Zoetrope Live Electronica

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From 1995 to 2001, in Melbourne, Australia, there were 17 Zoetrope live electronic music showcases held at the now-defunct Punters Club in Brunswick Street, Fitzroy, all of them designed to support and encourage local live techno acts, in a smaller, more accessible forum.


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[edit] History

Organized by local label IF? Records, and originally called the Zeitsprung sessions before a name-change to Zoetrope in 1997, the gigs - organized every three months - supported and put the spotlight on the more cutting edge and experimental Melbourne-based electronic live acts.

"Zoetrope 3 [June 12, 1997] had a mix of house and acid, drum 'n' bass and techno, performed live by three undiscovered (except by Andrez Bergen) Melbourne artists," reported Keren Shuvaly in a postscript review of the gig in Melbourne's Beat magazine. "In between sets, Andrez played some of his own music, and it all sounded so good it was hard to distinguish between who was playing. One difference, though - live experimental music is far more enjoyable than a DJ playing someone else's music on a turtable. For those who missed this one - it was your loss!" [1]

In the same period of time, IF? Records also organised collaborative live electronic events with Melbourne clubs like Club Filter, Teriyaki Anarki Saki, and Centriphugal.

Some of the bands who played at the Zoetrope sessions (at the Punters Club) included:


Many of the live sets were recorded and ended up on the artists' subsequent releases, such as the LN Elektronische Ensemble's contribution to Little Nobody's Bare remix EP, released in 2000.

The policy behind the Zoetrope sessions was firmly based around supporting live local electronic music, as opposed to DJs - regardless of style, and often the sounds varied between techno, electro, hip hop, acid, drum & bass, house, IDM, and experimentalism.

Entry cost to the sessions also was kept to a bare minimum, usually costing around $4 on the door.

The parties ceased in 2001 when IF? Records relocated to Tokyo, Japan, and the Punters Club closed its doors the following year.

[edit] Media Feedback

"Beginning in 1992 as an experimental video outlet, IF? has gone on to explore the realms of sculpture and installation-based art, always with one eye firmly upon progressive new directions and the fringe elements of the mainstream. It's this philosophy which has helped shape IF? Records and the live music events put on by IF? in conjunction - most notably in relation to the 'Zoetrope' live electro sessions this year," wrote Terry Rance in the Zebra insert in Inpress in 1997. [2]


"Dada, an art style that called itself anti-art, peaked way back in 1917 with Marcel Duchamp's display of a toilet urinal at a horrified exhibition. But if Andrez Bergen is to be believed, Dada is an integral component in the workings of the Japan-based IF? Records music junta 90 years later," wrote Jamie Ata in the pages of Beat magazine, 10 years after the first Zoetrope party. "The events IF? put on [in the past] were mad - innovative collaborations of DJs and live acts crossing the spectrum of beats and pieces, often called upon to play one-on-one and challenge themselves as well as each other, at parties like the Omniglobe raves, and the legendary Zoetrope sessions at the Punters Club in Fitzroy from 1997 to 2001." [3]


"IF? Records, leading up to 2001, when Andrez [Bergen] took the label to Tokyo, was quirky, amazing electronic music that made a mark in and beyond Melbourne," the editor of Australian Vice Magazine, Briony Wright, told Saori Nakagawa in an article on the label for Tranzfusion in 2006. [4]


In the same article, Melbourne-based musician and graphic designer Damian Stephens (a.k.a. Isnod) put it that "IF? brought innovative music out of the alleyways and put it in front of an audience. Some really incredible music. And remember - this was at a time when I would set up, and people would ask me where the drum kit was. For me, personally, without IF? I would have stayed in the bedroom, and never would have started playing live. I never even saw myself as a musician, yet alone imagined I would still be making music with three albums out, and a fourth coming, seven years later!" [5]


Allan Klinbail, alias Son Of Zev, said: "I wanted to be part of the only group of people looking beyond the trend, and really into the music... IF? taught me to ignore the trends, and I have never had more fun than being part of IF?, doing whatever we felt like. It was music for music's sake... or is it for Japanese sake? Everyone involved with IF? was doing it because it was right, and partially for the beer-rider we'd get at gigs for playing. We all knew it was way too cool." [6]

[edit] References

  1. ^ Zoetrope 3 gig review, Keren Shuvaly. Beat, 18 June, 1997.
  2. ^ Iffy Business, Terry Rance. Inpress, September, 1997.
  3. ^ What IF?, Jamie Ata. Beat, February 7, 2007.
  4. ^ ZU-ZUSHI 2: IF? REVISITED, Saori Nakagawa. [[1]], December 19, 2006.
  5. ^ ZU-ZUSHI 2: IF? REVISITED, Saori Nakagawa. [[2]], December 19, 2006.
  6. ^ ZU-ZUSHI 2: IF? REVISITED, Saori Nakagawa. [[3]], December 19, 2006.


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