Let’s imagine the following scenario for when festivals are allowed to come back: It is a warm, lush summer night, somewhere around midnight and you and some of your best friends are standing in front of the small stage at a festival because the one guy in your group who always knows best said to watch the band going on stage right now. ”Zahn? Never heard of them! Man, this better be good!”
And then the trio comes on stage and their furor starts and you ask ”Are these really only three people? Why is their music as loud as if it was delivered by a whole ensemble?” Maybe because Chris Breuer, Felix Gebhard and Nic Stockmann have been part of the scene and in several bands for years. Chris and Nic are both in Heads. (which therefore is a quintessential reference), Chris was also in The Ocean at a point in their existence and Felix, well, the guy was in many bands but most famously in the German film band “Hansen Band” and solo as Home of the Lame. Interestingly both bands are not a reference for Zahn in any way.
Not listening to anything THE guy has said, you just start nodding your head in approval - ”Man these guys know how to kick butt! What was the name of that first song?” Well, it was ”Zerrung” (German for a ‘muscle strain’) and it sounds like a cross between Metz and Jesus Lizard and some Morricone western – it’s angry, it’s loud, but it’s not dumb. As if they are showing off their skills by keeping it simple with some swirling guitar riffs, some opening wide licks and some kicking and biting drums. The night is still warm and the guys on stage are sweating just like the first two rows who are trying to keep away from the three moshers who are then laughed at, when the next song is totally different and not mosh-able at all. Your group moves a bit more to the front on your initiative while the two drunk guys who do not get the music at all leave without being paid any of the attention they were seeking. All of the attention is directed to those three guys up there.
They take their time while developing a song that is seemingly floating towards you from far away, from a far away continent and you can even hear the airwaves on which the sounds bounce up and down. ”Damn, what’s that? That’s totally unlike that first song! Man it’s good!” Something between the Beta Band, Archive and some very lo-fi leftover from Josh Homme’s Desert Sessions is rolling towards you. Like an experiment between Stoner and Ambient, and when the percussion sets in, you get it. It’s like Psych-Rock, something that a lo-fi version of Motorpsycho might do, when playing with Jaga Jazzist and not only taking their drummer.
Your brain gets blurry, too many things to take in, sensory overload you might call it. And then the ”Gyhum” fever is over. ”Dude, how did you discover THAT band?”. The next kicks in and it’s much clearer. A gritty drum sound kicks you in the guts and the winding guitars roll over you. Noise-Psych, that’s what it is. ”Staub” pulls you in and extorts some kind of spell over you. The stage is dark red and sometimes a little light gives you some visual of the three guys up there looking at each other, laughing and smiling, as this is one of their biggest crowds they ever played. They deserve to be the last band up there, the day’s headliner for this stage.
The gig ends after roughly 45 minutes with the last soft piano, hushed piano notes and you hear their thanks and goodbyes and notice that these are basically the only words they said, their music has no lyrics, just instrumentals. Nevertheless, they “said” so much with their force and musicality. You go to the guy and embrace him, thanking him for ”Man, that was so unexpectedly and overwhelmingly good! Mesmerizing!! Thanks!!!”
