Restraint

one more time for the masses

April 30, 2007 – 3:47 pm

Thanks to everyone who came out last night — musically, that was one of the best shows I’ve ever attended, let alone had the opportunity to play at, or promote. Everyone who played put on an incredible performance.

Acumen played the best cover of Bela Lugosi’s Dead that I’ve ever heard — DJ? Acucrack did live remixes of Ministry, Skinny Puppy, Nitzer Ebb and The Prodigy — and Ahnüsse made a surprise appearance to perform Aut Haus, which has been a hit at the club for a few months. Matt brought some Grandmaster Flash to the show, and DJ Hip-Hop rocked the fuck out with some of the dirtiest darkest drum-n-bass I’ve heard in a very, very long time. So to the people there, thank you all very much. Acumen have been trying to come to Ottawa for years, and you did not disappoint them.

With that said, the crowd was much, much smaller in number than we were hoping (or fearing) it would be, and financially the show was a complete disaster of size to rival the FLA cancellation.

After this, we’re almost certainly going to be taking a step back in how we’re doing shows. I don’t want to do them as often as we’re doing them, and I don’t want to do bands as big as we’ve been doing. (I don’t see us continuing to pursue the Skinny Puppy date for their next tour.) I think instead, we’re going to take some time to focus on Tuesdays, get some of the music we’re playing into local record stores, try and build the crowd earlier in the evening (which is something we’re having trouble planning given how many house acts Zaphods has been booking lately).

It was an incredible show, but I’m physically, mentally and financially drained from last night (as is Leslie), and I do not have the emotional or fiscal stamina to invest so heavily when we’ve been asked for years to bring bands to town, and they end up playing to a crowd of 30 people.

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Rare A·V·S Sighting

April 28, 2007 – 9:39 pm

A reminder to all my friends in the 613 (I’m so urban) that I’ll be playing an Ad·ver·sary set tomorrow at the Acucrack/Acumen show. Behold:

I do not promise not to suck, but I do promise to more than hit ‘play’ on a laptop and watch the line move for an hour.

Bonus: I have t-shirts!

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March 8, 2007 – 8:19 pm

My Texan Friends,

We regret to inform you that on 4/20, Ad·ver·sary will be performing at The Gallery in Dallas. This will be followed by a DJ set, which will then be followed by a lot of alcohol, and perhaps also a drunken trip to Mexico.

Our apologies for the inconvenience. We will do everything in our power to help you through this difficult time.

Yours in Christ,
Me.

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August 11, 2006 – 7:33 am

From an upcoming issue of ReGen:

Canada’s Ad·ver·sary may not be too well-known in the States, though from the sound of International Dark Skies, he is poised to join in the ranks of such experimental music luminaries as Download and perhaps even Coil. As the brainchild of Jairus Khan, Ad·ver·sary’s music combines the distorted beats of power noise with melodic arrangements and experimental sound design, not unlike what you’d hear from artists on the Frozen Empire Media roster like Antigen Shift or Iszoloscope.

One need only listen to the opening track, “Friends of Father” for proof; with an ambient piano loop reminiscent of Boyd Rice’s NON, and leading into a dark cavern of pounding beats and minor-chord drones, this track simultaneously lulls and agitates, preparing the listener for the veritable cacophony of styles and atmospheres present on the rest of the album. The title track is little more than some deep bass pads amidst a subdued flurry of tribal drum patterns, while “Bone Music” is an upbeat dance number with trancelike ambient textures. Other tracks like the foreboding “No Exit,” with its screeching percussive attacks and bass loop, and “Number Nine,” which sounds like a descent into a subterranean tomb with subtle moans in the background for good measure, both build up gradually to a climactic array of tense industrial noise. “Darker” resonates with its waves of distorted ring modulator synths, giving us the last track of original material before the three remixes at the end.

Oddly enough, these remixes are not of Ad·ver·sary tracks, but are rather Ad·ver·sary’s remixes for Converter, Iszoloscope, and Urusai. The Creeper mix of Converter’s “Cloud’s Eye” begins with some light percussive loops and low-key pads, steadily moving down a winding road of static and noise beats, before reaching an abrupt end. The Winter is Forever mix of “28c and Falling” by Iszoloscope is much more straightforward; after a brief intro of dripping synths and samples, the beats kick in for a series pounding rhythmic attacks. Closing things out is the Destroy and Contaminate mix of Urusai’s “Learned Helplessness.” Soothing washes of airy synths and passive breakbeats start the track off calmly enough, with some scattered samples amidst the firm buildup to a noisy and climactic finish.

International Dark Skies is a rather impressive outing for Jairus Khan, proving that he has the chops to become a hero in the industrial music scene. With a hearty helping of melody and thoughtful arrangement coupled with a command of experimental noise and sound manipulation, Ad·ver·sary finds a balance between the brutal and the beautiful, while still maintaining its own personality in the wake of a number of similar artists. Sometimes unsettling and sometimes soothing, it may not be the most perfect release in the field of experimental electronic or industrial music, but International Dark Skies is certainly one fine collection of truly innovative music.

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Tour Diary: Day 1

July 23, 2006 – 10:19 pm

Tour Diary: Day 1
Unlabeled pictures are in my Flickr acct)

Today’s plans began with a simple task: Pick up the minivan reserved for us at Enterprise.

This plan was complicated when Enterprise changed the terms of the rental agreement without notice. Originally, the requirements were that the primary driver has a license and a credit card, on which they will put a $200 hold until the car is returned.

When we attempted to rent the car, we discovered that they had changed the terms to require a hold being placed on the credit card for the full amount of the rental, plus $100.

