Eric Copeland, Guido Möbius and DJ Fitz at arkaoda / Friday, 02.03.2018

An awesome live double bill of Eric Copeland and Guido Möbius at arkaoda this March with DJ Fitz dropping some munchy beats.

Get to know Eric Copeland if you haven’t quite yet made the time. Copeland is an Brooklyn-based experimental musician and a core member of Black Dice. Eric is also one-half Terrestrial Tones duo, finding Animal Collective’s Avey Tare on the other end of that project. Copeland released his first solo effort, Hermaphrodite, in 2007 on the Paw Tracks label, with his next full-length LP, Alien in a Garbage Dump, via the same imprint. For his next work, however, Mr. Copeland jumps on board the great ship DFA for a solo long player, Joke in the Hole (2013) and continues to record for both DFA and several other Cutting edge labels such as Escho, Underwater Peoples Records L.I.E.S. records to this day.

Copeland has continued on his path of deconstruction- forming tracks of of scrapped samples, damaged loops and controlled chaos. Certainly not easy listening music, somehow Copeland manages to pull through with his demented pop sensibilites crawling up from the muck and spawling out on the beach to catch a tan. Jesus Freak is as addictive as it is confusing with it’s screwed vocal hooks and demented twang heard throughout. This is best demonstrated on the closing track Billy Goat, which can be summed up as mouth harping redneck psychedelia cruising down a polluted river to nowhere. Just when you think “Jesus Freak” resembles something you know seconds later it becomes foregin and unattainable, yet remains headscratchingly familiar.

Listeners who have come in contact with the music of Guido Möbius solely through his album releases are in for surprise when they attend one of his gigs. That is mainly due to the fact that Möbius makes no attempt whatsoever to translate the album tracks into a live performance. On the contrary: With the help of no more than his guitar, his voice, a trumpet and loads of effect pedals, he creates highly energetic music in between humour and hypnosis. Another element that makes his performances so special is his spontanous interaction with the audience. Möbius always invites chance to be his accomplice.

Guido Möbius is one of those musicians you can positively recognize by their sound. At that it does’nt matter whatever musical stops Möbius is pulling out or what instruments or stylistics he’s applying. His wit, his sobriety, his wealth of ideas and his very own musical dialect attest his authorship. If Möbius sends one of his tracks on its journey you’ll never know where that journey might end. And it’s enormous fun to follow its musical mutations. The Berlin musician masters the art of subtly slipping us radical sounds and keeping a track in its flow even with the most unexpected twists and turns.