Live From The Canteens Of Atlantis

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“After what seems like a ton of EPs, the Sonic Catering Band released this, their first full-length album. Live from the Canteens of Atlantis is a two-CD set culled from all of the group’s live performances between September 1998 and November 2001. At the time of its release, the group had vowed never to return to the stage. They recanted in the spring of 2004, but the album remains a strong testimonial of the SCB’s first live age. And the music takes all of its meaning from the live act. The Sonic Catering Band perform recipes. Cooks are chopping vegetables, boiling, stir-frying, mixing, and blending while electronicians are sampling and manipulating the sounds picked up by contact and overhead microphones. The first disc consists of a near-continuous collage of excerpts from 11 of the group’s 12 performances. Designed to present “most of the highs and some of the more ridiculous lows” of their performances, it begins with their first-ever concert (September 27, 1998) and ends with the final moments of their five-hour performance at the Moloko Restaurant in Geneva on November 9, 2001. Things do not remain chronological in between. The opening track, which starts with some rhythmical chopping, gives the measure of the band: abstract, puzzling, yet surprisingly methodical. If the water splashing of track three is too predictable, the controlled chaos of track five provides a thrilling highlight. Disc two consists of the complete, unedited performance at the Forde Gallery, Geneva, on November 8, 2001. Unlike the dense, busy collages of disc one, the music here is considerably sparser, especially in the beginning and end of the “preparations.” Luckily, the piece as a whole remains coherent, flowing at its own pace, and offers lots of intriguing moments, even though it doesn’t fascinate. It is nice to be able to hear one of the group’s performance in full, but disc one strikes the imagination harder.”