‘SYNTHESIZE ME’ WITH AK/DK – ST PAUL’S CHAPEL 10th NOVEMBER 2017
Thomas H Green and his pals at Synthesize Me have delivered yet another memorable music night that will be fondly remembered for many years to come!
Synthesize Me is a celebration of everything electronic, bleeps’n’all and was again hosted as a FREE event within the spectacular walls of St Paul’s Chapel in Worthing. In fact the Synthesize Me motto is actually “Bleep, Boings and Beautiful Noises: The Entire History of Electronic Music”. So new stuff, old stuff, pop stuff, weird stuff, dancey stuff, silly stuff, in fact, stuff of every conceivable electronic kind is on the musical menu.
It was a truly packed out four and a half hour evening for all the punters who were obviously relishing the opportunity of spending their evening within the walls of the 200 year old Grade II* listed Greek revivalist styled St. Paul’s Church in Worthing.
The eclectic synth sounds emanating from tonight’s selected artists was enough to shake the buildings Doric portico, four columns, bell cupola and solid oak floor all evening!
Mr Green clearly enjoys that part of town as he has hosted the events there before with Sussex’s finest the Vile Electrodes performing at the same venue in October last year and in March 2016 across the road at the Connaught Theatre, he hosted an inspiring evening with former Kraftwerk member Wolfgang Flür.
On the bill tonight were three electronic music acts of some note – AK/DK, Monzen Nakacho and Noisferatu.
First up to open tonight’s proceedings were Noiseferatu with their twenty minute set of notorious root vegetable-based ritualism, we alas missed them.
Next up was a guy under the name of Monzen Nakacho (no doubt named after the Tokyo subway station), who was hiding his face behind his laptop – shy I guess?
His instrumental music is best described as a film noir, Blade Runner-esque soundtrack sounding very similar to Frenchman James Kent aka Perturbator, who we were lucky to witness at this years Great Escape in Brighton. Monzen Nakacho also sounds in parts like another Frenchman, namely Jean-Michel Jarre and also slightly like the Japanese wizard Kitaro, who is famed for his scoring of the music for ‘The Silk Road’ tv series.
It was now time for this evenings mega-highlight in the form of Brighton lads Ed and Gee of AK/DK to launch into their energetic (all-to-short) 45 minute set.
These lads are really fast building a formidable following around their uplifting live synth’n’drums performances. They both play synths and both play drums, quite often at the same time! Imagine Burundi drums goes electronic and there you have it – fast, exciting, body jerking rhythms to lose yourself in. It’s fair to say that AK/DK are a perfect kaleidoscopic blend of high energy synths and structural drums and amazingly the sounds are generated by just the two of them. They multi-task their way through a joyful barrage of distorted drums and rhythms interwoven with simmering electronics – perfect!
Tonight’s lucky punters were treated to AK/DK’s relentless disco-punk crushing robotic/motorik drums accompanied with layers of fizzing Carpenter-esque arpeggios. Clearly this is an act that plays with passion combined with inventiveness and thrives from live performances as indeed the more they got into their thing, the more the crowd were absorbed into their mesmerising aural world.
Although AK/DK are clearly ploughing their own path to success, if you like other artists such as Underworld, Orbital, Moon Duo, Suicide, Sigue Sigue Sputnik and the multi drummers of Boredoms, then AK/DK are for you!
On 20th October they unleashed their hypnotic new CD album – and collectible limited edition white vinyl – titled ‘Patterns/Harmonics’, which is out via Little Miss Echo Recordings. It was featured last night (Thursday 9th November) on Steve Lamacq’s Round Table on BBC 6 Music.
So be warned, the words out on the streets about AK/DK, so snap up your ticket to see them at Patterns in Brighton on Saturday 3rd March 2018. Click here for them: https://www.seetickets.com/event/ak-dk/patterns/1168481
Tonight’s AD/DK setlist reads:
Lagom,
Maxwells Waves,
Lorem Ipsum,
Deep Modular Jam in A,
Kosmiche Improv in C,
Battersea,
(encore)
Morphology
For more info on AK/DK visit here: http://www.akdk.co.uk/ and here: https://www.facebook.com/akdkband/
And there you have it! I wonder what Thomas H Green and the Synthesize Me team are working on next?………………………………………….
For more information on events at St Paul’s visit here: https://www.facebook.com/StPaulsWorthingLive/
If you enjoy synth music like AK/DK, then the chances are that you will also enjoy the bands listed below. Simply click on each of the names and they will take you to our concert reviews on those bands:
Fröst, The Human League, Blancmange, The KVB, Digitalis, Battery Operated Orchestra, Halo Maud, Sextile, Gary Numan, Orbital, Pinkshinyultrablast, B-Movie, Covenant, Blue Hawaii, OMD, The Fin., Heaven 17, Austra, Vile Electrodes.
