2020. 1. 24. 03:44ㆍ카테고리 없음
The electronic project VNV ('Victory Not Vengeance') Nation was conceived in London in 1990 by Ronan Harris, debuting in May of that year with the 12-inch 'Body Pulse.' 'Strength of Youth' followed a few months later, and at the end of the year Harris relocated to Toronto, where VNV Nation opened for Nitzer Ebb on their Canadian tour. After moving back to Europe, Harris released only a handful of compilation tracks in the years to follow before signing with the German label Discordia in 1995 to issue the full-length Advance and Follow. Three years later, VNV Nation resurfaced on another German label, Off-Beat, an alliance which generated the LP Praise the Fallen as well as the EP Solitary. Empires, which was issued with another European distributor Dependent, and on Metropolis in the U.S., followed in the spring of 2000.
VNV Nation is a European-based alternative electronic project led by Ronan Harris in the roles of singer, songwriter and producer. VNV Nation's sound blends poetic and thought provoking lyrics with a sound that ranges from melodic dance beats and indie-electronic anthems, to haunting ballads and post-classical soundtrack pieces. The live shows.
Vnv Nation When Is The Future
Singles such as 'Standing' and 'Dark Angel' were club mainstays, boasting Ronan Harris' love for pulsating club rhythms and his developing seascapes of dark ambient waves. Mix projects Genesis.1 and Genesis.2 followed that format in 2001, giving a sneak preview to VNV Nation's Futureperfect. Jason Ankeny.
VNV Nation is one of the greatest bands ever. I do not say this light-headed. VNV Nation has evolved a lot from the start until now, and for me, specialy in the last 3-4 albuns, has created an unique style, with deep, meaningfull lyrics and equally beautiful melodies and compositions.Perpetual, Illusion, Prelude, Beloved, Legion, Defiant, Ghost, Secluded Spaces, Nemesis. Are just some of their best songs, altough they have so many good tracks that fit into different genres, moods and artistical views.Ronan and Mark do a great job both studio and live, with good performances that reach the audience, not only with a splendid interaction, but with soul on the music played.I still think VNV Nation is not a band just for people into Industrial, EBM or Synth-Pop, but for anyone who likes good music, specially good electronic music.
Ronan Harris’ influential gothic industrial project VNV Nation has been shaping industrial music for more than 20 years. In that time, has evolved in interesting directions with less harshness than his earliest work for some time now, but his central concerns have stayed very consistent. In VNV’s world, gothic sounds acknowledge countercultural rejection of the mainstream as being a dark abyss of injustice and nonsense, but the music is always geared towards finding the light beyond that. This often takes the guise of spiritual transcendence, and many fans attest that shows are nearly religious experiences as the electronic beats become increasingly uplifting and elevated, resembling a sense of light, both in feeling lighter and in the sense of illumination.The lyrics have a remarkable poetic quality, and this has always struck me as the most Irish part of the band, but Celtic music as well factors into this. The sounds combine the influence of Celtic musical configurations which often emphasize battles and spiritual transcendence, English rave sounds, industrial and gothic music, and Germany’s considerable underground scene as a focal point for electronic music. There is also a deep orchestral and jazz influence present.
What is perhaps most remarkable is that so many points of reference get translated into such remarkably clear sonic statements.Many of the songs of VNV Nation can be deceptive to new listeners who often think that a single passage in a song sounds simple, but when placed together, the beats form a very powerful and complex tapestry that favors transcendence through sound and is strikingly visual, as the light shows at concerts increasingly amplifies. This is often described as futurepop, an uplifting style of industrial music drawing on synthpop and EBM threads.
The songs are synthesizer heavy with dirty electronics, and more aggressive songs use EBM beats and techniques to create strong bodily reactions through dancing, allowing the music to be very deeply felt. LightLight above dark is shown in the band’s symbolism of a torch, and the keyboard passages on the songs often demonstrate this against the drums. It’s a beautiful and relatively basic sound that allows for a wide range of songwriting and focuses on basic elements of dark synth driven music. Much like Japanese art, this strikes me as a considerable strength in allowing for greater perfection through less busy compositions. Songs have a remarkable directness and clarity of intent that makes them a serious pleasure in contrast to every other band, and it is one of Ronan’s most impressive qualities. His ideas are well thought out and stated in a musical way that allows people to feel what he means while also being able to thoughtfully reflect on the meaning of his songs.Very often injustice is the theme, both in a moral and spiritual sense. The songs express genuine outrage at the horrors of political and social injustice, inequality, environmental damage, and war fighting.
Those do strike me as the central problems of the 21st century in all of its dystopian aspects. People have learned that technologies they thought would free them, like Facebook, are used to assist corruption and exploitation, as has been increasingly noted even in congressional hearings in the United States. So finding such clear musical recognition of this problematic world is a wonderful development. It’s not that others don’t focus on these issues. Many dark styles of music find inspiration in similar problems, but VNV is far clearer in how the issues are approached. With Ronan at Bar Standard 12/30/17There is also a spiritual side to the songs that is remarkable.
Ronan’s work reflects the belief that human beings are meant for something better, that the soul is not meant to be so damaged by superficial life. Hence, the theme of transcendence or rising above factors heavily in VNV Nation songs. The band’s name stands for victory not vengeance, with the view that it is best to overcome obstacles by being better than it is to become wrapped up in petty fighting. The traditions of Ireland factored into this for him, as oppression of the Irish and war fighting were very interlinked. People should be free and fulfilled, and they should seek to find that through the most positive means of making things better.
