I wouldn’t want to leave the impression that the gig wasn’t a memorable one. From certain points of view it definitely was. I was probably expecting more of an experimental show and less of a cliche ridden path. The energy was there, the playing excellent and the sound, being seated on stage, was pretty captivating. Add this to the venue and you could almost call it a memorable night. The lumbering beast within the thick grooves of some of the tracks had a hypnotic quality that could’ve kept me there listening for more than an hour; but having seen people literally ripping the dance floor apart to early Daft Punk or Thomas Brinkmann, this set although reminiscent, didn’t quite drive the crowd into the same frenzy. You could argue that the two hardly have anything to do with the German duo and that their following is also pretty different but the impression the gig left me with was that no matter how hard they tried, they just couldn’t provide the same level of primal excitement.

Never the less, the crowd seemed to enjoy the output and had a good time. All the smiles on peoples faces must have meant something. The festival certainly deserves recognition for putting together so many interesting acts in such a suggestive venue.

I can’t finish this report without dedicating at least a couple of thoughts to Saturday night’s Plaid gig, the best among the festival’s line up. Unfortunately they played a week after MOM so I couldn’t find the time to actually fill in all the details as they deserved. The duo simply stormed through an hour of melancholic but bouncy and melodic delirium, typical Warp oriented electronica with some amazing visuals, courtesy of Bob (definitely among the best of the festival, together with Sue Costabile‘s visual comment to AGF’s live show). Many great ideas, some seen before but still extremely well executed. From hundreds of hours of CNN crunched into ten minutes that finished with a George W. Bush behind his desk – fortunately – without a voice, but moving as a digitally blindfolded automate, to an ever morphing and highly psychedelic trip through a series of blurred colour shapes generated in real time; from a hyper speed trip through a Tokyo metro station to a split screen composition of architecture details that almost looked like a sequence of giant tartan fabrics, flying across the moat walls. Bob probably stole the show in many viewers eyes, he definitely did in mine.

TDK Audiovisiva Festival 2004
Date: September 10th – 19th, 2004
Place: Piccolo Teatro, Castello Sforzesco and various other locations
https://www.milanofilmfestival.it