Whilst the Pope was hogging all the attention during his visit to Paris, there were very few places to take shelter from the drips and drabs of holiness… but as usual – and indeed throughout this endless, hellish summer – the Atomic Cat remained the best bunker against radiation of all kinds, be it meteorological or religious. AMBASSADOR-TWENTY-FUCKING-ONE was bringing their riotous chaos to Paris.
AMBASSADOR21 is quite something. We hadn’t seen Natasha and Alexey on a Parisian stage since 2019, but it was the sort of explosive performance that leaves a lasting impression. Tonight, this Unidentified Noisy Object performed as a trio, with Zoé (Je t’aime, Herrschaft), a long-standing collaborator, joining them on guitar.
This corrosive concoction of sound and fury defies categorisation: digital hardcore, industrial metal, power noise – it doesn’t matter: there’s a punk fury, techno/rave assaults that pound like a jackhammer and, above all, a constant whiff of kerosene. AMBASSADOR21 is music for starting a revolution and burning it all down. For them, there’s no question of artificial or pretentious posturing: protest through art is a serious matter that led the two Belarusians to leave their country and settle in Prague.
In recent years, their music has become more focused; the chaos is more tamed, more controlled, closer to what was once the territory of their side-project Suicide Inside before it reinvented itself as a post-punk/cold wave project. Musically, AMBASSADOR21 have never seemed to have such a firm grasp on their sound, unleashing a storm of energy at key moments whilst also creating immersive atmospheres and an apocalyptic heaviness through their guitar riffs.
AMBASSADOR21 kicks off with Black Dots and holds back the storm – still simmering menacingly beneath the surface – for a little while longer. The tension builds; the sound is heavy, pre-apocalyptic. Our brains still bear the scars of past gigs, such as that show at Glazart in 2011 with Chrysalide, Sonic Area and Republik of Screens – a sonic trauma that tracks like In Love and New Doctrine About Trinity serve to rekindle. Nevertheless, whilst retaining its radicalism and integrity, the duo now takes a more precise aim, saving its bursts of madness to amplify their impact tenfold. The addition of melodies – such as the haunting notes of We Are the Seeds or the samples from Skinny Puppy’s Amnesia in Revelation – adds emotion, sinister touches, moments of respite and powerful contrasts to the slogans spat out like mantras by the duo. Natasha is wearing a T-shirt featuring a quote from Revelation, ‘your god is dead’: AMBASSADOR21 is well aware of the rivalry with Léon on the same night!
On stage, despite the political and social commentary, it’s a blast. Anthems like Fuck All Systems and We Are Legion really bring the house down. Natasha and Alexey show the same complicity as ever, both with each other and with their audience. The singer is a spectacle in her own right – theatrical, pulling faces, smiling. We love the way they mix Russian and English, rolling their ‘r’s’ to the max. She finds it amusing that we understand French better than English, before treating us to a unifying “c’est parrrrti mon kikiii” (good luck to translate that). With elegance, she gets the audience to applaud her two colleagues: “the guy, Alexey”, everyone claps, then “the guy Zoé”, everyone claps. She cuts them short and presses on, insistently: “the guy, the guy, ok, and now me, me, me, Natasha!”, as if to steal the limelight. Then comes an avalanche of “thank yous”. Natasha says “thank you”, Alexey says “thank you”, and Zoé – who for a moment forgets that he’s French in front of a French audience – also says “thank you”. Nonsense, you’re very welcome!
A cult, unstoppable force, AMBASSADOR21 exudes sincerity but also a sheer love of causing a ruckus, of reinventing parts of their tracks on stage, of interacting whilst playing with the soundscape, twisting it to set it free. It was fun, it was brilliant, and we can’t wait to hear what they come up with next!
