I am certainly a selective gentlemen. Instead of purchasing an elusive three day pass to this year's ear-splitting No Fun Fest, I opted to attend the second night only, foregoing performances by select members of Sonic Youth and other various noise/experimental company. However, the two bands that made Saturday night the most exciting on the ticket were Brooklyn's own Religious Knives and Krautrock legends Cluster, though this review will also include the two acts that preceded them.

I was fashionably late to the party, due to a little post-birthday fatigue, and even still, I spent the first hour scouring the Knitting Factory's basement for rare vinyl, rubbing shoulders with a few chums in the meanwhile. I spent far too much money on Very Rare records, to say the least, and was left without the cash to whet my whistle. However, once I settled in upstairs to catch festival ringleader Carlos Giffoni, I knew I was in for a treat. His short one-man set featured oscillating synths and patterns which morphed continuously into several noise-based grooves, culminating in a few fuzz-freakouts towards those final captivating moments.

The second band I caught may very well have been the cream of the crop. Demons first caught my eye as an offshoot of Detroit collective Wolf Eyes and later wowed me with an exclusive appearance on the newest Wierd Records compilation. However, their brand of psychedelic drone was the most impressive of the evening, complete with two analog sequencers heavily plugging away, triggering a series of projected images on the screen behind them. Meanwhile, solo artist and No Fun Fest regular Rodger Stella joined the band on stage, wielding a theremin (this blogger’s very favorite instrument) rigged through several Moog pedals, which added an intense and truly unique effect. If anything, it inspired me to run my own theremin through makeshift distortion pedals, which I am trying out the first chance I get…

After Demon’s stellar performance, Brooklyn based experimental rock outfit Religious Knives took to the stage, eager to carve their own niche into the evening’s already solid lineup. Though it was hard for me to stop thinking about the previous mind-melting performance, the band did a bang-up job, employing their more song-oriented approach over the course of five tracks. Their cavernous textures, male/female vocals, and otherwise meandering bass grooves always hit close to home, and the band, with their Faust-like approach, kept the crowd engaged late into the night.

Finally, at around 1:30am, Cluster took to the stage. For anyone unfamiliar with these Krautrock champions, be sure to inspect both Cluster 71 and Zuckerzeit at your earliest convenience. Otherwise, these two adorable German gents sat at opposite ends of a long white table, triggering a series of pre-recorded tracks and mixing them into percussive and ambient drones, occasionally adding live sequencers and keyboards to the mix. As the evening’s headliner, their set was easily the longest, allowing the band to create three separate pieces wandering in and out of coherence over the course of an hour. As they sat, carefully calculating each tweak of the knob, smiles crossed both their faces and those in the audience, and we all knew we were watching something special.