EVER the eccentric, Damo Suzuki doesn’t do touring in the conventional sense.
The former Can frontman and krautrock icon eschews the well-trodden path of musical elder statesman plodding through the hits, and instead travels the world recruiting local musicians with whom to improvise collaboratively.
The ad-hoc approach of each set of “sound carriers” means that every show is entirely unique, with 67 year-old Suzuki providing vocals in an array of languages and tones.
Conversely, there is a serendipitous universality to the method - you sense that the whole project is driven by cosmic vibes passed from town to town and musician to musician.
Joining Suzuki in a sold-out Komedia Studio was YETTI, Ian Humes, Bob Neely, Dan Joyce and Mark Boniface of the punk band Harker.
Appearing almost as an apparition, the slight Suzuki seemed to teleport instantaneously from his merch stand to centre-stage, backed by a mesmeric live psychedelic light show that danced and shape-shifted with the music.
Naturally, the band often veered into CAN territory as a safe haven, but their stoner rock-meets-post-punk platform also offered something different, and gave a new context to Suzuki’s meandering yelps and made-up words.
His vocal phrasing was occasionally overly-repetitive but that is the nature of improvisation and it was fascinating to watch an expert showcase his craft, exploring and conveying musical landscapes without a compass.
His innate sense of timing was starkly apparent throughout the initial hour-long continuous performance, as Suzuki dripped with sweat and seemed to lose himself to the moment.
As he burrowed into – and channelled – the very heart of the band’s motorik instrumentals, you were reminded of Theresa May’s notorious reference to “citizens of nowhere”, and it felt like Suzuki embodied a spirit of no borders in the most positive sense, wandering the world making connections regardless of nation or language.
Tom Furnival-Adams
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