By Jase Walker
Not content with doing one trip to the far reaches of the Netherlands this week I’m doing another trip to Nijmegen for a night of fat bass and gothy electronic synthwave music. If that description doesn’t hit at least one of the two artists that exist within this niche then for clarity, I’m talking about Perturbator. Along for the ride on this tour are Kælan Mikla and GOST, both of which are fantastic additions to a show like this.
After seeing Perturbator absolutely slay it with an immense light show at Jera On Air this year that admittedly really should have been later on in the day. Oh well, anyway this shows in a nice dark room that’ll make this so much more intense and I cannot wait to see how it’s gonna look. I am fully prepared to spend this whole evening getting repeatedly flashbanged and I’m going to be thankful for it whether I like it or not.
GOST appears to be hiding his identity maybe a little bit less these days, sporting a mask that just barely covers his face. Anyway, a sudden onslaught of glitchy bass hits and we’re locked in and ready to get our faces melted off by some tasty synth stuff!
GOST’s black metal roots are never far away with his consistent love for switching between synthy bits closer to what you’d find in some dingy German techno club and smash cuts back to distorted gritty blastbeats. What is food for the metalheads here can often be a shock factor for people getting into synthwave through the more pop oriented side of the genre.
It’s astounding the amount of noise two people can make in a live show these days, just one on bass guitar and the other standing with a podium of various keys and synth engines. I’ve seen GOST quite a few times over the years and I really cannot overstate just how much this is easily the best I’ve seen them. It’s a constant visceral assault of sound that is equal parts bleak Norwegian fjords and Vince DiCola soundtracks, a sign of synthwave music pushed into a much darker direction.
I find it a bit odd that they’ve skipped on ‘Genesee Avenue’ but I suppose you would get tired of playing it every time you toured for years by some point and I guess with the newer material it probably doesn’t fit with the progressively darker direction they’ve moved toward. Great start either way though, GOST still continues to surprise every time.
Next up it’s time for Kælan Mikla and they appear to be having some trouble with the mic stand just as they take the stage, seemingly it being adjusted for Dutch height at first, whoops. Looks like this might have been a false start as it was somewhat earlier than the scheduled time.
It did take me a brief moment to realize that they are in fact singing in Icelandic which I shouldn’t be totally surprised about given the variety of stuff I listen to. It’s an interesting mix of sound because it feels like a bit of a mashup between Björk and My Bloody Valentine or Killing Joke.
I’m probably less keen on the quieter moments that focus around vocal harmonies and almost acapella style singing than I am when they’re going harder on the gothy synth parts. The three-piece builds up a nice subtle atmosphere that while I was a bit unkeen at first, has steadily grown on me as they’ve moved along with their set.
I feel like this sort of sound would be fantastic in a much more cozy room where the sound can properly box you in while you can barely see anything other than flashing lights. I’m really into it but I do feel like their sound needs to grow a little before it can fully fill out a room like this as while I’m really enjoying it, it does seem a little bit bare following the beastly noise that GOST had put on before them.
On the one hand I’m really impressed by the music, it’s super interesting and goes along with the reasons why I like artist like Myrkur so much, but on the other I feel like the energy dropped a bit because I don’t quite feel like the live sound was strong enough which is a real shame. It’s not put me off seeing them again and giving them a proper listen though, they’ve got a very interesting live atmosphere as well, I just think they need to add a little bit more depth and it’ll be fantastic.
And finally, Perturbator! I’m super buzzed to see what this live show has in store with the artist in full control of the production in an ideal environment!
The first thing I notice is two large screens behind the stage displaying a pentagram with a curved dagger through the middle of it and not just that but it looks like the lighting production also includes a smattering of overhead roof lighting with it as well! The thunderous bass wracks my chest, feeling as if it’s dictating my heartbeat to match the racing pace of the music, we are off to a phenomenal start! The guitar is out, the start of ‘Excess’ hits like a fucking truck and the light show starts picking up the pace by this point with the rolling flood lights and flashing backing lights dancing around while a camera pointed at the stage picks up distorted silhouettes on the screen behind them. This is exactly the step up in production I was hoping for and we’ve barely started!
Considering the stage illuminations that look like a grid of small windows lining the stage and seemingly the floor panels, having a fully transparent drum kit is a super nice visual touch too. I really am not joking when I say that Perturbator has a lighting production that is on par with Meshuggah, it’s genuinely incredible. At times it’s like watching one of the most intense Winamp music visualizers set to maximum interaction, the full venue lighting rig in addition to the bands own production is getting a full workout tonight.
And honestly I felt like I’d been waiting for the moment where the stage split apart for almost the whole show, admittedly the audience response was a bit less audible than Jera but it’s still cool as fuck to watch. It’s not just for a simple movement gimmick either, this move exposes more of the screens behind the stage and another full set of powerful lights which were up until this point hidden away under the combined stage. These aren’t an artist for speaking words to the audience, preferring to let the music speak for itself and making the odd gesture of thanks throughout the show.
Perturbator is a fantastically unique musical experience and one of the bigger proponents of the Synthwave movement alongside fellow countrymen Carpenter Brut and the wider umbrella of bands such as The Midnight, Gunship, Lebrock, Dance With The Dead and so forth. I’ve never really came across another type of music that draws in a crowd of massive metalheads alongside dance and EDM types that are here for banging tunes.
It’s not only Perturbator‘s sic that sets them aside from the others but also their artistic vision when it comes to doing their live shows which prior to this setup had them in the centre of a huge wireframe setup with a gigantic pentagram in the middle of it. If anything this is the sort of live show you go to once and it forces you to completely reevaluate what actually makes a live show good and memorable.
Perturbator has raised the bar to dizzying heights and will no doubt continue to do so as it feels like they’ve only barely hit their stride. I genuinely have no idea what insane thing they’ll do next but I don’t doubt it’ll be jaw dropping.
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