Karohemd's World

This dropped onto my desk today. It's a two-disc set, a CD with remixes (Two of I Cry, one each of I Am With You, Rushing, Shelter and Inner World), two new tracks (Call Me Stupid and Mission) and a DVD with live versions of Last Ship (sadly not recorded at Infest or I would have been on it, see icon), Exterminate, Annihilate, Destroy and Undone plus an "interview section".
Two new tracks, remixes, and a DVD which is basically a gimmick so not that great a value (full album price) except for die hard fans and DJs.
Mind you, the remixes are good, especially Knilf Oderberg's of Inner World but the new tracks are a bit flat and I usually like a little more substance. Leave out the DVD and price it as a MCD and I would recommend it.
This is actually the first time I'm disappointed with a Rotersand release because the new tracks aren't that inspiring. (edited because I'm stupid)

After being rather useless all day yesterday (the week of feeling crappy and not having enough sleep finally took its toll and I slept til midday), I managed to miss the train I had intended to take (but it would have been delayed, anyway, so no harm done, bloody "fatalities") but still arrived at the N1 centre before everyone had gathered. Of our group I only knew psychokatuk, steve_a23 and jonny_eol. As usual for me, I've forgotten all the other names, anyone care to help? EDIT: People included girls from Germany (skorpionuk) and South Africa (taryn_vee) and greeba (who knew angusabranson via a housemate). Small world indeed.
After chatting about anything and everything, a lovely seafood stirfry and even better wild berry sorbet, we headed over to Slimes a bit before 8 only to find that the doors had just been opened so we weren't really late. Wandered around a bit and bumped into owdbetts (who seemed to be the only Camgoth there), kneeshooter (I feel your pain) and finally stellalive (one day we'll manage to exchange more than a few words outside a noisy club/gig). angusabranson turned up later, too.

Things were running late which didn't bode well for me being able to see it all before I had to leave but RBN eventually took the stage and were surprisingly good. For some reason I had expected something more trad goth, not synthpoppy EBM but it worked quite well and I enjoyed them much more than I did, say Frozen Plasma at Infest or V2A at Black Celebration. Good response from the crowd already which was probably down to them playing on home ground (Steve being the main Slimelight DJ) so all was good.

Rotersand finally got on at 10 and took off immediately with Truth is Fanatic merging into Almost Violent. The setlist was similar to the one at Infest but in a different order and of course Exterminate, Annihilate, Destroy was the highlight. Cool to see Rascal playing guitar during One Level Down, too which added just a little more to the whole experience. Sadly, I had to leave after Lost (very promising indeed for any new material coming along) as I really didn't fancy the long and uncomfortable train/bus combo which would have taken me into Cambridge at 2:40.
Still, it was worth it and it only speaks for Rotersand's enthusiasm, charisma and ability to work a crowd that they managed to bring even a crap venue (hardly any light on stage and the room being narrow and long with obstacles in between) like Slimelight to boiling point. angusabranson mentioned that it was almost sold out in advance and there were only a few tickets left at the door. Very cool indeed.

Was very lucky with tubes so made it to my train with plenty of time but it's better safe than sorry. owdbetts just made it in time, too, having stayed a bit longer so we spent the journey home catching up a bit.

Sorry to all those of you I didn't get a chance to say good-bye to! :o(

Where to start and how to write it so as not to sound like a complete fanboy? Let's start from the beginning.
I will never be able to understand why it took the UK so long (two years) to really catch on to this superb (for wont of a better word because their music is so much more) EBM band from Germany but they are finally here properly and as the Saturday headliner to boot, at the top where they belong. I wasn't at Infest last year but I'm sure they made a suitable impression on everyone there so that the organisers booked them as headliners.
Their more recent success is undoubtedly at least partly due to the superb track Exterminate Annihilate Destroy with the Dalek sample. The funny thing is that they actually didn't know the source of the sample (Dr Who is virtually unknown in Germany, I only heard about it when I moved over here) - as came to light in an interview on the MissJinny show where they were asked who their favourite Doctor was and they didn't understand the question. ;o)

I'm also glad they were headliner because the sound was perfectly mixed and there were no technical glitches except for the odd feedback or two when Rascal stepped in front of a speaker. I was standing right in front in the center so didn't get the brunt of the main speakers. In fact, psychokatuk's screeches and screams were harder on the ears than anything from the stage. ;oÞ
As with Unter Null, I wasn't sure how exciting the show would be as it's just three people: Rasc on vocals, Gun on keyboards/guitars and Krischan on decks/sequencers and other black boxes as well as backing vocals but they delivered everything I could possibly hope for and more.

Right, the gig: I'm really crap and can't actually remember what song they started with but it took off right away and the audience was up for it from the start, too. I didn't see much of the audience because I was in the front row but there were some serious vibes coming from behind me and much applause and screaming. I do remember they played a nice hard version of Almost Violent (one of my favourites) very early on and there was a really good mix of old and new. Many of the tracks had a remix quality to them so sounded quite different from the CD, even if it was just Rasc changing his singing style.
The frontman is a bit of an animal, anyway, jumping and running across the stage, throwing his furry microphone stand (*shudder*) about, stepping in front the stage and jumping from speaker to speaker (almost kicking kneeshooter in the head at one point) or jumping onto the step on the other side of the security barrier and even jumping the barrier altogether and wander around the audience during one track (argh, which one was it?). Rasc can sing and really connects with the audience and that's exactly what an electronic band needs to distract from the lack of "real musicians" on stage.
If someone asked me which song was the best, I couldn't really tell because they were all performed well indeed but I guess it has to be Storm as the live drumming by Rasc and Krischan added an entire level to the song. They had two electronic drum kits facing away from each other (so the drummers would face each other) and drummed away like mad, Koto style. That worked really well and was a bit reminiscent of Feindflug, although they use real drums. Hm, I wonder what Rotersand would sound like if they added a real drummer like FLA did on the Sunday? Would be cool, no doubt.

Another fine moment was this:
Rasc: "Do you like harsh, industrial music?"
Audience: YAY! *screams* *stomps*
Rasc: "Then this one isn't for you."
Rotersand: *play One Level Down*
which is one of the slow pieces I really like. :o)

Just two photos came out but then again, I didn't really try hard, I was far too busy singing along (literally at one point during Last Ship, when Rasc shoved his microphone into my face and I shouted a "Fiery Skies" for everone to hear - mine was the second as psychokatuk refused ;oÞ):