In October 2001, we were lucky: we could record an entire festival! Today you will hear two concerts from it.
Impakt Festival is a festival in Utrecht for experimental and adventurous music, the type of music that the Concertzender is well-equipped to handle. In 2001, we recorded the entire festival at De Vloer (nowadays Tivoli De Helling). Today, we will hear two out of the seven performances that took place.
The Impakt Festival focuses on sound art on the border between pop and classical music, or rather, on the border between classical avant-garde and experimental electronics. Some sets still had some danceable rhythm or a melody fragment, while at other times, it was all clicks and crackles, with the sound artist in his sound world. An important question is raised: where does the music end and noise begin?
Today we will hear two relatively conventional acts. First, we will listen to British DJ Matt Wand. Wand never became famous, not for Impakt nor afterwards. The little we can find online about him reveals the wildest plans. For example, he was in a band called ‘Stock, Hausen & Walkman’. In this set, he stays surprisingly within the lines – at least within the rhythmic lines because all the beeps and strange sounds seem to group themselves in manageable four-quarter time signatures. Not that you’re going to dance, but you can do something with it.
Then we will hear a set by Mouse on Mars. This German duo is much better known: lovers of electronic music with an edge will undoubtedly know who we are talking about. Jan St. Werner and Andy Toma come from Cologne and Düsseldorf. Their music seems like one big tribute to Stockhausen, Kraftwerk and other experimental beauty produced by their Rhineland region. A set by Mouse on Mars looks like a DJ set should look like mixing panels, laptops, and all kinds of synthesisers connected by a tangle of wires that only they can understand. They have been touring the world with this type of music for thirty years.
Note: this program has no track information. We don’t have playlists for either gig and moreover, Matt Wand’s set consists of a continuous musical discourse.