NoireThe new album, Noire, is clearly one of Ronan’s best albums, but this is a tricky thing with VNV, because the albums are consistently excellent and create that feeling very often when a new album comes out. Still, this one has a very epic sweep that in my mind seems like another side of Empire. This is intriguing to me, because there was an exceptional tour where VNV played both the Empire and Automatic albums, and it did leave me curious about the possibility of taking the somewhat epic scope of the former album and combining it with some of the more airy and light sounds from the latter. Some of that seems to be materializing with Noire, but there is no doubt that much more is happening as well.The album has clear ties to the 1930s era that fascinates Ronan, and this was the time when film noir was just emerging as a great form of cinema with bold shadows and subversively sensual plot lines that would take on great clarity in the postwar period. It was also a very progressive era with interest in people working together to overcome the severe problems of the Great Depression and the Second World War.
At the same time, the title refers to pure black – as a musical expression, as a goth idea, and as a situation of pervasive darkness and lack of hope. All of this seems to be appropriate as an artistic mixture that is relevant to the current state of humanity against a very unimpressive worldwide political backdrop.Lights Go Out strikes me as a particularly brilliant song from the new album. “Out with the old war, in with the new. Dressed to the nines, atomic chic looks so good on you. The zeitgeist trend for a new generation, for a new radiation, and everyone laughs, everyone laughs.” The song is staged as a party for the end of the world and was one of the highlights of the last Denver concert.
With worsening environmental problems and renewed threat of nuclear war, this song is as true as any could be, and it has a tongue in cheek way of ridiculing the elite for creating the problem while others suffer, describing people trapped in a basement and dancing again as the world collapses. It manages to express both anger and beauty eloquently and clearly serves as a warning siren, even using that motif musically, for people to become concerned. VNV Nation, Oriental Theater 12/4/18Immersed is a wonderful mid tempo song relative to much of the album. It seeks wonder, answers, and improvement for a broken existence. “Give me love, if love is salvation. Give me love, the spirit enflamed. Give me something.
Give me peace, or give me war.” This song was quite involving live, and singing, “Immerse me in the workings of your mind,” with Ronan from the audience was one of my favorite parts of any VNV Nation show.Indeed, the audience singing along was the strongest at this show of all that I’ve been to, which is saying a lot, because the poetic quality of the lyrics and intonation makes this the most fun band to sing with. The song portrays a state of being lost amid contemporary life and seeking answers that can explain what’s happening and improve oneself. This expresses an eternal issue but places it within a contemporary context of the world itself being lost.Armour is more a song of salvation and captures the beautiful transcendence above darker elements that the band is capable of.
Religiosity exists in the song certainly with being embraced by the divine through the refrain of, “Let your armour cover me,” but VNV Nation is nihilistic enough and serious enough about people finding answers within themselves that reading it as merely devout would be mistaken. Rather, light and transcendence are more appropriate to fill in here than anything that would take the form a traditional religious context, and it is intentionally open to interpretation. LiveThe live show of the band is remarkably powerful and memorable every time.
The last show in December at the Oriental Theater in Denver was perhaps the best of all though. It seems as though much has been building into a perfect album and tour even without the reliable presence of Mark Jackson as the usual drummer. Preceding performances of the last few years focusing on classical performance, career retrospective, and full length major album performances created an exceptionally rich background for perfecting the band’s message into what is captured in Noire. The performances are deeply gothic, but they are also a remarkably good place to be for the love of art. The linkage to major artistic moments of the past and hopes for the future in a world eroded by oppression, injustice, and technological nonsense capture a pure creative sensibility that transcends genre and is a far richer accomplishment than popular music can typically allow.Carbon especially highlighted this when performed in the last show.
Set against so many songs from Noire, the heavier and slower live version of the song seemed more profound than it does on Futureperfect. Its deep complaints about destruction and a withering environment seemed like a perfect mid show prelude to the way that All Our Sins would conclude the set. It is a long song that also is the last track on Noire, and it is a remarkable retrospective on human imperfection and failure. Sins do run very deep in the human race now more than ever, and this massive statement about that was a stunning end to the night. It was a darker and more profound way to close the show than Perpetual had been in so many other shows, beautiful though it is.
VNV Nation with a sign language interpreter for IllusionI’ve learned a lot about art from Ronan. It’s fun to interpret and muse on and other art forms, but it’s important to remember the immediacy of creation and the boldness of making statements meant to challenge people and to be left open for interpretation, the actual creation of art as a thing meant to be experienced and surrounded with as its real testament. Is Noire the biggest statement of his career? That would be a bit unfair, because the albums stay strong enough and progress enough that there will be more excellent compositions to come, but for the moment this is a remarkable way of finely stating VNV’s message in a nuanced and sweeping way.It does strike me as the most epic release and the fullest statement of Ronan’s vision still. The world needs this album now more than ever. Until war fighting and inequality stop, a torch standing over all of us is much needed. The album is named for darkness and takes us there, but the music of VNV Nation shows the light above that and is among the most moving of artistic experiences.
It defies being captured by language and exists in the tone of the notes and the way they echo through a person’s mind and consciousness, amplified with very subtle lyrics that sway with the songs and punctuate the music, giving something of a plot line to these exciting compositions. Noire is already one of my favorite albums of all time and is a pinnacle for industrial music.