For the first time in 30 years Jah Wobble and Keith Levene, the core of the classic post punk innovators Public Image Limited will be taking to the stage together again.
The ground breaking, dub heavy bassman and one of the most original guitar players ever have reconvened to play tracks off the two key albums from their original outfit and a bunch of new tunes that continue their ground breaking work from the past.
The news that Jah Wobble and Keith Levene were finally working together again is pretty exciting and had been Chinese whispers for the last few months working together with Julie Campbell on the brilliant Psychic Life single.
Jah Wobble & Keith Levene | Memories
httpv://https://youtube.com/watch?v=B2ko8VLiDn8
PiL managed to avoid boundaries for the first four years of their existence, and Metal Box is undoubtedly the apex. It’s a hallmark of uncompromising, challenging post-punk, hardly sounding like anything of the past, present, or future.
Sure, there were touchstones that got their imaginations running – the bizarreness of Captain Beefheart, the open and rhythmic spaces of Can, and the dense pulses of Lee Perry’s productions fueled their creative fires – but what they achieved with their second record is a completely unique hour of avant-garde noise.
Jah Wobble & Keith Levene | Theme
httpv://https://youtube.com/watch?v=jmCejjV8wmM
Originally packaged in a film canister as a trio of 12″ records played at 45 rpm, the bass and treble are pegged at 11 throughout, with nary a tinge of midrange to be found. It’s all scrapes and throbs (dubscrapes?), supplanted by John Lydon’s caterwauling about such subjects as his dying mother, resentment, and murder.
Guitarist Keith Levene splatters silvery, violent, percussive shards of metallic scrapes onto the canvas, much like a one-armed Jackson Pollock. Jah Wobble and Richard Dudanski lay down a molasses-thick rhythmic foundation throughout that’s just as funky as Can’s Czukay/Leibezeit and Chic’s Edwards/Rodgers.
Jah Wobble & Keith Levene | No Birds
httpv://https://youtube.com/watch?v=ZxKIGQhvPC4
It’s alien dance music. Metal Box might not be recognized as a groundbreaking record with the same reverence as Never Mind the Bollocks, and you certainly can’t trace numerous waves of bands who wouldn’t have existed without it like the Sex Pistols record. But like a virus, its tones have sent miasmic reverberations through a much broader scope of artists and genres.
This event is highly recommended by Digital in Berlin! We are giving away 2 x 2 tickets. Just send a mail to win@digitalinberlin.de with “Wobble/Levene” as the subject.
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Jah Wobble & Keith Levene play Metal Box in Dub LIVE
Monday, 18 June 2012 | 20:00 CET
Volksbühne | Rosa-Luxemburg-Platz | 10178 Berlin/Mitte
volksbuehne-berlin.de
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