Karmacoma...(8/7)

I would say this is one of the best performances I have ever seen in recent years. If it was not that the vocal performance of 3D was not as perfectly as expected, I would rate this a full-score gig! After close to two decades, I finally got a chance to watch their live. When the group came out as the leading figure of the trip hop movement in the mid 90’s, no one could have imagined how their music would transform powerfully to become totally organic and stardom-rock electronica. Massive Attack played 2 hours in the Montreux Jazz Festival, and while I never configure how their music is categorised as jazz, their 6+ music performers on the stage elaborated the energetic percussion-founded root in their music journey since last decade. With 2 full sets of percussion on both sides of the stage, the show was a transformation of modernised interpretation of trip hop or drum and bass. The stage design and the stage lighting were gorgeous. The visual projection signified the humanitarian message of the music group in their works, and the intensity of world messages Massive Attack brought in front of the stage crucified the world of ignorance…

The joy of listening Massive Attack’s live also came from the re-arrangement of the synthesis of their songs. Ranging from the lively groove bassline, the banging drum hits to the murmuring vocal combination, the live interpretation of Massive Attack’s music world was fully backed with a rich spectrum of instrument sounds and it was truly another level of music journey. The flashing lighting or the visually-loaded messages in words and numbers were a live protest to current politics and human security. When the group played teardrops in front of a silhouette vision of eye, the vivid sound just matched the innocent sense of the hollowing big eye on the stage. It was when a metamorphic release of light beams scattering all over the stage that dignified the world of teardrops. Featuring Martina Topley Bird, Massive Attack also played their unreleased song of invade me. Horace Andy was another star on the stage during the performance. His signature voice simply invaded the music hall! He brought the angel and the spittling atoms into the eardrum divinely. Massive Attack also performed the anthem Karmacoma in the encore session, and the evergreen trip hop classic was a perfect reply to Martina’s Overcome.

Martina is red...(8/7)

Congratulations to Martina’s latest release of solo album in Swiss. I attended her last gig before the official release, and it was a minimalistic session of live performance. Martina has been the kind of diva-vocal to me appearing in great music work of Massive Attack and Tricky etc., and stepping away from the mega-cast, her own project demonstrates some more profound dimension of her music world. With the eccentric use of sound instruments, she takes much advantage of her unique voice to sample the vocal and experiment her beautiful tone as one of the key elements in her songs. The gig was lovely, and the lo-fi set up on the stage simply reinforced her humane music language, not to mention her eye-catching reddish evening dress. It was beautifully touching when she performed 'overcome' at the end of the show. It must be a memorable musical trip for her in the era of Maxinquaye...

Bourgeois Jazz...(8/7)

How cliché would it be to have ever installed the festive atmosphere in the soundless lake-side town every summer, like the peaceful Montreux along Lake Leman? And becoming the 44th time of its kind, the Montreux Jazz Festival has continued to impress the participants and music-lovers who come over to seek for a speechless tone of hysteric enjoyment. My visit to this picturesque town during the festival showed me a different story of the classy quiet Swiss town that totally differs from my impressionistic visit years ago. I cannot agree more to the organiser to pick Montreux as the heart of the festival. Everything matched perfectly to the joyful mood of the jazz music: the bourgeois-style souvenir booths along the lake promenade, the elegant visitor crowd, the whitey tent of food stalls, the choice of regional food and drinks, the casual scattered clusters of visitors by the lake, the sunset and the holiday, and then, you begin to understand how a speech could be handicapped to echo the as-it-wish style of music world existed.

There is no way reminding you of any hectic notion in modern life, not even any occasional ripple reasoning our existence on the mirror of realistic reflection. Simplicity and enjoyment, I believe, could be the basic doctrine of the hippie-improvisation people share in the jazzy setting of happening in Montreux every summer. We need some warm-up to return to the less perfect world.