Website: Seth Kim-Cohen

The Band (in order of appearance): Andrew Morgan: Conductor, Ross Parfitt: Drums, Lascelles Gordon: Congas, Seth Kim-Cohen: Vocals, Rob Mullender: Maracas, Paul Chauncy: Guiro, Billy Fuller: Bass, Sarah Nicolls: Piano, John Parish: Guitar

History repeats itself like a groove. A 68-minute, live band performance of Sympathy For The Devil. Each section of the seminal song is played at the original tempo and diabolically repeated to the power of twelve. If you’re searching for the zeitgeist of 1968, you could do worse than Sympathy For The Devil’s intimations (and imitations) of the Prague Spring, the events of Paris in May, the Chicago 7 protests at the Democratic National Convention, the My Lai Massacre, the assassinations of Martin Luther King Jr. and Robert Kennedy. The music of ‘68 announces the death of values like progress, resolution, and authority – replacing them with repetition, extreme duration, and the downplaying of virtuosity in the minimalism of Philip Glass and Steve Reich; the circularity of Can and the Velvet Underground; the extended grooves of James Brown and Miles Davis. Like a demon accountant calculating the tenor of the times, Sympathy for the Devil tallies the spirit of 1968. Forty years later, we take the measure of the geist of our own zeit. History repeats itself like a groove.

68SFTD The Institute of Contemporary Art, London 2008 The Band (in order of appearance): Andrew Morgan: Conductor, Ross Parfitt: Drums, Lascelles Gordon: Congas, Seth Kim-Cohen: Vocals, Rob Mullender: Maracas, Paul Chauncy: Guiro, Billy Fuller: Bass, Sarah Nicolls: Piano, John Parish: Guitar History repeats itself like a groove. A 68-minute, live band performance of Sympathy For The Devil. Each section of the seminal song is played at the original tempo and diabolically repeated to the power of twelve. If you’re searching for the zeitgeist of 1968, you could do worse than Sympathy For The Devil’s intimations (and imitations) of the Prague Spring, the events of Paris in May, the Chicago 7 protests at the Democratic National Convention, the My Lai Massacre, the assassinations of Martin Luther King Jr. and Robert Kennedy. The music of ‘68 announces the death of values like progress, resolution, and authority – replacing them with repetition, extreme duration, and the downplaying of virtuosity in the minimalism of Philip Glass and Steve Reich; the circularity of Can and the Velvet Underground; the extended grooves of James Brown and Miles Davis. Like a demon accountant calculating the tenor of the times, Sympathy for the Devil tallies the spirit of 1968. Forty years later, we take the measure of the geist of our own zeit. History repeats itself like a groove. Press coverage of 68SFTD: The Guardian Time Out London VeryGoodPlus.co.uk (2nd best gig of 2008)