Subject: Mu-Ziq *live* in NYC

Astralwerks had a CMJ showcase Friday night (7/8/95) at the multimedia
performace space, The Kitchen. The event was called  Phenomena, and
featured Mu-Ziq, Ben Neil, Freaky Chakra vs Single Cell
Orchestra and various DJs. Also the Future Sound of London film 
was played. I had already seen it at the Orb show, and was thus
disappointed when I saw the segement that has the Asian man
semi-drowning. Sort of silly guys! The music was good of course.

The only performance that I was really impressed by was Mu-Ziq.
The Freaky Chakera was good for dancing but less interesting to
listen to - and I was too tired at point to dance more.

The problem was that the Kitchen was not the venue to hold an
event like this. Mu-Ziq performed on keyboards, sequencers,
loading samples off of disks, etc. However, most of the area was
seating, and it gets hard to dance in your seat after a while.
Some people did dance, but were in the spotlight as they were in
front of the big projection screen. 

ANyways, what was important was the music, and Mike P. did well.
His trademark sound of nice melodic backgrounds assaulted by hard
distored beats came out in full force. Some tunes were a little
weak, but I enjoyed it immensely. Sadly the bass was weak for
much of the performance, and the volumn was not quite high
enough. Anyways, I was happy to hear Mike perform!

I didn't recogize the songs as I have only heard the remix EP
Mu-ziq vs the Auteuers. I heard some beats which sounded familar,
but there were no tunes. 

Also I was surprised that no Mu-Ziq LPs and CDs were on sale. Nor
was there much promotion for whatever album is/will be released
on Astralwerks.

Ben Neil was playing his man-trumpet. Sounded interesting, but I
wasn't in the mood for it that night. Felt a little too "new
agey", but I didn't listen for too long so take this opinion with
a grain of salt.

In any case, I'm glad Astralwerks brought Mike over to play his
stuff for hungry east-coasters. Here's hoping he comes back soon!

Has anyone gotten the new album? What are you impressions?

/Michael
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Michael Hauben			   Everyone On-Line by the year 2000!
Amateur Computerist Newsletter  http://www.columbia.edu/~hauben/acn/
WWW Music Index			http://www.columbia.edu/~hauben/music/