Incredible Hexadecibels vs Creassault, Gei, Sorry see Saw, Anti-Kati, Nigel Wright @ Wine Cellar, Fri, Nov 23

I cruised into the city on the bus, keen to see the Incredible Hexadecibels. The Wine Cellar is a cute little venue, with couches and stuff to sit on while you listen.

Gei was one-man-drone, using a guitar. A lot of people do this style of music, even just in this city. I cannot say it was any better or worse than any other I have seen.

DJ Nigel Wright played some music in between sets, including some DHR stuff if I recall correctly.

Sorry See Saw - in the lead up to this they were known as "unnamed super group (feat. 7 members from more than 30 bands)" - consisted of some random people, none of whom I really recognised, except for Erika, who is k5k's girlfriend. She did vocals and played a conch shell. They played some rock-based music.

Incredible Hexadecibels vs Creassault was great. Combining video and audio together is mesmerising, just like television. It helps that both the audio and video are top quality. I had to run out just before the end to catch the last bus, but it sure left me wanting to see it again...

Keith Fulerton Whitman @ St James, Auckland; Hrvatski @ Wine Cellar, Auckland; Elektrode:Nina RK @ Ibiza, Auckland; Saturday 29 April

So anyway, some random chick named Karina contacted me through discogs asking about the Auckland breakcore scene. And then on this same day Anti-Kati were contacting me saying that Hrvatski was playing and I should come. So as I was riding the bus into town to meet Anti-Kati I was texting this Karina and telling her about this show, but it turned out she worked at the venue and already knew.

I met Anti-Kati on Symonds Street, and they gave me some beer and we walked down to AUT and found somewhere quiet to smoke and drink and talk. Then we walked down to the venue. It was in a side room of the St James, and we arrived just in time for the Keith Fulerton Whitman set to be starting. We scored a spot down the front. This room was like carpeted, and people were sitting and lying on the floor.

We chilled out, let the noise wash over us. When you were lying on the floor you could feel the bass under you, while the high frequencies floated above you. It was quite magical.

After he had finished, he invited all interested audio geeks to come and check out his equipment and he talked to them for a while. We texted Karina, to meet up with her. Word was Keith was heading up to the Wine Cellar to play a show as Hrvatski. She was already on her way there, but came back to meet us. We walked up Queen St together.

I have a feeling she was also headed up there anyway to see Fandaby Dozi play, my memory is hazy but I'm pretty sure this was the night we met him. Anyway, Hrvatski played a short set off his laptop. Me and slypussy did some dancing. It was over too soon really.

Then slypussy tells me that Koil is running his goth-EBM-industrial-hardtekno night called Elektrode just up the road at Ibiza, and we should check it out, because there is a lot of black-light-glow-in-the-dark cybergoths there, and they play hardkore tekno there. It turns out that the real reason he wants to go there is to see the DJ, hot goth chick Nina RK.

We go into Ibiza, and they're playing like Vengaboys and stuff, and me and slypussy bump and grind for a bit. There's no sign of the Elektrode night. We go back to the Wine Cellar to look for k5k, but it's all over, so we go to K' Road Ballroom, and slypussy buys us some beer, and there's a jukebox that costs no money, so we queue up some music like Wham!, and then before we leave we queue up a bunch of Alanis Morisette and shit like that, for some other suckers to have to listen to.

We head back to Ibiza and work out that there's an upstairs, and we blag our way in without paying by saying we're just looking for our mate k5k, and there's only about 10 people there, and Nina RK is playing some hardcore tekno, CoretexLabs kinda stuff appearantly, and me and slypussy bump and grind some more with the about 3 other people on the dancefloor.

and eventually it's all over.

DEL, White Saucer, Dean Roberts @ kings arms, auckland; 4 march

I arrived at about 22:00, maybe a bit after, and Lasse Marhaug (star of DEL) himself was at the door, selling vast quantities of vinyl and CDs, which I didn't have money for. Although I did make sure I had the money to purchase the limited tour 8". I paid for my entry, got my stamp and then took my vinyl back to my car, and moved my car closer to the venue, because it turned out there was parking right outside it.

I went inside and managed to find a comfy chair to sit in, which was sweet, better than I was hoping for. Some DJ, or maybe a team were playing weird music. Eventually Dean Roberts took the stage. He had an electric guitar and some effects, and played some slow, droney music with it, and sang a little, I don't know what about, but it was basically terrible, it made me think that if people will buy that kinda shit I should try making some, because it didn't look hard.

I got some water, sat back down, the DJ(s) played some more weird music, I guess they were going for that kinda art-school-found-sound-faux-noise kinda vibe. Then White Saucer came on, a two-piece consisting of a drummer and a very hairy guitarist who kept his back to the audience and all his hair over his face mainly. White Saucer were noisy, it was pretty interesting. The guitarist made layers of noise, while the drummer played in a continuous roll kinda style, tribal, not your regular 4/4 rock beat. Towards the end the drummer stopped and the guitarist used effects and a keyboard or something to create a layer of noise, before the drummer kicked back in with a rock beat to great effect.

DEL took the stage about 00:30, a drummer and a guitarist, and a guy who sat on the floor and sometimes played guitar, and Lasse Marhaug who also had a guitar but wasn't playing it in a conventional style. They billed themselves as "possibly the best drone-noise-lofi-out-rock band from the north pole", and maybe that's a good description. They were droning, as they played their guitars with bows and so on, while the drummer went between rocking beats and mellow, almost jazzy rimshot combinations. I didn't stay to see their whole set, I was too hungry and tired, but they were exactly what I expected. Check them out if they come again.