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Otto Dix in Hamburg GER

OTTO DIX, not only Russia’s most well-known gothic band, but even the first on solo tour through Germany, played – beside in Chemnitz, Leverkusen, Munich, Dresden and Berlin – also in Hamburg a concert in the rather unusual club Catonium. Unusual, because at this place the friends of the fetish and BDSM-culture can provide their fantasies and darker obsessions a playground.

But that night the guests arrived not because of bizarre games, but because of bizarre music which fit into the atmosphere – full of fantasy, elegiac, electronic, a little exotic and not normal. For some, perhaps even difficult to overcome the ridge to eastern realms of the mind and this sung in Russian.

Sung by one of the unusual voices of our time, by countertenor Michael Draw, who understands not only his voice but also the show as a coherent picture. In Japan it might be called Visual Kei, in Europe it is a role playing game, born of the personality, blended with the music, as a show offered in the interplay of singing with dance and pantomime.

Otto Dix once again showed their professional talent, from the first note to lure the guests with an enchanting atmosphere into their musical theater of spirit. Video animations like ghosts in the background, a laser-machine threw its beams across the room, Marie Slip charmed the sounds of a melancholy orchestral pathos, which developed already on the CDs their own cosmos, hardly to be compared with other music.

According to this, Peter Voronov played rocking and melting, lyrical and expressive, his electric violin. Even a solo in the middle as it is normally found in the best tradition of lead guitarists he offered quite similar. There is not much left from conventional violin playing anymore. Voronov apparently enjoys to leave his traditional academic structures.

The concert found indeed a very interested audience, but rather a small one. That may have been due to several reasons: a Thursday. And a less known and not very centrally located club. And the significant difficulty on the part of the German population to find their way to accept the Slavic tunes. 100 years ago, it was easier for eastern composers to be found in the western ears. But in our days is more than ever the English language so integrated into the music that it is tantamount to brainwashing, how little acceptance in Germany is applied to other languages.

Otto Dix provoke Russia by their appearance and their lyrics. In Germany, they provoke, because they come from Russia and sing Russian. And that’s good. There are borders that should not be crossed. But the limitation only to allow mental structures of Western Art and Civilization to fill the head is certainly one of those who should overcome.

Andreas Torneberg

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