Les Citrons Masques, Yverdon-les-Bains (CH)
15-16.4.2006

Photos © 2006 Gianfri UmSK  

Dubbed "Two days of music and misanthropy, to nights of art dreams and neofolk", the event kept its promise in style. With attendance limited to 200 paying guests, you could be forgiven for thinking that this was yet another show-off of dark elitism. On the contrary, true to the genuine commitment and spirit of the organisers, priority was given to the quality of the line-up, securing a more than adequate hosting venue, emphasizing the artist-audience contact in an intimate context, and emphasizing art over consume or sectarian intolerance, the latter being the most en-vogue "qualities" of our contemporary incarnation of humanity. Triumvirat turned out to be a loud and clear lesson in this respect and, admitting that certain experiences have to be lived to fully appreciate their constructive impact on the world of arts, I reckon that this humble commentary will probably fail to do adequate justice to this event. Yet, on I go, trying to cover toe musical content for the benefit of posterity. In all truth, it was not all roses in this respect, yet the sincerity and commitment of all performers is a major factor to underline. After all, it is not clinical perfection the moving factor behind the neo-folk and post-industrial cultures. In fact, quite the opposite.

Opening the "dances" are Der Feuerkreiner, a duo from Italy, who turn out to be perhaps the nicest surprise of the festival. Mixing in the right doses power electronics, martial, industrial and less hard pieces graced by powerful female vocals, they offer great variation and competence in their apocalyptic frame, underlined by fitting video projections at their back. Valentina Castellani and Federico Flamini share vocals' duties and the little number is which she sings into a walkie-talkie and he receives on the other side of the stage, directing the output of his talkie into the microphone was eye catching and very effective in creating the wished effect at the same time. Despite being relatively new to the stages, it's easy to see why this project has rapidly caught international recognition in the industrial scene. The venue is packed and the fervid audience is the right frame for this triumphant performance.

The most talked-of name of the evening, Blood Axis is the next in line. Performing under the moniker Knotwork, this was essentially an acoustic version of Blood Axis, featuring Michael Moynihan and Annabel Lee. Michael took care of vocals and bodhran, Annabel performing violin. They went through a long setlist made up of many traditional songs, most of them of Irish origins.Mr. Moynihan soulless vocal performance didn't do very good to the general atmosphere and to the songs themselves, and the set grew tired quite quickly. Despite the loud adulative clapping interludes of the crowd, many later admitted their slight disappointment. Annabel, who didn't miss very often the chance of hitting the microphone with the bow, generating very loud and unpleasant bump sounds, vehemently complained at some point about the crowd chit-chatter, which was barely audible in all truth. In reality, crowd interest is commanded by the artist performance, so maybe this was a measure of the people declining interest about the static stage happenings. Later on, from the distance of the bar, I hear a well-known, over-done laugh, emitted by the PA. No mistake here, and before the first guitar chord strikes, I know it's Cuore Nero by Ain Soph. For a welcome encore, Marco and Thomas of Die Weisse Rose join the duo in the nice treat, fuelled by Annabel playing accordion (as she did in a couple of tracks of the main set).

Ianva closes the live performance sequence and they rightly bring the first (and only) set of "organic" music of the festival. Ianva as a project are new to me, and are a monster group of eight, featuring male and female vocals, guitars (electric and acoustic), bass, trumpet, keyboard, violin, accordion, drums and percussion. Most of their members, however are very well known, representing a good cross-section of the best Italian alternative-noir around. Fusing a variety of styles, ranging from folk to darkwave, to neo-classical, injecting a dose of nostalgia, a lot of Italian popular culture, Ianva are the other strong moment of the evening. Fronted by the commanding figure of Mercy (Helden Rune), often joined by the flamboyant Stefania T. D'Alterio, the band went on with an impeccable performance that prompted many enthusiastic encore requests. Having run out of tracks to perform, they re-propose at the end their classic La Ballata dell'Ardito, staple track from their first and unique release Disobbedisco! A great wrap up for the night. Assorted DJ's will continue to entertain till the wee hours.

Sunday opens in cosmic fashion, with an intense dark-ambient performance by Frederic Harbour aka Visions. Hailing from Canada, he is also the man behind the tremendous Cyclic Law label, dedicated to dark-ambient itself. Visions proposes desolate and celestial drones, suspending the audience in a deep cosmo, as exposed in pictorial manner by the suggestive video projection. He keeps himself busy generating sounds, feeding them into his Mac and treating them in real time to achieve his sonic creations. Hypnotising, sometimes frightening.

Les Joyaux de La Princesse join forces with Blood Axis to re-create the atmosphere of their Absinthe, La Folie Verte concept work. This is a very effective performance, seeing Erik Konofal and Michael Moynihan sitting at a table, downing absinth one glass after the other, smoking pipe and generally having a spartan good time. A fitting lo-fi synth soundtrack and spoken word do the rest, while also Annabel Lee joins in from time to time with her violin. The green madness, yes and a fitting and fascinating representation of it, a nice theatrical touch.

Les Joyaux de La Princesse set follows straight after, a very powerful and evocative set, certainly one of the highlights of the event. Floor tom and a battered gramophone seem to constitute the entire instrumentation, backed by another drummer, who sometimes took also shortly on vocal duties. Starting with Erik extracting interesting noises out of the gramophone, the set goes on mainly on the industrial and martial path, while the project historic thematic are once again illustrated by chilling video projections. A jump back in time and probably one of chilling warning for nowadays carefree generations of no-brains.

It's up to H.E.R.R. to keep up with the standard and their beginning is a disaster instead. With three quarters of their instrumentation suddenly plummeting offline, they struggle through the first few numbers, until tech problems are laboriously solved as the performance unfolds. Fromtman Troy Southgate does a good job in these circumstances, allowing the band to keep confidence despite the problems. From there on, the Nederlands' combo, grows well and, despite suffering from the out-of-time-drummers syndrome, pull a good show. They offer an hybrid kind of martial industrial, softened by synths and a good cello work. Certainly something to check out if you are not acquainted with them.

The headline crown is for :Of The Wand And The Moon: who live up to their name, despite frontman Kim Larsen appearing to be not in his best shape. They go through a crystalline set of dark-folk which is much reminiscent of Death In June in many aspects. Again, much of the impact was lost on many tracks due to the percussionist not bothering to bang the drum quite in synch with the song which I found quite annoying. Fortunately the charisma and competent guitar playing of Kim played well their role, while keyboard and an additional guitar gave a full body to the sound. Overall I still find :Of The Wand And The Moon: much more enjoyable on CD than on stage, yet this was very good set bar the drumming, and a very nice way to end this very successful festival.

Gianfri