Last night I went to see three trios over at the Oetinger Villa in Darmstadt. I think it was the first concert I ever attended where I was the oldest person. A strange and slightly uncomfortable feeling. The first band on stage was Diario (mp3) from Leipzig. Guitar, bass, drums. They weren't the luckiest band that night. First their laptop didn't work and we had to wait for a quarter of an hour. Then after something like three bars the guitar amp conked out. When they finally got their act together they played maybe three instrumentals. Okayish post-rock in the vein of Tortoise though a little less focussed. They had found their groove on the last piece and there was some very nice answer-response interplay between the drummer and guitarist. And then it was all over.

It took ages before the next band arrived. In the meantime I got very much annoyed by the African girl choir cd the deejay had put on. Those girls should dance or drum but never sing. Then Zu from Rome appeared on stage. Bass sax, bass, drums. Punk attitude meets free jazz. Wild outbursts of saxophone lines underlined by some very ferocious drumming and a bass player who was mainly striding back and fro to the amp for some feedback effects. In the beginning I thought he had never played a bass before. He picked as many strings as possible in the most unrhythmic way imaginable. Later on he did some amazing feedback where the bass sounded like a tenor sax. The problem with this band was that everyone was doing his thing, the music didn't hold together, there didn't seem to be a band feel. I had liked the first couple of tracks as they were so raw and energetic but after a while it was getting too much. And they didn't stop as the already thinned out audience kept on clapping. They got obsessed with their jam and had to go on with their ear-bursting noise set. Apparently they have played together with Eugene Chadbourne which doesn't come as a surprise to me.

The last band (for which I had come actually) started well past midnight. Ostinato from Washington D.C. Guitar, fretless bass and drums. They began their set rather low-key but with each song the music became louder. Nice warm minimalistic melodies embedded in drones and walls of fuzzy guitar noise drawing the small audience left in like a maelstroem. Put Spaceman 3, My Bloody Valentine, Godspeed, Mogwai and American Analaog Set to equal parts in a mixer and add a dash of D.C. hardcore shouting and you get near the phantastic sound of Ostinato. Somehow the guitarist reminded me of Kevin Shields. When he played you couldn't see his face. It was covered by his dark hair. He created some amazing soundscapes with his instrument. The bassist of Korean origin had this kind of rare naive charm which gives the final perfect touch to a live performance. He said that they had only been 3 days in Germany yet and every place they had played had been so wonderful that they would have liked to settle down there forever. When the guitarist introduced the song Optimist, he immediately took the relay and said "Yes. This song is called Optimist. Because in the state the world is in right now you have to be an optimist." So f*cking true. And sad.

I payed 8 euros for three bands. Together with maybe 50 co-spectators. That makes about 40 euros per band member not counting the technicians and cd/t-shirt vendors. Hardly enough for a hotel bed. How can these bands survive? The labels must support them or they just do it for fun. I really hope Ostinato become big. They deserve it. I doubt it though. They seem to be rather unknown in the US. All internet sites mentioning them I found were German except their US label Southern.