Scatology, Yerevan
Scatology, Stop Club, Yerevan, Republic of Armenia © Onnik Krikorian / Hetq Online 2006
While the opening of the One Nation — One Culture festival was underway, members of Armenia’s albeit small alternative scene instead had the opportunity to enjoy a rare musical occasion — a German electronic band performing in Yerevan. Initially, I wasn’t going to go, to be honest, but after Nessuna pointed me towards the band’s web site, I decided to check them out.
scatology has just one principle:
- we only use alien textfragments (literature, songtexts of other bands), cut them and bring them together in a special way- the music is electronic and filled up with natural samples and cut-up-samples of other music stuff
- sometimes it’s loud - sometimes it’s quiet
Unfortunately, the performance didn’t last long, although the band did return for a few tracks after initially ending their set. The music was faster then — kind of industrial techno. However, the slower tracks at the beginning weren’t easy for most in the audience to appreciate, especially as it’s obvious that Scatology were influenced by earlier German experimental bands such as Can.
Can was an experimental rock group founded in Germany in 1968. Describing themselves as an “anarchist community”, and constructing their music largely through improvisation and edit, they had only occasional commercial success, but exerted a huge influence on subsequent rock and electronic music. They are generally held to be the finest of the original Krautrock bands, and are among the most important experimental artists in recent music history.
As I used to listen to Can a lot in my youth, it was refreshing to hear such experimental, challenging and hypnotic music played in Yerevan. Anyway, Scatology are meant to be playing again tonight, but I’m not entirely sure where. It was initially planned that they’d play at the Puppet Theatre, but there seems to be some doubt if that venue is now available.
The band were apparently brought to Armenia by Arman Padaryan, a former music journalist turned promoter. I know Padaryan from interviewing Armenian rock band MDP, but his musical interest crosses several genres. For example, he manages classical composer and conductor Loris Tjeknavorian. Raffi Meneshian from Yeraz Art was also there.
Scatology has a web site here, and my favourite download from their site is this one (requires Real Player). Meanwhile, if you’re looking for posts about the One Nation — One Culture festival, best access Life Around Me for updates by Zarchka. She’s in Karabakh at present.
Scatology, Stop Club, Yerevan, Republic of Armenia © Onnik Krikorian / Hetq Online 2006
Raffi Meneshian has made brief mention of last night’s gig here.
Incidently, Scatology was also giving out free CDs last night. For some reason mine was by another German band, The Ancient Gallery.
There’s obiviously a link between the two groups because the Scatology Real Player files are coming off the Ancient Gallery web site, but I’m not sure what. Anyway, interesting mix of music.
Comment by Onnik — June 24, 2006 @ 12:12 pm
BTW: I would have loved to attend the opening of the One Nation — One Culture festival, but have learned well that indoor events in Armenia are generally badly staged, especially in terms of lighting. Personally speaking, an open-air event would have been better for photography. Unfortunately work in the regions of Armenia will stop me from covering the festival for much of next week, but if I’m in town for anything and am free, I’ll try.
Comment by Onnik — June 25, 2006 @ 12:30 am
The second gig was cancelled coz few people showed up because of the football. Well, at least the German band got a good result from their national team.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport2/hi/football/world_cup_2006/4991466.stm
Comment by Onnik — June 25, 2006 @ 12:02 pm
nops, it wasn’t cancelled, there wasn’t enouhg people, however they insisted to play and did it, showing up their non-local professionalism.
Comment by Ed — June 25, 2006 @ 10:58 pm
I can’t help thinking that the whole “one nation, one culture” concept has fascist overtones to it. Maybe that’s just me, but Armenians need to get away from this monoethnic mentality in order to better integrate with the world community.
Comment by Christian — June 26, 2006 @ 11:35 am