Tag Archives: incendiary magazine

incendiary magazine review: cultuur?barbaar! festival, multiplex, leiden – may 17 2014

It was time for Hunter Complex; aka Lars Meijer, co-head honcho of Narrominded in the room; replete with his brilliant visuals (cut ups of old movies) that work hand in glove with his winsome 80’s-style electro. By this point the audience was ready to rock out. Hunter Complex – though not looking up from his bank of keys and weirdo electronic bricolage, sensed the love and started to add touches of classic mid 80’s Detroit snare to his beat; complementing the rich washes of keys, electro loops and suggestive, weepy chord changes. The room started to gyrate and dance, this was fucking class! First ballet now this life affirming set. Slight gradations of tone, adding rumbling beats that would then trip over to being spaced out grooves; bedroom proto-acid, ur-E rave outs made flesh; nonstop erotic dancing, you name it; a wonderful set. Whilst Lars laid down his upgraded and inspiring vision from Mount Nostalgia, Andrie aka YesPinkPink started to set up his weirdo table-cum-lectern.

Richard Foster

original article

incendiary magazine review: the sound of young holland ii, o’ceallaigh irish pub, groningen – january 17 2014

hunter-complex-the-sound-of-young-holland-ii-o-ceallaigh-irish-pub-groningen-january-17-2014-03Now it was time for something more cerebral. Hunter Complex was upstairs playing a stripped down, quietly throbbing show to a room full of thoughtful men. Shorn of the film projections as a backdrop (which works so well for him) Lars concentrated on making a restful scene for all of us chinstrokers. Modulations of sound and echoes of rhythm built up a layered, womb-like atmosphere and the dudes all stood and stared at Lars twiddling nobs and pressing keys. As you do. (In fact, what is it about men staring at keyboards? We loves it, the girls just don’t dig it in that “let’s fix the carburetor/ make that 1/25th model of a King Tiger tank” kinda way).

Richard Foster

original article

reviews: rundfunk #1, incubate, studio, tilburg – september 21 2013

Live @huntercomplex sounds even better than on his new brilliant album
Theo Ploeg / Twitter

@huntercomplex fucking fantastic at Studio
Incendiary Magazine / Twitter

the ’80s movie score moves of Hunter Complex
Ian Harrison / Mojo

Time passes, chums turn up, and British and Dutch journos who are hip to the great Dutch scene prattle idly in the sun. It’s nice, and in some ways a perfect setting for the slightly unsettling but lush sounds of Hunter Complex.
Now this lad has released some record in Heat, one of our faves of the year if truth be told, and we are happy to see him; even if it’s only in a small room in a pub. No matter, the confined space adds something to his beautiful, paranoid slabs of synth pop; think New Gold Dream in a head on collision with Rush’s synth stuff and 1-A Düsseldorf and you can rest easy. The visuals are a treat too; they somehow blend brilliantly with the set. The small room is mesmerized, nothing really kicks off in terms of beat or sound but it doesn’t need to; it’s content to snarl at you from a distance, dirty neon, grease stained chrome and scuzzed plastic in feel. It’s a fabulous gig and this artist and his work demands your attention. NOW.
Richard Foster / Incendiary Magazine

Direct daarna speelt Lars Meijer a.k.a. Hunter Complex zich in de kijker met een gevarieerde elektronicaset, soms richting dromerige ambient, op onverwachte momenten weer verrassend dansbaar.
Joris Rietbroek / Kicking the Habit

Nog voor Earth Mk. II goed en wel het podium heeft verlaten doemen de eerste beats van Hunter Complex op uit een totaal andere hoek van Studio. Lars Meijer alias Hunter Complex is door zijn label Narrominded in de gelegenheid gesteld om met zijn producties de laatste slapers wakker te krijgen. Meijer combineert zijn knappe electro met op het eerste oog volstrekt willekeurige filmbeelden. Dit alles leidt tot een bij vlagen hypnotiserende trip die we graag nog eens twaalf uur laten zouden willen ondergaan. Lang kunnen we echter niet stil staan bij het moois want alles is er aan gelegen een plek te veroveren in de huiskamer van Snowstar Records die vandaag decor is voor akoestische optredens van Kim Janssen, I Am Oak en Luik.
Matthijs Nicolai / 3voor12 / Tilburg

 

incendiary magazine review: heat

hunter complex - heat frontI wasn’t going to review this record as I did the promo copy for it on the Bandcamp page, the fee being free vinyl. So I feel a bit weird in reneging on my intention to let this release slip by the Incendiary searchlight. Add the fact that Hunter Complex is Lars Meijer who is the label boss of Narrominded, who – guess what – release Hunter Complex and you may start to wonder if this is some elaborate stitch up by the pair of us.

How we tie ourselves in knots, eh? It just goes to show how things roll in these straightened times.

And I’m not sure whether you can take my word for how good this LP is, as I suspect the review may sound a bit forced in trying to find yet more positive things to say, (albeit in a more personal manner), but I’ll try.

In essence this is a devotional record, a fan boy record. In looking to add soundtrack films like Capricorn One and Midnight Crossing you suspect that Lars Meijer just can’t get enough of that late 70s early 80s habitus, can’t squeeze enough emotional juice from an era where technology seemed mysterious, something to be allied with, to be used and recalibrated back, through a human filter. Certainly not the all crushing life-sapping behemoth it seems to be today.

This future / past dichotomy is very strongly felt in the music on Heat, and maybe mirrors the feeling of quaintness (and resultant stasis) that all these 70s and 80s flicks seem to show now, at any rate in their rendering of a dystopian future. Tracks like Hours and Room feel static, trapped, almost on emotional rewind, but luckily that adds a lot of menace to what could be quite straightforward regurgitating of an era’s sound; the sort of ironic period pieces we are often bombarded with nowadays. Room could – if handled wrongly – sound like the worst kind of Depeche Mode mash up. Meijer uses a plethora of vintage synths so the crime could easily be compounded.

Maybe Hunter Complex are serial sentimentalists. A lot of the tracks do have a marked sentimental edge, like Serious Glass or the brilliant Space, which nabs Seeing Out the Angel’s key pattern from the Minds’ Sons & Fascination. The melodies are set high in the gantry, using high register synth washes, punctuated by the odd stab of beat or staccato rhythm. It does sounds (superficially) like the stuff John Maus does, but without his breast beating. There’s an element of Dutch netjes about this LP, something that wouldn’t sit well with Mr. M. But there again there’s an expansiveness which, when allied to the clinical, soi distant elements, becomes much more than the sum of its parts; the opening segment of Highway Hipgnosis is a fab example.

Listen in.

Richard Foster

original article