The Garage, London
8 June 2002
Circle look worryingly like they’re going to play pub-Rock covers of Judas Priest – but fortunately nothing could be further from the truth. Finland’s finest space rockers (with the emphasis on the rock) have all the churning drive of Hawkwind at their psychedelic wind-tunnel best, with all the extraneous Blues influences stripped down to the bare rage of fuzz and phaser set to splurge. Other obviously unnecessary reference points might as well include the chug-a-lug intensity of the Butthole Surfers back when they didn’t bother appealing to anyone listening except their own baser selves, and Keiji Haino levitating the Albert Hall from a distance. In other words, they are on a mission to the heart of the musical storm, lashed to their raging Juno 60 synth, squirming guitar feedback and occasional forays into multi-drummer action.
Their set lasts only slightly less than an aeon, and contains only a couple of songs – or is that just pauses to swap places on stage? In any case, it’s refreshing to revel in the sound of a band who fill The Garage‘s well-developed PA with a headlong onrush of furiously out there guitar noise without saying a word, before disappearing into the night like a chthonic force.
Damo Suzuki has his own elemental properties, and they’re all lovely. Probably the best singer Can ever had (though Malcolm Mooney has more than his fair share of elevatedly strange moments), Damo still generates the sort of reverential awe onstage that apparently more popularly-regarded artsists will never really manage – and he doens’t need a knighthood to bolster his ego or credit card company either. Damo Suzuki is a true star, and what’s even more important, a warm human being.
Accompanied by Dominik von Senger and Uwe Jahnke from the original Kosmische days plus one-man Cul de Sac rhythm section of Jon Proudman on drums, and Jason LaMaster at the electric bass controls, Suzuki’s Network launches into a tighly-flowing session. Combining recognizable songs like “Don’t Wait Until Tomorrow” and an evocative swing into Can’s ultimate hypnodrone “Mother Sky” with lengthy loosenings into improvised trance rhythms and chiming melodies, the group work at a level of musical meshing which is occasionally breathtaking to behold.
Ultimately, as stellar in their groove-constructions as the whole band are, everyone is here for Damo and his unique stage presence – diminutive in size he may be, but when he sings, vocalizes and brings forth guttural utterances as the set progresses, the venue stops to listen in awe. When LaMaster swaps bass for electric violin, the swooping emotion he draws from the strings weave a spell-binding swell in conjunction with Damo’s almost ectoplasmically unreal babel. Their telepathically-flowing grooves ebb and rise to the minimal underpinnings of Proudman’s elegantly controlled percussion until the final close at an arbitrary but legally-set juncture. With farewell hugs for as many of the audience as Damo can manage from their midst, the let down into real-world normality is at least painless.
Damo’s Network helped time pretty much cease to exist tonight, held in limbo by the music; and if that sounds like hyperbole to some, they quite simply weren’t here.
-Linus Tossio-
