June 2015
The Scope XI
Ah going up against Liebezeit and Irmler was always going to be tricky, I know Andrew was up there, and Tony couldn’t make it down for other reasons and Steve was in Bracknell so we’re light on the ground. Still the electrocreche is a lovely falling object App on Dan’s phone and Stan’s orange tone generator which saw such good action at The De La Warr Pavilion.
Inwards
It doesn’t meant it’s not quality, mind. first up is Inwards doing a Patch from scratch set, where he starts with his modular completely bereft of patch leads and build up a set completely on the fly. Those in the know set up behind him, so we can watch the sweat fly. It’s fascinating to watch and Kristian produces some pretty decent sounds.
Ragamatic
Next up is Ragamatic over on the briefest of visits from Germany – he flew in at lunchtime and has to hare off to Stanstead for an early flight which basically means fleeing at 9:30… So we basically have two classic ragas on sitar with backing tracks and some live processing. The first has a slow distorted rhythm, noises rather than beats. The whole floating in spite of the tempo. The second raga has a short tabla / drum machine loop, and a breakdown with an evil overdrive phased section on the sitar sometime around the middle. On the whole it falls somewhere between Hot Roddy and Same Actor on the vector of known sitar performances at SoG, in terms of feel, but actually built around a proper raga than an improvisation built for MaxMSP patches or junglism.
Thomas Stone
Swarbrooke is poorly so we quickly (far too quickly) enter the realms of the last act of the evening. Thomas Stone also has to get home, though he doesn’t have quite as far to go, he still needs to leave sharp. The Contrabassoon is a beautiful instrument, old smoked wood and brass, curling with the country house air of an old shotgun. The tone is full and autumnal. Thomas has some backing tracks and a loop station along with a snare drum with a couple of transducers perched on top. The backing is simple, single harmonic tones, brief phrases, the activated snare is used sparingly and the overall affect is rather beautiful, we finish the evening on the verge of tears.
Dan and I end up downstairs with another pint talking about Daoism and Buddhism until Steve and Dave turn up from the other show fired up and glowing.
For Hardworking Families, a Gibson SG was set up flat across an oil drum table, part of the half input mixing desk setup favoured by HWF this evening. There is something that looks like his chair knocking about, but it’s not his, and he steers clear. so it leaps out all squeals and thrills before Tom reins it in tightly with small moves and the uncontrol gives way to pulses and less harsh high end.
Clive Henry was second on, he’s very precise with his set-up, a chair with a box in precisely the right place at his side that he has a metronome clacking on. He stands leaning forward hands behind his back with wires hanging out of his mouth. although his reputation is for Harsh Noise, the sounds his mouth is (presumably) making are very tonal. He has excellent control stomping around the stage. The second half of his set is quite different, the metronome is turned into something a bit clackier by some laptop processing and he switches to gutteral thrash singing and the noise levels come up. the stomping turns to stalking. he has great presence and you can see why he’s been barely able to speak all evening.
Lorenzo Abbatoir is another kettle of fish, as abstract as things can get, starting with a crumpling plastic water bottle making a rhythm track he stomps and cracks his body music, like Clive it’s a very theatrical performance. Active and dynamic with every action having its auditory consequences. A kind of un-mime thing.
Inside, we started with Wahabi Wimmins Collective Aharon and Simon McLellan engaged in a conversation about improvisation while Simon improvises on the guitar, including a couple of lengthy periods when he’s too busy talking to actually play. But still all that’s improvising, right? They get everyone involved but we don’t really have the time to go into any kind of depth, so like its origin in the communal kitchen, it could do with the space to really unfold. An interesting idea.
Following quickly, immediately in fact, we bang straight into the scarf waving shenanigans of Haz ‘n’ Daz. Dan has a pretty nice looking effects chain, and Howard switches between his full size vintage MS20, recorder and phone. At half time we get oranges. A healthy act. Howard has been at Whitehawk recording crowd noises. Many started by himself. Dan layers on some noise, and Howard synths it up.
The second half proper of the evening was opened by a reading of Andrew Greaves’ new piece “Micromelodics” performed by himself and Adam Bushell. The performance has a projection of the score onscreen, a set of coloured rainbow lines (echoed by the cd covers and colour wheel badges) with the instructions. The piece itself has a progression through a number of improvisations in overlapping scales. Some have a couple of notes some seem to have five or more. Adam and Andrew bounce off each other well, the clear resonance of the vibes in the small space counteracting the fuzzier organ arpeggios.
And rounding off the evening with have Arma Agharta. He disappears at the end of the micromelodics to reappear in khaki and red stripped woollen suit. His set oddly reminds me of Friske Frugt in the tones he uses, but he has field recordings, backing tracks, odd cheap Yamaha sounds and loopy effects chains. And he sings. Presumably in Lithuanian through strobing tremolo. It’s a heady murky psychedelia of mysterious northern origins the like of which I really can’t really recall except by Compass.
Renfield is Dan Powell and Geoff Cheesemaster, Dan had his laptop with some Pure Data patches scratching out noises fed through an effects chain while Geoff had a no input mixing desk setup with some old fuzzboxes and a couple of analogue delays feeding off an old noisy Yamaha mixer. Definitely it was one of those things where you’re wondering who the hell is making that sound. Dan’s output was quite digital and grainy, but the effects chain put some analogue spin on that and the two setups merged into a nice mulch of noise. Textural.
Ron Caines and I’m Dr Buoyant started with Colleen-ish chimes looping from Tony and Ron slowly starting in on his soprano sax from the shadows off at the side, the whole thing was rather lovely, aching with melancholy. It took some time in unfolding before Tony got to work on the effects units and it degenerated into something altogether a bit gnarlier, with Ron picking up the Alto and blowing a bit and Tony got into some orchestral rhythm hammering. They then seemed to do a piece based on loops of Ron’s Sax and it all went into an uneasy dreamstate before rounding off in a circular synth sweep with heavily delayed sax resonating feedback washes overlaid. A really good performance from Ron and Tony, possibly their strongest to date. They’re up again at SafeHouse soon.
Chemical Bbrench is Karl Waugh and his mate Felix. Apparently they play annually, but its their first time at The Spirit of Gravity. They had two guitars, two lots of effects chains and all played back through the PA. Literally. Occasionally you can tell a chunk of noise originates in some chirruping fret run or string scrape, but rather than guitar music it was mostly a solid blast of effects chain full throttle overdrive leavened with slow phaser grinds and broken down by low bouts of feedback. The temptation is to think of it as a straight noise set, but listening back, its a lot more nuanced than that, quite textured and with some nice interplay between the two of them. Which isn’t to say that it didn’t have some nice HNW moments.