Category: SOG-BLOG

The best excuse for being late to a sound check, ever

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Something of a milestone in February, the Spirit of Gravity is dragged away from the usual geeks for a female-only show.

Embla Quickbeam

Embla Quickbeam did manage to get started at a sensible time, rather than far too early, and she rewarded us with a lovely humming set of freakish field recordings, ghostly sonar pings, bell peals from lost churches, and visiting drones from the other side. Apparently this set was decided on at the last minute as she’d been working on something new, but had suffered catastrophic system failures during the afternoon. Which was made up by finding a gorgeous clothbound copy of FC Judd’s book on electronic music. And still managing a blinding set.

Bela Emerson and Carolina Diaz

After a quick turnaround we had the debut of a new collaboration between Bela Emerson on Cello and Carolina Diaz,a Butoh dancer. The processed cello progresses from warm friendly tones to almost astringent modernity, while Carolina reversed herself in front of a low table and slowly formed a series of starkly disquieting shapes, the whole thing was mesmerisingly beautiful to watch and listen to, completely involving and quite beyond my ability to describe. A well realised collaborating improvisation between two artists working very differently – Bela’s eyes never left Carolina during the whole performance.

Sarah Angliss

Sarah Angliss I find slightly more within my linguistic ability. She set up with her famous Theremin stage centre, Hugo the robot boy up to the left, laptop, carillon and keyboard to the right with brand new robot drummer Wolfgang (the only electronic drummer called Wolfgang playing in the UK that night [take THAT Mr Flür ]). She started off using the Theremin as a controller for filtering vocals off the laptop – a sort of reverse vocoder. And it kind of goes from there – it’s a set of songs, using unusual techniques and instrumentation, a couple of favourites from Space Dog (“The Submariner” and “The Lankey” in a rather developed form) its another visit to the spooky side, with Sarah’s Fortean interests to the fore.

Dry spells

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It’s been a while, but back in January 2013 with skronk and skree, and a new format for the blog.

Noteherder and McCloud

The first Noteherder and McCloud starts slow vibrating washes of electric swamp with skittering soprano sax pausing for occasional languors, before getting up with a noisy switchback over bass drones and some proper skronking and ending with a grumble off between the pair.

The second Noteherder & McCloud set took me by surprise by starting with some whistling birdsong before electronic burbles transformed into staccato bass with Chris saxing at full throttle with noise stabs sliding in sawtooth. It degenerates into squeaks and pops before coming back for a little full throttle action and close. I can’t comment on _minimalVector’s visuals, as I was looking the wrong way, but I’ve heard they were immersive to the point of overwhelming: sliding across two walls like slippery nightmare woods.

EMB Ortolan

EMB Ortolan has a nice guitar chime loop with jazz cymbals to start, looping most satisfyingly before bringing in church bells and playgrounds, a gloriously excessive piece of uber guitar riffery upsets things and pulls it back to another understated guitar loop with annoying HF feedback whistling under it. Paul then did a reprise of his quiet Aural Detritis piece with the light sensitive devices. A brave decision in the infamously loud Green Door Store, but one that worked well – very subtle and understated, and making good use of the sub bass available in the large PA. Finishing with a low level blistering and shortwave conversation.

Cosmonaut Transfer

Cosmonaut Transfer ended the night with their space age tomfoolery, slowed down vocals and Tangerine arpeggios start the set in the right mode, Dave’s guitar flying fluid lines and trills of sustain while disappointingly the space helmet stays on the floor this time. The arpeggios wind down into speech and swirls and Nick brings out the violin and we all get a bit more abstract until the Krell monster from Forbidden Planet puts in an appearance and the arpeggios return with a more propulsive beat than previously and we’re off to Mars for the climax.