Given that the full rental cost is well above the credit limit of anyone involved in this little adventure, this caused a few problems.

These problems were made even more pressing by the fact that I had spent an entire day on the phone earlier in the week, during which time I discovered that Enterprise was the only car rental company within 50 miles that had any vans available.

Not having a van would mean we would have to cancel the entire tour, 12 hours before we were scheduled to play our first show.

I ended up knocking on the door of every car rental company in the cities of South Bend and New Carlyle, hoping for some kind of miracle — and in an incredibly rare stroke of luck, the final car rental company in the area had just received an early van return.

It wasn’t just any crappy minivan, either. It was a fullsized touring van. The kind with reading lights, and blinds on the windows.

I am sitting in it right now. It is very nice indeed.

After somehow coming up with a massive cash deposit (which would not have been possible without the foresight and generosity of my leslie-bee), we rented the van and headed back to home base.

Almost as if by magic, a delivery van arrived at the same time we did. Suddenly, we were armed with all 1000 copies of the new compilation CD that we’re releasing, as well as an advance shipment of the new Cyanotic and Ad·ver·sary shirts.

My friends, let me tell you something. I was very worried about these adversary shirts. The design I submitted was complicated and difficult to screenprint, the inks I chose were unusual and exotic, and the base t-shirts I asked for were extraordinarily expensive (using sweatshop-free materials is a very costly thing). If I had gone with a standard white-ink-on-generic-black-material tshirt, I could have gotten four times the number of shirts I got for the same amount of money; and so I was very worried.

Until I actually saw them, that is. These are some fucking awesome shirts.

Seriously. Fucking awesome.

So, we somehow manage to tetris a thousand CDs, a hunded shirts, six people, five equipment rigs and four fullsized luggage cases into this van, and then it’s off to Allegan, Michigan.

The venue itself was fantastic, and reminded me a fair bit of The Haunt in Ithaca. (There was a local opening band which played a pretty fucked-up cross of metal, prog, and post-rock. It was pretty weird.)

The set went well, mostly. My laptop did a lot of very interesting things that it never did during practice (of course), so for our encore we played two songs that we fucked up the first time around. It was much more awesome than it sounds – the second time around, everyone knew how the songs went and were much more into it. There was even a mosh pit at one point, which was pretty impressive considering that it was a relatively small turnout.

The sound tech asked us for our contact info and a copy of our CD, as his friend is a guitarist for Rob Zombie and Ozzy Osbourne, and also happens to manage the booking for Ozzfest. He was of the opinion that we should join the tour next summer, which would indeed be awesome, but I’m not going to get my hopes up.

It would be pretty fucking cool, though.

…

Tour Diary – Day 2

Due to an equipment failure (alarm clock), we were late getting on the road to our Columbus show. We’re all running on Very Little Sleep, so things are very smelly, scruffy, and twitchy.

We also got a speeding ticket, which was nice.

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Questions are a burden to others. Answers a prison for oneself.

May 11, 2006 – 7:57 pm

I put together a club mix of a track for a compilation that’s being released next month. But LiveJournal deserves better.

Ad·ver·sary – A Still Tongue Makes A Happy Life (Mix of Truth)

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January 22, 2006 – 11:09 pm

While rummaging through my hard drive, I found a demo that Warren and I recorded, for which the source files are long gone. It’s not anywhere near finished, but it’s never going to be more finished than it is now.

Ad·ver·sary and PIN – Ritual Abuse

Enjoy.

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Ad·ver·sary Tour Photo

December 15, 2005 – 1:16 am

Lonely Quebec
Live in Quebec City.

Photo by Neonyme.

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ad·ver·sary

October 29, 2004 – 11:50 am

Belated:

I would like to thank everyone who came out to the Halloween show for my first show. Thank you for supporting me, and telling me sweet lies about my performance.

I’m not certain I really enjoy being on that side of the stage, to be honest. I’m of the opinion that anything worth trying is worth trying twice, so I’ll probably play another show at some point — But beyond that, I don’t know if I’m really a live performer. Maybe as my gear/structure/music changes, but not as it is now.

Thank you again to everyone who showed, and to Nick and Warren. You made the show what it was.

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-28c and sucking.

February 10, 2003 – 9:59 pm

I’ve been inside my house for three weeks straight now, having made it outside only three times. My knee shows no signs of spontaneous recovery, although I hold out hope.

…

I’ve began working on a remix of an Iszoloscope track for an album to be released in the near future, but I’m not very happy with my work. I took a heavy noise/gabber track, sped it up, and tried to turn it into what is essentially hard techno. Instead, I think all I’ve done is make 7 minutes of dull, uninspired trance.

To be fair, I’ve only been working on the track for two days, I’ve only been working with these music-creation tools for two days, and this is the first time I’ve tried to make music in any serious capacity since I was sixteen (when I was quite prolific within the tracker scene), but I find it incredibly discouraging nonetheless.

I have three weeks until the remixes need to be submitted to Ant-Zen, and I may or may not continue work to try to have something by that time.

…

Most of my hair is in a garbage bag in the washroom. I’ve shaved a good portion of it, leaving a wide strip of blue hair along the top of my head.

Rarely have I been so immediately happy with a change in hair style/cut/colour, but I’m really pleased with the way it looks. With that said, I have not discounted the possibility that being indoors for a month has caused me to lose all sense of style.

I hope to have added a piercing or two before I go outside again, and perspective returns.

…

In other news, I’m very happy with Restraint’s recent facelift, even if most of the non-journal material isn’t currently available. Having a new look does wonders to motivate me to keep writing.

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