Group Rhoda & Dubais @ West Germany Berlin | Thursday, 15.05.2014

Shameless/Limitless is pleased to be back at the eternally inspiring Westgermany, presenting the return of San Francisco’s industiral tropicalia mainstay Group Rhoda, with support from the exceptionally fearless and incredibly fun powerhouse that is Dubais.

Group Rhoda is a solo project based in San Francisco. The fruits of a five year journey into self-discipline and personal discovery, Mara Barenbaum’s Group Rhoda uses stark musical practices and analogue electronics to evoke imagery and rhythms both atavistic and futuristic.

Group Rhoda | Hearts

With a grounding in minimal wave and the post-industrial landscape, Group Rhoda takes surprising detours into tropical rhythm patterns, dubbed-out bass throbs, hypnotic wurlitzer flourishes and, above all, Barenbaum’s distinctive, plaintive vocal.

The alluring contradiction at the heart of ‘Out Of Time, Out Of Touch’ is the push of the psychedelic, the hyper-real, the overtly physical and the pull of the artificial, the synthesised, the stark.

Group Rhoda | Out Of Time, Out Of Touch

This contradiction is brought to light continually through-out ‘Out of Time, Out of Touch’ – whether in the classic West coast psychedelic melodic sense played with Suicide’s mechanical simplicity, or the industrial rhythms of Throbbing Gristle drenched in a technicolour, sun-blanched imagination.

DUBAIS was conceived of in a bathroom in Antwerp as homage to all past representations, meditations, or predictions of future utopias, states of being, and technologies. The city of Dubai stood as a metaphor or representation of what the new modern Middle East could be; a place of great economic wealth, abundance, culture, and futuristic architecture on land or in sea (palm island.)

Dubais | Die Unterwelt Trailer

Now, 45 years after the discovery of its rich oil fields, Dubai still stands, but is demystified of its past expectations. It is these moments of expectation that shape our understanding of time and development. How do these moments morph as time passes? What once was a mystery is now a memory, even if the mystery was never solved.