REFLECTION: K&D SESSIONS LIVE

There was something satisfying to watch these artists create their album with a live band. You could see the precision, discipline, as well as joy and love it took to make each track come to life.

It was one of those nights in Amsterdam that deceptively felt like the coming of Spring. There was a prophetic whiff of warmth in the night air that people wanted to take advantage of. The city was teeming with people biking across the city, as well as the groups of people walking through Leidseplein. Could this mark the end of a very cold and dark winter? (Sadly, no but I remain hopeful that we are indeed turning a corner.)

Since the city seemed to be buzzing with pre-Spring fever, it was difficult to find a place to park my bike near Melkweg for the K&D Sessions Live concert. Along the canal nearby, several bikes huddled together, locked to anything that was still available: a pole, a tree, another bike. As I looked for a place to lock my bike I enjoyed seeing the people sitting along the canals, connecting and laughing. On one side of the water I could see two girls chatting while sharing a small carton of Chinese food. Behind them, seated on an apartment staircase, a guy sat patiently rolling a joint.

I only got to see the K&D Sessions Live thanks to S_, a PhD scholar at Uni who also works at Melkweg and is a founding member of the Amsterdance Research Group. When is comes to going out I am not above asking for favours. In my present situation I am never in sync with my finances to be able to afford a concert like this, and even if I did, chances are I would have missed the window because tickets sell out so fast in the city. The lesson here kids is always ask and (sometimes) it works out. S_ was happy to put me on the guestlist.

I don’t always feel comfortable writing these reflections. Truth be told, I don’t see myself much of a music scholar. As much as I love techno and the assortment of genres that stem from it, I don’t think I qualify as a music nerd. Perhaps I am too interested in affect rather than the intricacies of a producers process or the workings of an 808 drum machine (sequencer? See, I have no fucking clue what the jargon is). My passion for electronic music has always been in relation to my body because, as a dancer, that is how I’ve been trained to engage with art. With Kruder and Dorfmeister there is something so pleasant and organic about their sound. It’s this kind of laid back coolness about it, a jazzy, trip hop, ambient groove that I fuck with. While there has been this undeniable resurgence of fast techno that seems to hit warp speed and perhaps implode at any minute, I sense there is a reclaiming of this slower rhythm on the other end of the spectrum. For me, K&D falls smoothly into the canon of trip hop artists I revere: Portishead, Sneaker Pimps, Massive Attack, Morcheeba, AIR … these artists make electronic inspired music that allow you to float and day/dream. It also just sounds so damn sexy.

There was something satisfying to watch these artists create their album with a live band. As opposed to watching a DJ who are certainly artists in their own right, these were musicians. You could see the care, precision, discipline, as well as joy and love it took to make each track come to life. Who knows, maybe for 2025 I’m becoming a concert guy.

This concert was also an acknowledgment to the passing of time. K&D Sessions, one of Kruder and Dorfmeister’s seminal remix albums, was made twenty-seven years ago and was never re-released. So here we all were, almost thirty years later, to witness an album come to life, while thinking of our own. In this stage in my life I struggle with my own internal ageism. I may have not be as old as most of the people in attendance, but I have to admit that, if the Universe does bless be with a long life, I am without a doubt middle-aged. The joy was in watching these two artists on stage, who have also grown older together, still playing and doing what they love, still finding beauty in creativity. And when I looked out into the crowd we were reflecting back this same sentiment. Collectively it was as though we were saying, “No we’re not young anymore but so what? We’re still here. We can still appreciate and enjoy life. We can still dance.”

And as Kruder & Dorfmeister faithfully played their album with an exceptional band of live artists, many of them much younger than them, I looked out at the audience and tried to imagine what they all looked like thirty years ago. What were their hopes and dreams back then? What did they imagine the future to be like? I looked at the smiles of the older men and women as they clapped and cheered to their favourite tracks. There it was, the tinge of melancholy whilst also being in the here and now, swathed in gratitude for the simple act of being alive. It was the closest thing I have felt in a while to something soulful, spiritual even.

Thank you K&D. To present this offering truly felt like a gift.