Five Night Week At C/O Pop

At a gay club called Gloria in the heart of Cologne, Sixties German icons DAF are exorcising a few ghosts. “Dance the Mussolini/Shake your ass/Clap your hands/Dance the Adolf Hitler/Dance the Jesus Christ.” The Dusseldorf-based DAF, short for Deutsch-Amerikanische Freundschaft, drop these names in their danciest hit ”˜Der Mussolini’ as their audience, a few thousand Germans, are possessed by a certain spirit called punk.

Gloria is one of the 25 locations of festival c/o pop that saw the likes of MIA engender a stampede last year. This year, DAF which writes songs only in German and is led by 50-something, bushy-eye browed Gabriel Gabi Delgado Lopez, gives the crowd a taste of what early German punk electro sounded like. Lopez leaps about on the stage, dousing himself and the front rows with bottles of sparkling water. Although the sound itself isn’t as hard as your regular punk band (don’t expect The Clash here), Lopez’s voice and physique are in Energiser form. Festival Director Ralph Christoph tells us that the 30-year-old band is something of a legend, and still delivers a brain zap to 30-year-olds today. DAF was just the beginning of the collective experience called festival c/o pop that attracted some 30,000 electronica junkies including label managers and festival directors from across Europe for five days starting August 13.

Homemade techno to EDM from Oz

Night 2 of c/o pop meant flitting around the city fuelled by Kolsch, a popular local lager or a caffeinated fizz or good old weed (German law allows 2 gm of marijuana per person). Unlike other festivals where performances are scattered around a sprawling acreage, the whole of Cologne is transformed into a stage throughout the c/o pop week. LCDs in the U-Bahn, the underground rail system, update you on the popular gigs of the day, and that’s probably the extent that the five-year-old festival needs to go to promote itself ”“ no tacky posters and flashy sponsor signage mar the city’s industrial minimalism. Our first stop is on the banks of the Rhine where the six-member Deutsche Stromorchestra are in concert — their world premiere, actually ”“ at the open air free show performing something called the Propeller Symphony. If you allowed the orchestra into your house, they’d make nasty music with hair dryers, mixers, shavers, toy guns, and any other device powered by battery or electricity. “I’m not sure if I’ll let them into my house but I’ve never heard anything like this before,” said 36-year-old school teacher Ann Becker, a passer-by who wandered into the show after she heard the whirring hair dryers. The dryers sounded like an evil bass riff, the mixers emitted a growling lead, a chain-saw and over a hundred other gizmos went off in a charged crescendo that sounded like a Spinosaurus growling in battle.

Back at Gloria, lit up with blood red lasers, the mood was disco. The audience was less sober and couldn’t tear their eyes away from the supple-bodied Brooklyn vocalist Numi Ruiz, of Hercules & Love Affair, who is in the middle of a strip tease. Soon she’s thrashing in fish net stockings and some skimps in the centre of the stage. The New-York based band, currently touring to promote its self-titled debut, combined buzzing synthesiser sounds with jazzy interludes and turned disco on its head. The not-so-striking lyrics in ”˜You Belong’ barely registered – “You belong to him tonight/There is nothing I can do/With words unspoken/The truth revealed,” – although the overall effect maintained the sensual vibe. Halfway through the gig, we realised the band is better live than on disc.

Next up was a performance that drew us into a parallel universe of sound and mood. “My grandfather was an Ulmer and my great grandfather was an Ulmer so there must be some German blood in me. Good evening, I’m James Blood Ulmer,” said the raspy-voiced 66-year-old bluesman who was up on the more intimate Stadtgarten stage. Here the about 100-strong audience was within touching distance from Ulmer, who has been described as one of the greatest guitarists alive by the likes of Ry Cooder. Ulmer brought on some smooth electric blues with musicians half his age ”“ Mark Peterson on electric bass and Aubrey Dayle on drums. Hits like ”˜Back Door Man’ flew off his fretboard smoothly and the gig is exceptional because it’s the only straight-up jazz-blues show at the festival that’s known for its techno-electronica spirit. After a brilliant two-hour long set Ulmer walked off stage, his stooping shoulders and heavy-footed shuffle betraying his age. But the audience kept the applause going for a full 10 minutes before Ulmer walked back.

