You Need Friends, Not Diskos! presents a great double bill of live acts at Gretchen in Kreuzberg this September with Ali Dada and M.Rux & The Drums both performing live. YNFND! resident DJ Kundan will round off the lineup making this an evening not to miss.
Swiss intergalactic 3 piece experimentalists lean on a Dadaist theme for their late-night, jam-inspired, and smokey beat laden trip to the cosmos. Distilling surf rock, jazz and ambience, energised and patched together with spoken word samples, wind instruments and, blunted hip hop beats, ali dada’s album SUM is their invitation to ‘dadaversum’ – their eccentric universe of sound and emotion. Featuring Orlando Ludens (guitar & ambient soundscapes), Rulla (beats & field recordings) and Max Licht (brass & trombone), experimentation is the trio’s constant and SUM is the result of a ‘meta-level of jams and associative distillation’ always with a fluid sense of genre.
The three Swiss musicians are all instrumentalists in their own right, two from Zürich and one from the Swiss hinterland and first crossed paths at Berlin’s Klunkerkranich cultural centre in 2018. They reunited in Switzerland and quickly found themselves in a creative haze, jamming and performing their first gig together in 2019. In 2020, they released their debut album on the Russian label Leveldva, followed by various singles and EPs. Whilst SUM clearly takes new and furtive steps, ali dada’s sound is wholly their own. Nothing feels rigid here and rules don’t apply. Improvisation lingers in the air, even after the last note fades. A series of sound sketches, dense in detail, stylistically rich, SUM gives licence to couch-melt, sungaze or for those used to wintry climes, add another log on the fire.
REKORDER is a manifestation of this typical M.RUX sound. Similar to his concept album “Vermonische Melodien” from 2020 (on the Pingipung label), the artist’s curiosity is directed towards the musical visions of the past. When new music technology projected great visions of the future and when new sounds had not yet solidified into clichés. REKORDER refers to the recording device, spelled in a German way, because most of the recordings were made in Germany (and in England as well).
Phonography is a miracle that has only been around for 150 years: Technology gifts upon us prosthetics for remembering sound. Every recording is a process, and every playback a new performative act. Recordari (Latin) is a beautiful word. It literally means to take something to heart (cor) once again (re-). This doesn’t just refer to remembering, but also to a ponderous, loving, sometimes doubtful contemplation. It is a perfect headline for M.RUX’ approach to processing sound.
Ali Dada and M.Rux
Sunday, 15th September 2024 | Doors 19:00 | Starts 20:00 CET
Gretchen | Obentrautstraße 19-21 in 10963 Berlin
