Grun Wasser

 
  I must first apologize to the band for not knowing how to properly punctuate the "u" with the two dots on top. I did not know how to do that with my keyboard. Grun Wasser was second to last. The headliner was Drab Majesty. They were brilliant as well. And I stayed for them. Empty Bottle on that Tuesday 17 Jan I saw more goths than normal. I saw a whole lot of people deliberately dressed in black. Lots of friends of mine in that group that I can just name drop. I was very happy to see that. New Canyons played that night. So there was a lot of reasons to see so many familiar faces. I was there for GW. I perhaps caught 3 or 4 of their songs. Simmering and seething, with the fog of mystery, and breathy female voice. I don't recall which tracks I heard live. 
  To me the dramatic and understated occupy the same space within them. There's a signature tension with each track, that floats then slowly fades and always with a frozen tension. Her voice, so robotic, music bordering weird, organic and ambient. Like dancing while also deep, and lost in thought with barely an awareness of the light that leads out of the tunnel. No, no, no....I wasn't taking out the piss. I mean all this positively. I went to this show already sold. And the background to all this was having the friends that I do milling about the place, some there....alright mostly there for New Canyons and then Drab Majesty. Having said that there was a good size crowd for GW, attentive.  I came specifically for them, having already days before heard their music from their website. They had me with Out To Lunch and after that the train took off, and I was riding the roof. The Deep builds on this tension that just trails off instead of witnessing its end and from the fog, the girly robotic voice skipping along only to fade to black as well.   Lines feels to me like a hypnotic steady ascent from under water, a march from below, a march that reveals. And then, I'm suddenly reminded of Linea Aspera. This is music that evokes the cold, the robotic with it's own organic mystery. Limits for Limits has its haunted corners. Nein/9 is the name of the album and I think the band is from Chicago, the more I hear it, the more I like it. This might be too slow and meandering for some and so this is not a sell for everyone, but I am into this. And I did see it, and I was into it. I hear the downloaded tracks and they still hold me. Rhythmic, dance floor sounds rise and reveal without warning, and seem to hold delicately and fade back or scare off the next corner. The more I hear this, the more it holds me.
Zig