If robots are coming to replace you, Moritz Simon Geist is a creative oracle. Five small bots set up like high-tech dioramas on stage at Seven Grand on Wednesday “played” techno with Geist at the helm tinkering, but maybe tomorrow they’ll play you like a fiddle.
“Once machines get deep enough into advanced algorithms, they’ll learn to manipulate human emotion,” said the Dresden originator. He added that the ability of machines to create music would make musicians obsolete in a capitalist society. “Just look at Hatsune Miku,” he said, citing the Japanese VR pioneer.
Geist’s 8pm set uncovered a modernist stripping back the techno of L.A.’s Drumcell or NYC’s Sandwell District label, slow and measured, but lovingly received from a growing crowd that bounced along gleefully. Geist’s handmade robots made movements as simple as a ping-pong table flapping or coiling up to shoot, but the contact microphones and sound processing documented a percussive, electro, mini symphony.
By contrast, Daniel Brandt, Geist’s fellow classically-trained German, reverse-engineered techno in the opposite direction.
Following up Geist’s rise of the bots, the Berlin-based Brandt played in a trio configuration: himself on drums and a MIDI keyboard as accompanied by a guitar player and trombonist. From 2018 sophomore effort Channels, “Flamingo” lost some of the animating depth from the recorded version. Persistent technical issues stifled momentum, but the percussionist still managed to create an atmosphere charged with drive, indebted to early-Nineties Detroit techno, yet also reminiscent of Tangerine Dream and spy movie soundtracks.
If robot music isn’t what we all want, Brandt is the one ahead of his time.
Moritz Simon Geist and Daniel Brandt
Wednesday, March 13, 8pm, Seven GrandThis article appears in March 8 • 2019.