’m also pretty sure 2023 marks 25 years of the band, so can’t help but wonder if they might not have some celebration in mind for that too. There’s a lot of year to come, so I guess we’ll find out.
After five years they are back and the number game continues. The seventh album is now the third since 2015 as a quartet and what started with “Fünf” and got its own sound with the addition of the second guitarist Martin has been refined over and over again. The production – again by Charlie Paschen (Coogan’s Bluff) – has become bigger, lighter and more transparent, while the rhythm section shows itself grooving heavily and unimpressed by all this and ROTOR continues to look massive like old bunkers in the Berlin cityscape.
Tracklisting: 1. Reibach 2. Auf Grund 3. Aller Tage Abend 4. Schabracke 5. Mäander 6. Kahlschlag 7. Sieben
ROTOR – a phenomenon in the alternative rock scene that swims stubbornly, stubbornly and eccentrically against the tide.
ROTOR Sieben Tour 2023 15.04 Leipzig DE Conne Island 16.04 Hannover Mephisto 17.04 Rostock Jaz 18.04 Hamburg DE Knust 19.04 Nijmegen Merleyn 20.04 Luxembourg Kulturfabrik 21.04 Köln Gebäude 9 22.04 Mannheim Forum 24.04 Wintherthur Gaswerk 25.04 München Feierwerk 26.04 Wien Arena 27.04 Nürnberg Z-Bau 28.04 Linz Kapu 29.04 Dresden Chemiefabrik
Posted in Whathaveyou on July 13th, 2022 by JJ Koczan
Though you wouldn’t guess from the photo above — the one below is more recent — Berlin-based instrumental heavy stalwarts Rotor are getting prepared to enter the studio next month in order to record their seventh full-length. It’s untitled as yet, but it seems like a safe enough bet that after six numerically-named LPs they’re probably not about to drop that habit without good cause. So perhaps 7 or Sieben or something like that.
Rotor‘s most recent album, Sechs (review here), came out in 2018 through Noisolution, and it seems the next record will continue that alliance, which is fair since they’re not exactly a band one would want to let go having once signed them. Whatever the impending LP is ultimately called it will be Rotor‘s third for Noisolution. Drei in that sense, at least; the band’s actual third album, 3, came out in 2007 through Elektrohasch.
They are regulars on the European festival circuit and in 2022 have appeared at Sonic Whip in the Netherlands and Desertfest Berlin already. I haven’t seen their name tossed around much as regards the Fall festival season, though that means approximately nothing since, you know, my brain. Plus announcements could be forthcoming, especially if it’s a quick recording session and a Fall release. Given the proggy complexities they sometimes get up to, however, I’d say it’s more likely it’ll either come over the winter — would certainly be a highlight of the Dec.-Feb. dead zone of releases, much as there still is one — or when things thaw out ahead of the Spring 2023 touring thaw. Frankly, it’s just nice to think about a band hitting the road, figuring they will at some point, taking it for granted in a way, knowing how quickly it can all go to hell.
So, without knowing how long they’ll be recording, when the album will be out whether or not they’ll tour, what it’s called or anything else about it, here are the two and a half sentences the band posted on social media about hitting the studio, dutifully cut and pasted with all journalistic integrity, and turned blue so you know I didn’t write it.
Behold:
We will be recording our 7th full-length album in August this year! The last few decisions are currently being made. Good things take time …
Posted in Whathaveyou on December 8th, 2021 by JJ Koczan
The lineup for Desertfest Berlin 2022 is serious gosh darn business, and no less so with Baroness newly announced as the final night’s headliner. That puts them in the company of Orange Goblin, Kadavar and Electric Wizard, though frankly if you look further down the bill for each of the four days, it’s not like the headliners are the whole story. From Samavayo and Polymoon and YOB and Temple Fang, Lowrider and Black Rainbows to Rotor and Slomosa, it’s a packed roster that by the time it happens (thinking positively now) will have been more than two years in the making. Not, not, not to be trifled with.
Some personal favorites added today, among them SÂVER, Rotor and the aforementioned Temple Fang, but I’m pretty sure I said last time that if the lineup for Desertfest Berlin 2022 was done, they’d be good to go. That opinion hasn’t changed as the festival has gotten more badass.
From the PR wire:
BARONESS HEADLINES DESERTFEST SUNDAY – 10 NEW BANDS, DAY SPLITS & SINGLE DAY TICKETS ON SALE
Friends, we’re proud to present you 10 new names for our Desertfest Berlin 2022, including the last headlining act: the one and only BARONESS (USA)
Additionally, you can check out the first day splits of our line-up and purchase single day tickets from now on.
TICKETS: 4 day passes + single day tickets are available viawww.desertfest.de
INFO: – 4 day passes are running really low! Be fast before they are gone – remember that weekend passes from 2020 stay valid automatically but single day tickets from 2020 do NOT! Please check our website for further info
We’re looking forward to Desertfest Berlin A LOT and we hope so are you. Can’t wait to see you all again on May 26th – 29th 2022.
