On 31 October, the Viennese electronic music trio ‘Elektro Guzzi’ will return to Riga for a concert at the ‘Hanzas perons’ cultural venue on the eve of All Saints’ Day.
It is not unusual, when listening to certain music, for it to seem clear how it is created, or at least performed. But then, to one’s surprise, it turns out that the compositions are crafted using entirely different technological and expressive means. In other words, neither ‘laptop black metal’ nor ‘acoustic techno’ are, in themselves, any kind of novel aesthetic discovery these days. With the Austrians Bernhard Hammer, Jakob Schneidewind and Bernhard Breuer – or ‘Elektro Guzzi’ – it’s a little different. Since 2004, this trio, referred to here as ‘human-machines’, and compared here to a ‘clockwork mechanism’ or a ‘techno-organism’, has been creating the aforementioned danceable techno music using rock band instruments – guitar, bass and drums. Their approach to music-making, honed down to the finest detail using these seemingly limited tools is both unusual and exquisite, and 22 years and 11 albums later, ‘Elektro Guzzi’ still ranks amongst the pioneers at the forefront of this genre.
Without computers or looping devices – and particularly in a live concert setting – the listener, or more often the dancer, sees how every sound is created right there and then, before their very eyes on stage. This captivates and energises the audience, whether at Roskilde, the ‘Mutek’ and ‘Sonar’ festivals and others, or in clubs across the globe.
