Kumu Night on 5th June - Emphasis on electronica and improv

This year's Kumu Night festival was more modest in terms of selection of artists. Still, good music was heard even this time. Although with less diversity than before. There was more emphasis on improvisational and electronic music.

Electronic music was presented slightly less and the quality level varied. Kosmofon with its vintage retro synths and four-four disco grooves created an 80s vibe in a good way. On the other hand, Data with its sterile synth-prog trappings (and extremely tasteless synth sounds) sounded stuck in its own time in a bad way. The Battle of Skweee, comprised of Mesak and Joxaren, brought us danceable, yet deep, bubbly electro.

Music based on improvisation dominated more and this varied more in terms of stilistic variations.

Estonians did free-er improv. Liis Jürgens shined with intriguing concoctions of sounds from harp, piano (played by Liisa Hirsch) and live-electronics. Electro-acoustic free-improv at its best. Rainer Jancis contrasted the song based nature of his All album with a dual-bass (electric + acoustic) quartet improv, sounding a little like a slightly jazzier the Dildos. Triophonix' psychedelic electro-jazz with its blend of acoustic instrumentation, looper and samplers was really enjoyable at its best, but near 3AM it could sound tiresome.

Two foreign bands however did kraut jams. Wooden Shjips (USA) was energetic and rocking, but all of their songs sounded the same. Also, they focused on the arguably least interesting flavor of kraut-rock: straight guitar-rocking, but more drawn-out.

The Finnish K-X-P, however, embodied the more adventurous aspects of krautrock: electronics and metronomic drum grooves. Their drummer could hold a groove very insistently and propulsively, but he also possessed a formidable playing technique. The rhythm formed as a solid backbone for K-X-P's technoid psychedelia that flirted with monotony, yet was never one-dimensional.

A good aspect about this event was improved sound quality compared to the last year. Not that the sound balance was absolutely ideal even now, but there was nothing ear-grating. Feedback was minimal to non-existent. Even this is an improvement.