Review of Kontakte show with Port Royal & Winterlight
[photo courtesy close to 94]
I hadn’t come across Kontakte (pictured above) before this performance. They wear their Germanic inspiration lightly (being named after a seminal Stockhausen piece and all), focusing instead on a universal, propulsive, often noisy – though always accessible – wall of electric guitar and synthetic textures and rhythm. Very effective it was too, and entirely sympathetic to port-royal’s set to come (watch one of the songs they performed here). I will definitely be looking up their new album, We Move Through Negative Spaces, when it arrives early next year.
Kontakte – October Tour Dates
Kontakte have recently announced their October tour via their MySpace page.
October Mini-Tour
After spending the last drops of summer finishing off the new album and fighting over the artwork, we have started rehearsing and saving petrol money for our upcoming mini-tour.
Lots of new stuff in the pipeline to play you, we’ve even chucked in a few old surprises too!
All 4 venues are new to us, 3 out of the 4 dates are new towns we haven’t played yet, that always ups the ante’ and should keep us on our toes.
If any of these dates are near you, please come down, it’ll be great to see you all.
The London show in particular will be an excellent one. We’re supporting the brilliant port-royal and also on the bill are our good friends Winterlight. Tickets are bargain priced and can be found here :
http://www.wegottickets.com/event/93897
There should be more dates to come after these as the winter truly kicks in, but for now :
Oct 27 2010 8:00P Carpe Diem (Leeds, UK)
Oct 28 2010 8:00P The Nines (Barrow-In-Furness, UK)
Oct 29 2010 8:00P Club AC30 @ The Wilmington Arms (London, UK)
Oct 30 2010 8:00P The Chichester Inn (Chichester, UK)
Nov 19 2010 8:00P The George Tavern (London, UK)
Nov 20 2010 2:00P AUDIOSCOPE 10 @ The Jericho Tavern (Oxford, UK)
Kontakte’s “Superbug” gets ace review from freqzine.net
Awesome review of Kontakte’s “Superbug” from FREQ Music E-Zine:London bliss-rockers Kontakte continue their journey into the outer reaches of motorik rhythms and chimingly elevated guitar work with an EP which works around the theme in differing ways. “Superbug” itself boils over with tightly-wound energy, surging from twinkly psychedelic guitar melodies which dive off into shoegaze metal territory on a bedrock of cascading, weighty beats and a buzzing undertow. It’s reminiscent of the way Bowery Electric took the sound of ecstatic soaring guitars and made them throb to drum machine rhythms, but updated for a new century of technological beat-making, pulling off switchback returns until the final crash out.
“The Light Shining From A Window Behind Us” brings a benign uncoiling piano solo to the fore to introduce the final push into the reverse-engineered electronica of “Flight Paths,” where crossover keyboard reverberations trickle Harmonia-like into a langorous cloudscraping guitar line, all mellow and fruitfully calm until the music blossoms into the sort of sound which makes freefall dives into cottonwool spring to mind. But there’s a tricksy subtext here too, with interjections of chaos spilling the gentle mood briefly until the normality of the glissando is resumed.
original review
Retrophobic Webmagazine reviews “Superbug” by Kontakte
Excellent review from Retrophobic Webmagazine:Kontakte “Superbug”, Single, Drifting Falling 2010
A dispetto del nome teutonico, i Kontakte vengono dall’Inghilterra, e propongono una spacey psychedelia tinta di post rock, con una massiccia iniezione del Kraut più peso che piace a noi. Il “Superbug” che cova sotto la sabbia è una specie di insetto di lamiera, lucido, nero e in rapido avvicinamento. La traccia, priva di vocals, se non un paio di campionamenti, ha un bel ritmo sintetico (di matrice tedesca, appunto), elettrificato da stratificazioni di stampo shoegaze. La seconda traccia, un po’ spiazzante, è un “piano work” minimo e elegante, forse un po’ “difficile” per chi è avvezzo a sonorità “rock e derivati” come il sottoscritto. La terza traccia, “Flight Paths”, torna su tracciati sintetici, facendo confluire il lavoro del piano su un pattern ritmico minimo, e un buon tappeto di tastiere. Un qualcosa di profondamente “ambentale” e sperimentale, per chi si trova nell’arcipelago le cui isole maggiorni si chiamano Eno, NEU! e Mogwai. Un buon ascolto “altro”. Attendiamo i Kontakte su LP.
original review
Dazed Digital talk ‘Soundtracks to Lost Road Movies’
Nice Q&A with the lads from Kontakte. Click through the link below for the the full article.Attempting genuine post-rock has always been a treacherous pursuit – one just as likely to result in nonsensical folly, as paradigm challenging genius. Well, luckily for us, this time the coin has landed shiny side up. London’s very own Kontakte (Ian Griffiths, Gary McDermott, Stuart Low, and Ben Worth) appear to be the real deal.
Put on their debut album, “Soundtracks To Lost Road Movies”, and you are instantly beamed onto the autobahn – electronica ringing in your ears, whilst insurgent guitar lines roar past in a streaming blur. In fact, we were so convinced by the whole experience that we felt the need to pull over, pick up the car-phone and ask some questions.
Read the full article
Spring/Summer tour dates
We just added a bunch of tour dates to the newly created Events page. Dates from Gareth Dickson, Kontakte, Televise and Cheer. Go have a look and plan your summer accordingly.Soundtracks to Lost Road Movies top 10 album of 2008
Soundtracks to Lost Road Movies was named a top 10 album of 2008 by Crumbs in the Butter. Read on to see what these enlightened folk had to say.“Soundtracks For Lost Road Movies” is a remarkably apt title… A cinematic trip where the landscape is awe inspiring and ecstatically ethereal. Kontakte’s music swells and simmers; (it’s) Music to wonder at, to close your eyes to and slip into a hallucinogenic naturalistic world. The album shows a depth of musicianship, production and song structure. As the musical journey comes to and end, you are left sitting back in awe. As you start to feel yourself come down, you find you must take the trip again and again.” – Crumbs In The Butter (Top 10 Albums 2008)
iTunes UK heaps praise onto Kontakte
Some very high praise for contact from the folks at iTunes. Hey…they really are geniuses.“The opening track from epic instrumentalists Kontakte’s debut album is hypnotic, ethereal and beautiful music that a 30 second sample simply cannot do justice to ! Backed with a steady motorik pulse Kontakte expertly build the atmosphere of each track, often reaching a crescendo of massive, orchestral proportions – but with guitars ! This is ace, very cool, epic space-rock… sounds like continents colliding.” – iTunes UK
Kontakte – Record of the Week
Piccadilly Records has named Soundtracks to Lost Road Movies by Kontakte as the Avant-Post Rock/Drone Release of the Week for the Week of November 10th.On the back of a couple of wondrous 7″ platters, Kontakte now offer up their fantastic debut album. Combining six tracks and remixes of those six tracks, “Soundtracks To Lost Road Movies” takes their motorik space-rock to new levels of excellence!
http://www.piccadillyrecords.com