Technical Glitches Don’t Stop Czukay

A godfather of modern electronic music, Holger Czukay has touched experimental dance-floor deviants from Beck to Stereolab to PiL, as well as “low-fi” masters Pavement. Ambient hip-hop is a direct descendant of his brave spelunking in the ‘70s as a member of the German avant-rock band Can.

So an excited crowd greeted Czukay at Spaceland on Saturday for his first L.A. show ever. Joined by German techno-maestro Dr. Walker, Czukay warned the Can fans in the crowd that they would experience “nothing you would hear on an album.”

But at first it looked as if the machines might fail the man. Czukay explained that the flight to L.A. had jostled his equipment, and indeed the night was plagued by technical difficulties.

Though the show was titled “Holger Czukay vs. Dr. Walker,” Czukay and Walker conspired like one high-wired organism. Czukay offered bits of samples, splicing in taped odds and ends and tweaking them with fuzz as Walker orchestrated a host of beats and grooves.

Czukay barely blinked when his dreamscape sadly cut out, dropping into a muffled drone, but Walker looked intensely troubled. Indeed, it seemed as if every Walker climax was sunk by the testy machinery.

Like a consumed professor behind a jumble of boxes and wires strapped together with duct tape, Czukay sifted through radio static, tape hiss, heartbeat-like murmurs, East Indian prayers and P.E.-class polka bleats. At times the highly repetitive style became numbing, but overall Czukay and Walker vaulted the many problems to make their mind-music soar.