Friday 16 February 2024, 7.30pm
Al Karpenter (Barakaldo) is an outsider among the underdogs and an ingenious dilettante who likes to challenge of course of history. His live performances are as rare as they are unpredictable. Listening to his album "Musik from a Private Hell" (Bruit Direct Disques), we are immediately caught by his disembodied singing with positive nihilism. It's the end of the world but the best is yet to come.
His music has been also been released by ever/never (NYC), Munster (Madrid) and Crystal Mine (Burgos) and has been described as lonely post-industrial weirdnessm, deconstructed Fushitsusha or as the perfect soundtrack for our grim times.
Damp Misery is a new turgid metal project from Romain Perrot and Paul Hegarty. Channelling the fetid mire of flooded dank outhouses, they purport to bring occult gloom from the dark, into more dark. Prepare for watery misery!
The band's "vocalist" – a fairly loose definition – is a Lagosian chap called William who left Lagos and arrived in Bilbao in 1986. He fell in with the local punk scene, and the band was formed as well as the Punk-Fiction genre. Billy Bao includes Mattin (Regler & Al Karpenter) and Alberto Lopez (ex-La Secta, ex-Yogur, ex-Atom Rhumba). "We do not write songs," William said recently. "We do not rehearse. We either are recording or we are playing live." Their music is an incandescent poison made out of misery and deception", but, hey, there are upsides, too. It contains an electronic maze of false starts, clicks, overdriven digital screams, furious silences and extreme noise. Very little is certain, except that your journey through this spellbindingly odd album will grip you from beginning to end. Just don't put it on at bedtime. They have collaborated with several musicians including Orlando Julius, Diana Bada, Emeka Ogboh, Jean-Luc Guionnet, Lucio Capece and Alan Courtis (Reynols). They have also played in several festivals like Counterflows (Glasgow), Sonic Protest (Paris), Kraak (Brussels) and Jazz Festival of Mulhouse.
“It is the most breathtaking, invigorating thing I can remember hearing for some time.”
Rob Fitzpatrick, The Guardian
