Any event associated with avant-garde publication The Wire was always going to have something to do with experimentation and innovation. The underlying theme of tonight's event, it seemed, was adventures into dub music presented by UK basshead Jah Wobble and Teutonic electronic pioneers Burnt Friedman and Pole.
The stage took on a suitably lush red hue as Cologne's Burnt Friedman took a seat at his bank of technology and ex-Can percussionist-drummer Jaki Liebezeit set himself up behind a specially prepared drum kit. As a producer, Friedman has been prolific in the last couple of years, issuing forth a selection of LP projects under a variety of pseudonyms which present his own idiosynchratic take on various styles such as dub, Latin and more recently, pseudo-pornographic "love songs".
Thankfully Leibezit handily removed the danger that all computer-based live shows are prone to, namely being quite dull to observe. As Friedman let loose his captivating clanks and clonks of melody, the drummer filled in around the spaces with rhythms that seemed as regimented as any military parade one minute and as mesmerising and loose as the most organic African percussion the next.
Burnt continued to drop his own unobtrusive weirdisms and quirky melodies in along the way, to create a most compelling (if restrained) set that hypnotised with subtlety and nuance without approaching anything even close to cliché.
As Friedman and Liebezeit accepted their loud applause and removed themselves from the stage, they were quickly replaced by a trio of musicians clutching a range of instruments that included a kind of electronic bagpipe, a screeching soprano sax, an alto sax and a flute. They proceeded to build up a seemingly improvised set into a quite startling cacophony, in the middle of which a giant of a man suddenly appeared, dressed distinctively in a grey suit and hat.
Even before he strode across the stage to pick up his bass guitar, his demeanor and presence were such that he could only have been one person from tonight's bill Jah Wobble. As he plucked out a deep, dubwise bassline, he was joined by a drummer and an effects man at the mixing desk who began adding the requisite reverb onto the snares and sax.
The set up continued in this vein for a marathon session that lasted about an hour with Wobble and drummer working together to uphold a solid rhythm section that hardly deviated from the basics, while the windy trio flitted between almost free jazz levels of improvisation and atonality and moments of pure, gliding beauty.
It was an intense performance and though quite mindblowing, one couldn't help but hope that he wouldn't pop back on for a similarly lengthy encore.
The final act was Berlin based producer Stephan Betke, aka Pole, who has become notorious for his clean, glitch filled digi-dub. In contrast to the previous instrument led performance, Pole made use of a large mixing desk and sequencer to produce his version of Jamaica's most pervasive music, building ultra-clean walls of cavernous dub and dropping in grainy crackles, soft hisses and creaking, tectonic slabs of sound in the mix.
At the end, Wobble and his ensemble returned joined by Liebezeit this time - but their jam was mercifully reduced to a fifteen minute closing sequence due to the fact the venue was closing. As it was, we left with a head full of bass and a heart full of the pioneers we had witnessed in action, without whom modern music would be a much safer - and less interesting place.
