apparently the set was about 45mins long, so the videos above may well be the full show.
Members of groundbreaking groups from Scotland and Germany are working together over the coming weeks ahead of a unique performance at Platform, the progressive arts venue in east Glasgow suburb Easterhouse, as part of an evening entitled Musik / Reise (Music / Travel).
The goal: to illuminate the shared calling of free-thinking musicians and acknowledge the extraordinary influence of German alternative music from the 1960s and 1970s – krautrock, in shorthand – on some of the current generation of pioneering Scottish musicians.
In the home corner: fresh from a year of touring in support of Rave Tapes, their eighth studio album and first UK top-10 long-player, guitarist Stuart Braithwaite and drummer Martin Bulloch from Mogwai. Alongside them, keyboard player Andy Wake and guitarist Duncan Marquiss of Chemikal Underground signings The Phantom Band, the Glasgow-based sextet whose krautrock-flavoured mischief reached its apex on this year’s Strange Friend, their third collection of spellbinding jams.
In the away corner: Hans Joachim Irmler, keyboard player, engineer and founding member of out-there visionaries Faust, who stand alongside Can and Neu! as arguably the three most imaginative collectives in 20th-century German alternative music.
Following a solo performance from Hans Joachim the five musicians will unveil the jointly conceived new material before participating in a Q&A and panel discussion spanning a plethora of related topics. After more than 40 years obliterating accepted definitions of rock music, there will be no dearth of subjects for him to cover.
Says Hans Joachim Irmler: “I am very happy to be invited to this ambitious project bringing together two or three musical generations united in wishing the audience to hear music as a sonic adventure.”
Of the shared qualities between his group and Mogwai, Irmler says: “They use their instruments not in a simple one-to-one way but more associatively. Furthermore we [Faust and Mogwai] coincide in wanting to create musical landscapes in the minds of the audience which combine natural and industrial images.”
Duncan Marquiss: “If you're interested in the expanded possibilities of popular music then sooner or later you've got to listen to the krautrock groups. I'm excited to be playing with this configuration of musicians. I hope the project in Easterhouse will create odd new hybrids – as opposed to some kind of classic krautrock homage.”
