Apparat

This was Apparat's second time performing at the MUTEK festival but his first playing with a band. Delivering mostly tracks from Sascha Ring's latest Apparat album The Devil's Walk, a few older tracks were incorporated, including the show's second song "Arcadia," which began with its familiar drum pattern -- recreated here expertly by a live band -- augmented by some Joy Division-esque guitar parts. At the indie-ish end of the MUTEK spectrum, it was an odd choice and about as mainstream as MUTEK gets -- Ring's appearance based on his previous work as a solo electronic musician of credibility -- but it was nice to see the electronic/indie crossover represented. However, there's no doubting there's some real emotion put into Apparat's performance and the music, although that emotion didn't come across as well live as it did on the recording. One of best tracks was "Candil de la Calle," which worked well in a band context. The highlight, though, was undoubtedly the Reich-ian xylophone groove of "A Bang in the Void" before Apparat brought it up to a final crescendo then back down into the subdued Sigur Rós-lite territory that they began with.