A rare appearance by UK noise/improv quartet Aufgehoben is both deliciously cerebral and physically overwhelming. The double drum attack of Stephen Robinson and Philip Goodland is shot through with pointillist disturbance from Gary Smith's guitar, alternately defining and smearing the borders of the beat. A relentless sub-bass starts to permeate the mix, an ominous wedge of low-end thrust up through the throat. It's hard to tell if the sound comes from Goodland's drums or the electronics, synth and processed guitar of David Panos, whose command of noise textures is tonight on a par with Helge Sten's work in Supersilent - a band with a similar alchemy of technical expertise, improvisatory instinct and extreme sound. Finally Robinson deserts the kit to scrape and bash concrete blocks, a strange moment of real-world clarity amid Aufgehoben's alien noise designs.

AUFGEHOBEN are, hands down, one of Britain’s most exciting bands. Double drummer attack, scorching electronic shock therapy plus amazingly rhythmic guitar freak Gary Smith on guitar. This is only their fourth show in eight years. Momentous, clattering with that propulsive heavy live funk that can drive you mad. This is fearless, warped and uncaged beast music.

Aufgehoben

10:30pm - stage 2

It is said that Aufgehoben came together in an ad hoc fashion towards the end of 1998 and gradually edited itself into existence through various recordings, the last two seeing 'stereo' guitarist Gary Smith becoming a permanent member, joining the 2 drums and electronics. As a full band, they have just released their fourth album 'Messidor' on Holy Mountain.
Their first ever live performance - after 8 years of existence - was the full-on energetic-straight-to-your-face 25 minutes set at the Casa Da Musica in Porto early December as part of The Wire's 'Below the Radar' festival. Simply a mind blowing (and loud) experience. This will be their first ever UK performance and we are glad to have them as our guests.

"If you know what Francis Bacon did to Velazquez's portrait of Pope Innocent X, then you'll have some idea of what Aufgehoben are doing to rock music; reducing it to a violent, nightmarish smear of a thing. It's cathartic, ugly, beautiful and hard to ignore." Peter Marsh, BBC Experimental

Aufgehoben's UK debut is as shockingly brilliant as one could have dared hope. Tagged 'mysterious' by the promoters, there's little mystery to be pondered as the group wade into a concise set of boisterous, muscular improvisation, enhanced by keyboard/electronics man David Panos's imaginative visuals. Aufgehoben's music is characterised not only by its volume and density, but also by the joy it generates in musician and spectator alike. A seated Gary Smith (who earlier contributed a characteristically knotty solo set) frequently mimics the gleeful expression of a Louis Wain cat as he assaults the air with shafts of elongated guitar while drummers Stephen Robinson and Philip Goodland lock into a heated rhythmic exchange, straddling the divide between the fearsomely abstract and the compulsively infectious. Sotto Voce concludes, then, with the audience perched precariously between ecstasy and cataclysm.

David Borrie wrote the following for www.dreamweapon.blogspot.com on 14/02/07 

...After a hiatus of 20 minutes or so it was time for Aufgehoben to make an appearance. All I know about them is that they’re British despite the name, have been around for ages but seldom perform live, and all seem to be at least in their 40s, which is curiously comforting to me as I am pushing thirty myself and suffering somewhat of an under-achievement crisis.

Aufgehoben consist of two drummers, a keyboardist and a guitarist, the latter of which has the sort of proficiency in making non-musical sounds with his instrument which can only come from decades of obsessive practise. Their music can be described as heavily-deconstructed rock- sort of an abstract-impressionist take on the feel and dynamics of the format, without confusing the issue with songs, chords, lyrics and the rest of that extraneous bullshit.

Their music appeals to me a lot, because although its concerns appear similar to the likes of Testicle Hazard, the execution and dynamics allow for narrative and linear complexity, which to me make for a more interesting and less emotionally disconnected listen. For the same reason, I’m a fan of Norwegian band Supersilent, whose music is not entirely dissimilar- loosely-arranged improvisation, live electronics, and two drummers who gradually abandon any attempt at syncopation as the intensity of the performance crescendos.

 Aufgehoben were clearly improvising, but following mutual cues of some sort, whether agreed on before the performance or simply a manifestation of the improvising group ‘mind’. About two-thirds of the way in, a slowly building hiss of white-noise was met by a charging assault of thunderous drumming and frantic dive-bombing guitar which raised hackles in the manner of the best idiot-energy-producing music. This took several minutes to reach its apex before ending suddenly; in all they only played for half an hour, but in the best tradition left the audience baying for more. Thoroughly impressed.

(http://list.audiofoundation.org.nz/pipermail/af_list-audiofoundation.org.nz/2007-February/002079.html)

Reviewed by Biba Kopf for The Wire, Issue 276, February 2007

"Although they were making their live debut, Aufgehoben arrived out of nowhere (a fistful of intense albums notwithstanding) as fully formed as Roxy Music when they orchestrated their magnificent public entrance back in the early 1970s. Featuring drummers Stephen Robinson and Philip Goodland, David Panos on Keyboards, electronics and films, and Gary Smith on guitar, they got off to a roaring start, their stage confidence the result of heroic dialectical struggles bound up in the endless cycles of recording-studio processing-recording that eventually brought them to the point where they felt ready to go out live. Those studio years paid off in the phenomenal interplay between the two drummers and Smith's guitar, which generated the dense rhythmic lurch caught up in Panos's slipstream of noise. The abstract visuals the latter had prepared for the night were equally effective, completing Aufgehoben's extraordinary assault on all the senses."