Posted in Whathaveyou on November 16th, 2021 by JJ Koczan
Sonic Whip are making it easy for you. Sitting around your house thinking about whether to travel to Nijmegen next May? Well, they’ve got Motorpsycho and Earthless atop a two-day bill of righteous heavy that kills all the way down the poster. Rotor? Stöner? Mythic Sunship and Slomosa? Who’s going to argue with any of that? I mean, the answer was yes on going to Nijmegen anyway, but if Polymoon and Sacri Monti are showing up, that’s all the more reason.
I’ve got a yelling four year old upstairs to go tend to — it’s about six in the morning my time, he’s up and banging around as he will — but there’s some urgency here as Saturday tickets are already sold out. There’s still Friday, for now, or two-day passes, if you want to do the full Sonic Whip 2022 experience, and apparently if you had bought in for the long-long ago in 2020, you get in automatically. That’s nice.
Here’s info and links:
Sonic Whip 2022 – May 6-7
We are back! It is time to let the guitars roar again on 6 & 7 May in Doornroosje Nijmegen.
Living legends Motorpsycho will headline Sonic Whip 2022 – Official.
Next to them we have invited Earthless, Stöner, Rotor, Sacri Monti, Maidavale, A/lpaca, Polymoon, Mythic Sunship, Slomosa and Kaleidobolt to this killer psychedelic party. And there is more to follow…
The beautiful artwork created by the talented Maarten Donders.
TICKET SALES UPDATE
We are grateful so many of you held on to the Sonic Whip 2020 tickets which remain valid for the 2022 edition. As a result of this and the recent sales the day tickets for the Saturday are sold out now!
Only weekend tickets and Friday day tickets remaining. We can promise you both days will be worth it!
There are many who swear by the 2005 second album from Berlin-based mostly-instrumentalists Rotor, and one can hardly argue. The German outfit got their start in 1998 — you might also see their name stylized as RotoR — and released their 2001 self-titled debut LP through Monster Zero Records, the same imprint that was home to concurrent offerings from the likes of Colour Haze, Astroqueen and Zerocharisma. By the time 2 showed up four years later, the then-three-piece had found a home on Elektrohasch Schallplatten, the label helmed by Colour Haze‘s Stefan Koglek, and they seemed at the same time to have found their niche in establishing a place for themselves between desert rock, classic progressive heavy, and an underlying touch of exploratory jamming. Their songs could crunch out along a riffy groove or dig into proggier vibes as they willed it, and though they released a split with Stonedudes and Drive by Shooting the same year through Nasoni Records that featured the track “V’Ger,” 2 remains an essential piece of their ongoing catalog and a look at how German heavy rock developed coming out of the post-Kyuss desert fixations of the late ’90s and ultimately found its own identity, which it did in no small part thanks to bands like Rotor.
They’ve never been big on lineup details, but at one point or another, the band was Marco Baale, Milan Pfützenreuter and Tim Mentzel. Today, they list their membership as “4,” which I guess is fair enough; their album 4 (review here) came out in 2010. In any case, compared to what they’d go on to do stylistically, perhaps the fare throughout 2 is a bit less complex, certainly less mature, but the tradeoff there is the kind of vibe that can only come from a band excited to be discovering who they are as players and as a group. Comprised of eight songs and running 43 minutes, Rotor‘s 2 is deceptive in both its immersion and its patience, and the band cleverly engage their audience with fuzzy tones and a sense of songcraft that builds off the no-nonsense approach of Karma to Burn but is decidedly their own. They’re an instrumental band, have always been known for being an instrumental band, and have not veered from that course, so naturally the first song on 2 has vocals. It’s one of two tracks to feature them, actually, with Samavayo‘s Behrang Alavi stepping in on lead cut “On the Run” and singing in Persian on the side B leadoff “Endlicht.”
This gives each half of the record not only a definitive starting point — i.e. “Endlicht” serving as a landmark to keep listeners from getting too lost in the proceedings as can sometimes happen in all-instrumental releases; sorry, the human brain is a simple thing and has evolved to hear words when they’re spoken — and seems to allow the band more space to play as they will in the subsequent three songs on each side. The energy of “On the Run” bleeds into the clever starts and stops and surges and pullbacks of “Auf Der Lauer,” which refuses for the better part of its five and a half minutes to resolve its mischievous bumps and bounces before finally doing so in a nodding roll and last crash, giving way to the interplay between jazz and thrust on “Supernovo” — a serene midsection offering a delightfully false sense of security — and side A closer “Nuhig Blut,” which begins with a warmth of tone to remind one that, indeed, Rotor were contemporaries of Colour Haze, and a winding progression of wah and rumbly bass that shoves forward at will into a roll that feels built off that in “Auf Der Lauer” but has even more nuance to offer as it goes, being part of the journey more than the destination as it is in the earlier cut.