Our last stop for the night was Gewolbe im Westbahnhof that saw DJs from across the Asian subcontinent, Australia, New Zealand and Germany doing solo and double sets with each other. The experiment, kicked off by the Goethe Institute titled ”˜Asia Pacific Platter’, is running into its second year. The solo set with fat, racy cuts by Oz wonder boy, DJ Jamie Lloyd, rarely allowed danceaholics a break, but his jam with Berlin spinner DJ Trickski showed no sign of life. “I think being a part of the festival again really sparked my interest in world music, mixed with bent electronics and also my need to travel to Asia and other parts of the world to see and experience different cultures and indigenous music from those regions,” said Lloyd. At about 5 am, some members of Delhi electronica band Jalebee Cartel help friends snort some lines off their laps, and break into raucous laughter. Happy Independence Day.

Salute to Indian electronica vibes

Later that night, Shaa’ir+Func, India’s most active electronica group, announce that it’s been 61 years of Indian independence before they begin the gig. The announcement is greeted with a roar of approval at Studio 672. Monica Dogra and Randolph Correia then set out to perform an exceptionally brutal set. Dogra growled instead of purring like she usually does on ”˜Who Says’ or ”˜Government’ and Correia came unhinged in a most Pentagram-like manner. “Our weapon is sound/our weapons are loud” took on a new meaning, especially with drummer Pravin Mukhi going at his kit with diabolical pleasure. It was a show that left the German audiences surprised; they, from what we could make out from the general response, were expecting sitars and tablas. “We’re definitely hoping to bring in more Indian acts next year,” says Christoph. Jalebee was next up and they were a bigger downer. The group’s sound was terribly off and the bassist looked like he was hamming. So instead of supporting what sounded like a sham night for the Delhi boys, we set off for the Headbangers Ball at Odonien.

Dodging a painfully long queue we made our way into the warehouse-turned club. The bite in the air disappeared as soon as you stepped into grungy, dimly lit club. A few hundred bodies were packed inside for DJ Sebastian and Vicarious Bliss, two stars off French label Ed Banger’s catalogue. Sebastian took the more aggressive route with some bruising techno cuts, but Vicarious Bliss was going off kilter that day unable to decide what he wanted to give to the audience, which lapped it all up any way, hooting for more psychedelia and allowing the genius his eccentricities ”“ insane sirens sending up peals of (what else?) bliss and missed beats, and even a ”˜Smack My Bitch Up’ mix.

Across the city at Expo XXI, nine of Kompakt’s top DJs including Supermayer and Tobias Thomas were letting it rip. The venue, Christoph informed us later, was the most attended indoor event with a footfall of 2,000 people, which is not surprising since Kompakt has been riding Germany’s electro/minimal house wave for a decade now.

Cruising with Gonsalez

Every festival has a couple of these chickmagnets ”“ c/o pop had Jose Gonsalez’ cruise concert aboard MS RheinEnergie. More than half of the 1,200 strong audience were women and to his credit Gonsalez dished out some flawless lullabies with the help of an acoustic guitar and two supporting musicians as the party boat glided past the posh new redeveloped industrial area by the Rhine. Elsewhere across the river, a world of reggae unfolded with Jamaican artists such as Natty King, which got the African community in Cologne to step out in all their bling.

c/o pop casualties and good byes

On the final day of the gig, all roads led to Jugendpark for Pollerwiesen, the closing party. The big three, including Europe’s most expensive DJ Sven Vath (over 30,000 euros for a gig!), Ricardo Villalobos and Chris Tietjen, churned some easy techno and minimal house. An ambulance pulled into the festival site to pick up some party casualties. Christoph asked wryly, “Just one? Oh that’s okay then.”