Label: D.N.W. Format: CD
Despite being recorded live in Austria in January 1990, Vernissage has only just now received a release through Damo Suzuki‘s own record label (incidentally packaged in a neat gatefold corrugated card sleeve, for those who care). Perhaps ominously, it precedes a threatened seven-CD set of live recordings from 1986-90, though judging by this disc and the recent live tour, it may still be more of a burden on the finances than on the ears.
Joined by Can partner Jaki Liebezeit and Matthias Keul and Dominik von Senger of Guru Guru, Damo fronts a group which, while stirring up many good grooves, somehow fails to ignite the way they probably could. Maybe it’s his vocal style, which here is more coherent than the days when Damo sang in neither Japanese, English nor German, but a combination of the three (and more tongue beside) – and to lesser effect as a result. This is not to say that this is particularly bad, especially as live albums go, more that (given the talent to hand) it’s just not satisfying on every front. Just as there is the excellent jam “Don’t Forget Ya Job”, which (allegedly) incorporates not only “Halleluwah” but also “Mushroom” from the Can back catalogue, so too is there the overly-vocalised patchiness of “Date Line Today/Yesterday” which shows that perhaps the conversion to Jehovah’s Witness status might possibly have sorted Damo’s sanity too much.
This is not to wish Mr. Suzuki any unhappiness, or to demand that all great art or performance should come from genuine suffering. It’s more a case that his former unique style is mostly diluted by comprehensibility on this occasion, leading to the worrying concern that maybe there was little there before deep down, though frankly the evidence of this year’s gigs dissolves those doubts through the actuality of a live experience over its mechanical reproduction. Ultimately, Vernissage is probably best regarded as an interesting, if flawed, document than an enlivening event in its own right.
-Antron S. Meister –