As the side B launch and “On the Run” complement, “Endlicht” — the title translating to English as “Last Light” — features a return from Alavi and the aforementioned Persian lyrics. The guitar takes a Middle Eastern inflection to suit during the verses but opens to broader fuzz during the chorus, a flourish of psychedelia resulting that sets up some of the more ranging material still to come. “Endlicht” builds up, cuts out, builds again and recedes, in a quick barrage of changes, but the central energy remains, and turns over to the semi-acoustic, minute-long “Zeistau,” which I suppose is fair to call an interlude but rests well ahead of “Hellway”‘s more spacious course. It’s the penultimate piece, and its near-seven-minute runtime feels purposefully paired with the 7:31 closer “Kraftfeld” as the two seem to range more broadly from fuzz riffs to atmospherics. A more languid pace in the finale is welcome as well, as it shows Rotor working in a more patient sphere than they had up to that point with their songwriting. Following an improvised-feeling (if not actually improvised) midsection, there’s an uptick in tempo that drives into a quick, somewhat understated peak, and then finishes quietly enough to underscore the class of the performance on the whole.
Rotor‘s tenure on Elektrohasch resulted in two more studio albums, 2007’s 3 and the already-noted 4, as well as the 2011 live record, Festsaal Kreuzberg (review here), that was captured in their hometown. The five-year break between 4and 2015’s Fünf (review here) was the longest of the band’s career, and it marked the beginning of their alliance with Noisolution that continued with 2018’s Sechs (review here) — both albums showcasing the progressive leanings that were very much present in Rotor‘s earlier work, as 2 shows across its span, but which were brought more into focus over time. With that album marking the 20th anniversary of the band, they set about stopping through various festivals and club shows to support, and of course had plans likewise for 2020 that includes Sonic Whip in the Netherlands, and Krach am Bach in Germany, both of which were called off. They’re set to appear at Esbjerg Fuzztival in Denmark next week, however, which as of now is still happening and has posted significantly detailed rules for social distancing. Whatever it takes, I guess.
I can only imagine seeing this band live during this time and engaging the deeply creative spirit of their work in-person. No doubt one would end up swearing by 2 as well as a representation of that time. As it stands these 15 years later, the prescience of Rotor is a prophecy self-fulfilled by the influence they’ve had on European heavy psych and instrumentalism — you can point to Truckfighters or Papir and I don’t think you’d be wrong in either case — and 2 not only holds up as a document of its era, but of the ability of the band to cast vivid images in the theater of the mind.
As always, I hope you enjoy. Thanks for reading.
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This week sucked. Oh, it sucked. It sucked, it sucked, it sucked. The Pecan had a cold and was miserable — he’s still stuffy but has been better the last couple days, if you count periodically having epic breakdowns like your favorite early ’00s metalcore band and hauling off and smacking you as “better,” which actually, yes, I do — and The Patient Mrs.’ new semester started, all online so far, though they’re apparently going to reassess that in a couple weeks? And the dog. Ugh, the dog. The dog is fucking wretched. We were actually doing fine for a bit yesterday and I brought her out of the kitchen to play fetch in the living room. First thing she did was piss on the floor. Pretty much ruined my whole fucking day. Was on par with taking The Pecan to the zoo on Tuesday and watching him bite another kid on the playground (through his mask, but it was still enough to make the other kid cry). Oh, it sucked. All of it. Just awful. It was a shitty, shitty fucking week and the sooner it’s forgotten the better. I hope that by the next time I write about Rotor and inevitably come back to look at this post, I can’t even remember what I’m talking about here. “When was that?” and so on.
And so the dog chews my foot. Stop. So the dog chews the 200-year-old rocking chair my mother gave us when we had The Pecan. Stop. The dog chews a rug. Fine. She has bones. She has a kong. She has rawhide. She is awful. Fucking awful. And every time I try to talk to The Patient Mrs. about it it becomes an argument like she’s on team dog and I get to be my father the asshole (still dead, not yet buried for some fucking reason) who hates everything. Meanwhile, the dog bites. She chews. She pisses on the floor. She has a bark like a dying seal that is like sandpaper on my brain. I grew up with dogs. I have loved dogs my whole life. This is the dog we got our son so they could grow up together and it’s been five weeks and they can’t even be in the same room. It’s not working. The little voice in my head is telling me, “Punch out, Maverick.” Try again later.
And there’s nothing worse than not being heard.
I should go. I can hear The Pecan in the other room talking about hitting his trains, which means he’s frustrated about something and that’s not gonna stop. Yeah, now he’s biting himself and hitting himself.
Apparently we’re closing on the sale of this house (to us, from my mother) today? Never believe anything in real estate until a week after it’s happened, so I guess I’ll check in next Friday about that.
Great and safe weekend. No Gimme show today. Next week. Don’t forget to hydrate. So important.
