Thanks to ianmacd for sharing his recording on Dime.
RECORDING:
Type: Audience (master), recorded front of house, 3 metres back from
the ceiling-mounted left PA stack.
Source: 2 x DPA 4060 mics -> DPA MMA6000 amplifier (100 Hz low-cut filter) ->
Edirol R-09HR recorder (44.1 kHz/16 bit WAV)
Lineage: Audacity 1.3.12-beta (tracks split, fades added ->
FLAC (compression level 8) [libFLAC 1.2.1 20070917]
SET LIST:
01. [intro]
02. Argyria
03. Marching Song
04. Chorea
05. Hexagons IV
06. Marine Fields Glow
07. Lucia, At The Precipice
08. Warpath
09. Battlecry/Mimicry
10. Eumenides
11. [encore break]
12. Swans
Running time: 52m 25s
NOTES:
I was back in the Paradiso's Kleine Zaal for the second time this week. This
time, however, it wasn't sold out. Esben And The Witch still have a low
profile in this country, something I suspect will change as the year wears
on.
Whereas Anna Calvi had performed one of the quieter concerts I've seen in the
Paradiso's small upstairs room, Esben And The Witch had other plans.
Ironically, for a band that uses virtually no bass guitar, they managed to
send a shock wave into the audience when the unimaginably and unrecognisably
bass-heavy intro to 'Argyria' kicked in.
Now, I like having my internal organs resonate in harmony as much as the next
bloke, but when you completely relax your jaw and find that your teeth are
chattering to the bass, somebody probably needs to turn the fucker down. If I
had been wearing dentures, they would have jiggled out of my skull. A few
Hertz one way or the other, and I probably would have involuntarily pissed
myself.
They say "if it's too loud, you're too old", but I beg to differ. This isn't
Motörhead and we weren't there to be pulverised. On the contrary, this
fledgling band's debut album, the freshly baked 'Violet Cries', is a layered
and textured affair, brittle and delicate in places. It lends itself to
considered listening with a keen ear.
Imagine being curled up on the couch with a glass of wine and a good book,
while someone shines a halogen lamp into your eyes and his accomplice sounds a
foghorn behind the settee. Such was the impropriety of it all.
With the songs by turns shrouded in a wall of noise and then obliterated to
the point of being unrecognisable as their fragile album counterparts, I found
myself a little bored after twenty minutes, listening to the fixtures and
fittings of the Paradiso vibrating like the dashboard of an old banger.
I persisted, though, and things started to get a little better. Only during
the set-closer, 'Eumenides', did the band come alive and show some of the
potential so plainly evident in the studio.
Daniel Copeman dropped a drum off the stage, then jumped down after it and
started to play it at the head of the audience. Whilst it may not go down in
the annals of rock as the most original stage antic ever lived out, it served
to invigorate an otherwise fairly static performance.
We got all but one song from 'Violet Cries' this evening, plus the non-album
single, 'Lucia, At The Precipice'. The encore comprised a single song, the
album-closing 'Swans'.
Esben And The Witch are unashamedly old-school Goth and there's nothing wrong
with that. They may have dug up a 25 year old time capsule detailing how it
was all done in the mid-eighties, but they've taken the template and updated
it for the digital age.
There are so many loops and layers here that it's no longer obvious which
instrument is making which sound or, indeed, whether it's still being played
by a human-being or looped back by a pedal. Unless you force yourself to care
about the means, you need care only about the end result.
This was a good gig, in spite of what you may now think. Esben And The Witch
are finding their feet as opportunity starts to knock and recognition comes
calling. They're growing up in public and that's never easy.
As I headed downstairs, I pilfered a poster off the wall for an upcoming gig
by The Joy Formidable. Sorry about that, Paradiso.
As usual, I haven't toyed with the recording to artificially enhance it. You
will hear it the way I heard it.
The sound quality is excellent and even the obtrusive bass has been somewhat
quenched by the low-pass filter of my pre-amp. As a result, this recording
actually sounds better to me than the live performance did.
If you put on headphones and turn up the sound, you can relive the bass
assault as if you had been there.
Enjoy!
http://www.filefactory.com/file/6zs3yc53crgp/n/esbatwiams20110212_rar
