KTL Live at Kägelbanan, Stockholm, Sweden, Sep 16 2010

Went to check out KTL a while back. I guess you're familiar with them already, but for the newcomers, KTL are Peter Rehberg (Editions Mego) and Stephen O'Malley (Sunn O))) ). Peter and Stephen were in Stockholm to work in the EMS studios, recording new music to F.W. Murnaus' (Nosferatu) "Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans" from 1927. The piece is done for the Louvre theatre in Paris, where "Sunrise (L'Aurore)" will be performed on December 3. Really wish I could be there. While in Stockholm, of course KTL felt the urge to perform for us as well.

I had not seen the band live before, but was blown away by the set. You might think that a live set consisting of a stage with two men sitting on chairs bowed down over their gear could not be captivating. If that's the case you clearly haven't seen these guys live. They capture the audience completely with their ambient drones. It felt much too short though, like they walked off stage right in the middle of everything. If KTL wanted to leave us wanting more; they succeeded big time. It would have been great to hear more of Stephen O'Malley's heavy riffing that was going on by the end. Another downside was the low sound volume. I wanted to feel my insides, not listen to what the people behind me was talking about. That's Swedish laws for you. Other than that, an excellent evening.

Text and photos by Mattias Andersson. 
Photo quality by iPhone.