April 2015
Green Door Store
Nuclear Whale
Nuclear Whale is on first. Lots of lovely Dave Smith kit a few other bits and bobs and he’s LOUD. A dense, viscous sound with lots of crunchy beats and not the space to call it techno. Thick strong basslines and noisy melodies to the fore. Boo Cook has visuals running, a cutup of space trip, bombs and glazed talking heads working against the banging of the music quite nicely.
Binnsclagg
Binnsclagg pull together probably the best set I’ve seen them do since they gave up power tools. Lots of dynamics: peaks and troughs, noise, drones, wrong music mash-ups, sing-a-longs, noise and beauty. A favourite moment for me was a big chunk of the JAMMS first single. Both Verity and Karl on electronic devices, noise machines, tome generators, tone generators, loopers and Kaoss pads. They have words and stand to say their piece. The Verity-led singsong at the end was priceless.
Tim Shaw & Sébastien Piquemal
‘Fields’ is a piece by Tim Shaw & Sébastien Piquemal, Tim was at Fort Process last year and they are touring this art piece. They are set up onstage with some extra speakers dotted about and their own wifi network which they have asked people to connect to before they start. On stage and through the big PA they pump out some bassy drones, I nip out to the bar and notice that the phone in someone’s pocket is making a weird sound. As I get back into the main room and wander about all the phones around me have started this thin droning. if you look at their screens white command text is scrolling up and slowly the sounds from the phones begins to diversify. Obviously its quite quiet and thin sounding but the acoustic space afforded by the bass drones leaves plenty of room. all the audience seems to be milling about, comparing phone sounds and talking about what’s happening. Its probably the first time I’ve been so happy with audience noise during a set as everyone is so involved. Aces.
Nad Spiro played first and quite early, she apparently has a tinnitus variant that means it gets worse as the evening progresses, so in spite of her having travelled the furthest was on first. I can see exactly why Dan was keen to get her to play, she plays a kind of detailed processed improv based on guitar and voice all put through a laptop for clicking and munging. There are precise glitches and smeared warps. She plays about five pieces.
Leo Chadburn has a different approach, he’s come down with a band:
Finally; Freedom Frampton. David K is usually a pretty nervous performer, but he’s looking really relaxed for this tonight, which considering how exposed it is, is pretty something. He stands at the back near the mixer with two mics and a small table with his phone on it. His set is probably about a third a cappella and two thirds vocal with minimal drum machine/ synth baking tracks off the phone. I’ll apologise for the poor sound from the mics as I mixed it, but drowning in muddy reverb gives a very human scope to some very personal songs. They’re mostly pretty short, some (e.g. Spaceman Three cover) are introduced, but many just seem to spring unbidden from his lips.