On November 11th, 2023, we visited Berlin to attend one of the most anticipated tours of the year. Having collaborated musically before, the French outfits CARPENTER BRUT and PERTURBATOR hit the road in October of this year, and the tour stopped in three different German cities. Huxley’s Neue Welt in Berlin has a capacity of around 1600 visitors, and, like many others on the tour, this concert had been sold out for over a month.
Supporting CARPENTER BRUT and PERTURBATOR were the hip-hop trio HO99O9 from New Jersey, U.S.A. They started their set under a curtain of dimmed blue light that fell over the edges of their clothes, bringing out only the contour of their shadows. The atmosphere did fit the music: dark and cold. It would be an injustice to solely categorize HO99O9 into the realms of hip-hop, for in their versatility lies their strength, and this is the reason for the critical acclaim that has surrounded them throughout the years. HO99O9 mixes industrial, punk, and darker elements into their music, which ends up appealing to a broader audience than just those adept in the realms of hip-hop. If anything could describe them best, it is dark, aggressive, and therefore incredibly intense. Songs like “Bite My Face” (in collaboration with Corey Taylor) or “Battery Not Included” are great examples of that.
The growing anticipation was palpable among the crowd as HO99O9 finished their set. The hall swiftly filled up with many spectators eager to make their way to the front row as the warm-up track “Everybody” from the BACKSTREET BOYS played in the distance, serving as a prelude to CARPENTER BRUT. They entered the stage to a roaring crowd and promptly started with “Straight Outta Hell,” a theme that encompasses some of their darker and heavier work, attesting to the resourcefulness of the creative mind of Franck Hueso behind CARPENTER BRUT, which goes beyond the sole domain of Synthwave. The light setup and show they brought emphasized their music, creating an otherworldly atmosphere in the hall, similar to that of a movie setting.
Next in their setlist came the hit “The Widow Maker,” a result of a fruitful collaboration with another well-established act in the scene, GUNSHIP. This song, in particular, has a more danceable nature, compelling the crowd to immediately move more than to the song before, making the ground of Huxley’s Neue Welt feel as if an earthquake was taking over the place, confirming the tectonically emerging force that CARPENTER BRUT‘S music can rightfully be compared to.
The unique aspect of CARPENTER BRUT‘s music is that it meticulously explores the potential of 80’s Synthpop/Synthrock, enhancing the emotionality of the core aspects of said genres through what could be described as “elegant” heaviness (i.e., themes like “Roller Mobster”).
Throughout what felt like the party of a decade, the crowd maintained the same stamina until the very end of the concert, even surpassing their previously set standard as CARPENTER BRUT returned to the stage for the encore, performing “Maniac” (featuring Yann Ligner from the French progressive metal band KLONE), a cover of the classic tune by Michael Sembello from 1983 for the movie Flashdance. The crowd was alive with dance moves and singing along at the top of their lungs to this song, which one could argue is one of the few cases where the cover is far better than the original.
We did wonder how on earth the crowd was going to manage a second headliner whose music demanded just as much energy as the one before. PERTURBATOR, the stage name for musician James Kent, made a fast-paced entrance with “Excess,” one of the hits from his last full-length album, “Lustful Sacraments.” PERTURBATOR continued with a selection of faster and heavier songs in his setlist, such as “Diabolus Ex Machina” and superhits like “Humans Are Such Easy Prey” from his earlier work, once again shaking Huxley’s Neue Welt to its very core. Out of the vibrations that came from the crowd’s roaring and dancing, even if you (for whatever weird reason) wouldn’t have felt compelled to move, you still would have ended up being swept off your feet by the mighty floor vibrations. This effect continued throughout somewhat “slower” songs like “Venger” (featuring Greta Link), in which there were still enough reasons to let go of the conscious mind and concentrate purely on the music and its physical effect throughout the body.
Beyond the moving factor, PERTURBATOR‘S music possesses the rare quality of transporting you to a different world when engaged with it, perhaps a futuristic, dystopian world in an alternate reality, for which the name of the location, Huxley’s Neue Welt, serves only as a delightful coincidence.
For avid followers of the particular scene in which CARPENTER BRUT and PERTURBATOR navigate, this tour had been greatly anticipated. While we only attended the Berlin show, we feel safe in assuring that it must have been a great success for the headliners, considering the number of sold-out shows.
Needless to say, every band involved gave it their all and didn’t spare any effort in their performances. The changeovers involved several hard-working crew members running around the stage like coordinated ants, building massive lighting towers for CARPENTER BRUT and an entire wall with lights that formed a pentagram behind PERTURBATOR. We can’t wait to see what the future holds for CARPENTER BRUT, PERTURBATOR, and HO99O9.
Text and photos by Michelle Rosales
