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RUBIN STEINER QUARTET LIVE
Simply Wunderbar!
Paris
09/09/2003 -
Playing to a packed house on a stage barely raised above the audience’s heads, the R.S.Q.L. struck up an intimate atmosphere with the public moments after stepping out of the wings. The group were performing the 103rd - and final - date in their current tour. But there was no sign of over-kill or road-lag as the foursome presented elegantly improvised versions of tracks from their latest album, Wunderbar drei. Don’t be misled by the name - there’s no actual Rubin Steiner and no-one in this quirky collective is German either! Rubin Steiner is simply a stage name used by four hip guys living and working in the central French town of Tours. The foursome include two on-stage instrumentalists: bass-player Sylvestre Perrusson (a former member of Forguette Me Note) who gives a virtuoso performance on double bass live and Benoît Louette, a flautist who comes from a classical music background, but blasts trombone out like a madman on stage. Meanwhile, cutting-edge VJ François Pirault mixes up an eclectic fusion of black-and-white images behind Frédérick Landier, founder and lynchpin of the group, who croons and murmurs over the top of progressive electro-jazz sequences, gesticulating wildly like all three other members of the band. Fans who had ventured out to La Villette to see Rubin Steiner appeared to be agreeably surprised by the live rendition of the group’s latest album, Wunderbar Drei. After spending months paring down the fifty original recordings in his computer to a final twelve, Frédéric Landier made a deliberate choice not to reproduce them blow by blow on stage. Instead, he let his creative imagination run wild, announcing the different sequences in New Bossa - "vibraphone, violins" - before pumping up the beatbox and transforming the hall into a heaving dancefloor. Rubin Steiner shows mean the audience get to let their hair down and party the night away, but for Landier and co. they also present the opportunity to launch into freefall improvisation as they rustle up an organic and unexpected mix integrating everything from the John Lydon/Pil classic This Is Not a Love Song to the inter-generational hit Brazil.
Landier, the sampling wizard behind these deft quirky-kitsch collages, has been an avid music fan since his schooldays when he used to drown the family home with the sound of his acoustic guitar (made from an old skateboard). Fascinated by the art of noise - with a particular interest in what was happening on the experimental scene in New York - Landier went on to create his own sound experiments, performing with "intellectual" student band MERZ (named after the Dadaist work of German artist Kurt Schwitters). In his student days Landier also began presenting a regular show on Tours’s Radio Béton, serving up a mix of obscure bands, free jazz and disco for the next eight years. In the process he acquired an impressive record collection of some 3,000 albums (which could actually number many more as Landier freely admits he jettisons anything he doesn’t like pretty quickly).
"My tastes are very eclectic,” says Landier, not afraid of stating the obvious, “Take jazz, for instance, I got into that after discovering free-jazz and hard bop from the 60s. I just love John Coltrane’s Olé. I was also touched recently by the duo work of Galliano and Eddy Louis… And I’m a big fan of the way Truffaz uses beat boxes to create stuff it’s impossible to do with instruments… Athough having said that there could never be anything more beautiful than the pure sound produced by an instrument. Personally, I`ve never learnt music in any structured way… I just play it." And don’t go asking Landier if he recognises any affinity with St Germain or other leading French exponents of electro-jazz. "I’ve got nothing to do
with that lot at all,” he declares, “I’ve got no particular relationship to them or to jazz musicians either for that matter. Besides, I wouldn’t say what I do is electro-jazz. I just make music, full stop!” The tool Landier uses to harness his creativity is the computer he acquired in ‘98 (just after turning 24). Working with sophisticated software and samplers, Landier whipped up his early albums in just three weeks. And there’s been no stopping him since! Powering his insistent beats across on stage at La Villette, Landier - sporting a jaunty crewcut, neat goatee beard and AC/DC T-shirt (which prompted one young fan beside me to remark that "If he’s wearing an AC/DC shirt, he can’t be all bad!”) - looks nothing like the autistic brand of computer-muso one espies at certain electro soirées. On the contrary, Landier radiates perfect ease on stage as he enters into what might be described as total musical communionwith his public.
A proud winner in the electronica category at this year’s “Talents Adami”, Rubin Steiner proved to be one of the undisputed highlights at this year”s “Jazz à La Villette” (which, incidentally, features the crème de la crème of the Norwegian electro-jazz scene: Sidsel Endresen & Bugge Wesseltoft, Wibutee and Nils Petter Molvaer on 11, 12 and 13 September). On Saturday night Landier and co. imbued the Trabendo with an ambience which was decidedly more night-club than jazz club, getting an infectious vibe going from the opening chords on their vibraphone. The Rubin Steiner Quartet Live may have played the final gig in the tour, François Pirault may be heading off to do film work while Sylvestre Perrusson gets his teeth into opera but, as Landier assured us at the end of the gig, Rubin Steiner have many wunderbar shows ahead of them yet!
Valerie Nivelon
Translation: Julie Street
Wunderbar drei (Platinum/BMG) 2002
Test Recordings (Platinum/BMG) 2003
24/02/2005 -
