| Doors: 7.30 pm | Show: 8 pm | Tickets: 14.00 EUR plus fees |

To discover great new music by stumbling over a band’s website or a video more or less by coincidence is something I love the World Wide Web for. And so it happened again. While browsing the internet for magazine news and stuff I got attracted by the video Strange Identities of Belgian PostPunk/Dark Wave act WHISPERING SONS, and they immediately put a spell on me. Luckily I discovered them shortly before they embarked on their European tour. So I got the perfect chance to catch them :)
This again resulted in making the acquaintance of MOTORAMA, as both bands different tours met at the :: FZW Club :: in Dortmund (and at some other clubs during this tour). An evening made to discover two unknown bands I have never heard of before. I so love it! :)

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:: WHISPERING SONS :: started first on time at 8 pm. The club quickly filled up, while people in the front row started dancing. Seems like the band already gained some fans over here. The welcome was warm and cordially anyway. The dark deep voice of Fenne Kuppens has such a fascinating touch, is alluring and compelling in a strange way, especially combined with her performance. She was deeply immersed in her own music, as if she would listen to it from the inside, and broke out emotionally from time to time. Unfortunately, the sound was quite imbalanced and the basses overdriven, so that the Shoegaze elements and quieter passages went under. It has narrowed the pleasure a bit, even though the basses have so nicely tickled in my tummy. Tonight’s songs came from the band’s debut album Endless Party and its following 7” EP, both completely sold out. A 4th edition of the 7” is available at the shows only so far. So be smart and get your copy there! There have been two songs, Alone and Skin, I could not find. Most likely new songs ;)
Despite a less enjoyable sound and the absence of light a very intensive and captivating 40 minutes show of a much promising new band!
Setlist: Shadow, Alone, Performance, Skin, Hollow, White Noise, Strange Identities, Wall, Insights

A quick change-over and it became even more thrilling as I discovered :: MOTORAMA :: from scratch. Named after the 1991 American surrealistic road film, MOTORAMA is a Russian band from Rostov-on-Don. They are in business a couple of days longer, have 4 albums, 2 EPs and many splits out but are still like a book with seven seals. There is not that much to read about them. Their most recent album, Dialogues, was released in October and gets now presented live to a bigger audience.
Despite the info on their sites where MOTORAMA is described as a quintet, they got on stage as a three-piece - Vladislav Parshin (git, vox), Maxim Polivanov (git, bass, synths) and Sasha Norets (drums). The tiny bass and the guitar got exchanged flying at almost every song between Vlad and Maxim. Another novelty to me was to see and to hear a bass drum in the drum kit without a bass drum. This was quite interesting, it sounded ok and I guess such minimalized equipment is a space-saving facilitation on tour.
MOTORAMA played their songs faster and with much more power as on CD and conveyed somewhat of a stressed and rushed feeling. Pace and rhythms hardly changed and songs always ended abrupt yet served stylistic variety as MOTORAMA draws from many genres and influences. There was 70s disco, at one song I expected to hear John Paul Young singing Love Is In The Air, there was 80s Pop, and much Shoegaze and a little bit of announced Wave. I’d call them Shoegaze Pop instead of Cold Wave. And I got the feeling that MOTORAMA live in a completely different world, in many ways ;)
The show felt somehow surreal, was fascinating and captivating at the same time. Odd. No announcements were made; only two shy thank you’s with distorted vocals were given. The crowd was thrilled anyway, I saw many people dancing and the fan base seemed to be even bigger.
After a 60 minutes show with the new album almost completely played and a following encore the show came to an (quite early) end. Yes, it indeed was a very interesting evening :)
Setlist: By Your Side, Tell Me, Sign, Wind In Her Hair, I See You, Above The Clouds, Rose In The Vase, Ghost, Someone Is Missed, Heavy Wave, Loneliness, Corona, One Moment, Alps, Reflection, To The South, Lottery // Deep

story & pics © Dajana & Dajana Winkel • Photography