Down By The River, Berlin’s afternoon festival celebrating the fringes of pop music, takes place for the 7th time on July 4th, 2015, in the beautiful garden of ://about blank. Doors 13:00, music from 14:00 – 22:00, this time featuring: pop deconstructivists Doctorella, banjo licks + dripping beats from B.B. Sea, reverb ravines + fuzz eruptions from Canyon Spree.
Also on the bill are Germany’s most successful band Erfolg, sweet folk music from Featherweights, shoegaze/kraut experimentalists Farfara, hyperamericana legend Frank Fairfield and the godfather of Antifolk, Lach. Furthermore you can see and hear Orchestra Tout Puissant Marcel Duchamp from Geneva, Canadian indie legend Julie Doiron, riot grrls Razor Cunts, Estonian folkie Viktor’s Joy, and the pioneer of Austrodub, Helmut Erler.
httpv://https://youtu.be/3dY0kaE3K9M
B. B. Sea: Banjo licks and liquid beats. On the surface, the band appears to be a folk outfit, rich in psychedelics, but as you strip away some of instrumentation and swirls, you are hit with the demons and soul of an old bluesman Cached in smoothed, new sonic admissions this electronic folk is dancing within a deep traditional wood.
Canyon Spree is a Berlin-based four piece sometimes referred to as psychedelic, occult garage, western movie soundtrack or, interestingly enough, medieval surf. Their music thrives on myths and images, a closed-eyed cinematic escape from the dry plains of Terrence Malick’s Badlands to the Transylvanian mountains, burrowing through hostile forests and cyclops’ cave. The band’s sound combines melodic hooks, raw and bright guitar tones drenched with reverb and echo.
httpv://https://youtu.be/OaDWF_f7dw0
Farfara are a three-piece originating from Istanbul, who have been playing together since their early teenage years. A host of bedroom recordings, live shows and an unquenchable thirst for improvisation has seen the band develop from their early days of shoegaze and ambient rock to a more psychedelic kraut-driven sound. Ethereal guitar effects mix with drums, bass and synths to create an all-encompassing, visceral experience.
Frank Fairfield is a sensation, even if he is not letting off fire crackers or constantly uploading to YouTube. He is a banjo picker. A fiddle hummer. A song singer. The music he plays, creates, and performs is the music that carried all of us, from all over the world, to the place (wherever that place may be) we are now. He plays the American landscape, the one he himself sees and experiences. He goes about it with the only tools necessary, as any good craftsman would. A man not competing with time, only living in his own. His eclectic sets feature soaring hillbilly ballads, arcane rambling songs and murder ballads delivered in a reedy tenor with that irresistible American Primitive quality.
httpv://https://youtu.be/lefJBwJhQ6E
The chamomile warmth of Julie Doiron’s voice is deceptive.Doiron has always aimed to capture the kaleidoscopic emotional range of ordinary moments, and accordingly the moods of her songs often transform line by line. Out of this approach, she creates songs that move fluidly, moodily, unpredictably – like life.
Lach: Founder of the Antifolk movement, cited as a main inspiration for such acts as Beck, Regina Spektor, The Moldy Peaches, Jeffrey Lewis and hundreds of others. Lach has six critically acclaimed albums, a newly published book of poetry and a hit BBC Radio 4 comedy series ‘The Lach Chronicles’.
httpv://https://youtu.be/r-7hRbeo5Rw
Orchestre Tout Puissant Marcel Duchamp (roughly translated as “All Mighty Orchestra Marcel Duchamp”) is a name with a program. It not only contains a reference to some of the most mythical bands of West-Africa (Orchestre Tout Puissant Konono n°1, Orchestre Tout Puissant Polyrytmo etc. etc.) but also to one of the biggest dynamiters of 20th century art. The ingredients were there right from the start: the forces of free disorder, the pulverised alphabet of rock ‘n’ roll, the science of contemporary music, the effrontery of punk, the speculative fantasies of intellectual music and remembered facets of popular music.
Razor Cunts: Recipe: Add The Raincoats, Lydia Lunch, Miranda July, Bikini Kill, Yoko Ono, Margaret Atwood, ESG and Mary Poppins and mix in a blender for roughly 25-30 years. Then spice with cellos and stripes and dirty words and drums and distortion and love. Voilà, you’ve been Razor Cunted. Starring Jane Flett and Ambika Thompson.
For more detailed information, see the website: downbytheriver-berlin.de
This event is presented by Digital in Berlin. Check out our Facebook page to win tickets.
Down by the River Festival
Saturday, 04 July 2015 | 13:00 CET
:// about blank | Markgrafendamm 24c | 10245 Berlin/Friedrichshain
