Month: March 2020

Next radio broadcast on ResonanceExtra FM: Sunday 22nd March – NOW 6.00 to 8.00pm

Posted on by Spirit of Gravity

Gravity Waves and the Spirit World

Sunday 22nd March 2020 from 6.00 to 8.00pm on ResonanceExtra FM. extra.resonance.fm/

Another selection of tracks from the orbit of the Spirit of Gravity Collective, including music from the Chocolate Monk label:

The Singing Island – The door is in the valley / Tindegger – deed deid horst / Blood Stereo – Two paths to outer edge (excerpt) / Sexton Ming’s Porridge van – Twelve / The Singing Island – Stone Telling Stone / Tindegger – Mechanical

Map71 – CDM (Nmesme remix) / si – cut.db – Post Emblem / Donna Summer – The Man Who Was Thursday / Dynamo Bruit – Monody Tracts / GRST – Penance State / Mully – Get A Phone That Works You Useless Hippy And Maybe We Could Use The Correct Track Titles / Shitmat – You Be Virgil And I’ll Be Ted Dibiase / Noony Banoony – froth and frizz / Maya Verlaak – All English Music is Greensleeves (II) / Official Licensed Product – Dan’s Cat and a Humming PC

The January edition of the Spirit of Gravity Radio show is available on the ResonanceFM Mixcloud page: www.mixcloud.com/resonanceextra/gravity-waves-and-the-spirit-world-january-2020-sunday-the-26th-of-january-2020/

Another selection of tracks from the orbit of the Spirit of Gravity Collective, including a remix of the most popular downloads from the Spirit of Gravity BandCamp label by Dan Powell:
Dan Powell – Sogman’s Hitmix / Othermen – For All Time (Res Extra Version) / Emma Papper – Reflctions02 / Dan Powell – emerging from the valley into a rainshower / Olivia Louvel – Mes Taches de Rousseur / Nil by Nose & Noventa Nada – SANS FAUTE CETTE FOIS / Barker – Models of wellbeing / Fane – The Temple of Unknowing

The February edition is also now available:
www.mixcloud.com/resonanceextra/gravity-waves-and-the-spirit-world-february-2020-sunday-23rd-february-2020/

The first hour is from the new release on The Spirit of Gravity Label “It just evaporated, so I’m trying to re-conjure it” by McCloud:
McCloud – The long tail (full length version) / Unwanted Missionaries Unwinding Along Green Lanes
The second hour: Inwards – Skateboarding / Jae Josephine – 2020 tbc / Kina: Suttsu – Muza / Nil by Nose – Always there

Is half a guitar better than none?

Posted on by Spirit of Gravity

February 2020
The Rossi Bar

Paul Khimasia Morgan and Gus Garside

First up are Paul Khimasia Morgan and Gus Garside. Gus plays his traditional double bass, Paul has the less traditional guitar body (the neck has been removed). Gus starts with the bow scratching the strings with his bow, Paul has a transducer jammed up against the back of the guitar riding a low tonal feedback. The double bass is producing a thin high-pitched circular scree that goes into the looper. Most un-bass like. A second slightly fatter and slightly lower loop joins it, before he jams a beater into the strings and produces a couple of thrums. The scraping stops as does the guitar tone, and we’re left with cello-like sonorities and the thrum in restful rotation.  Over this Paul and Gus layer a variety of noises, some odd detuning pings, drones. Gus squeaks his strings and Paul gets some bell like sounds. There’s some tension, anticipation of something. The tension builds. We finally get a little bass swoop that builds into a bit of a drone. And then, at last, a full beautiful bow sweep of the low strings filling the room. For a good amount of time, Paul sends out shrill shards of feedback whistles, chimes and clunks. A very satisfying end.

The Organ Grinder’s Monkey

The middle act was the welcome return of The Organ Grinder’s Monkey. The laptop, and black and silver jaguar in full effect. The first song sets out what he does quite nicely, the introduction has a fairly straightforward little guitar riff, the second time there’s a little processing on the third a pretty hard glitch and full on yammer at the end, then the backing track kicks in, and each time through the processing gets more pronounced. There are some backing vocals I’d never noticed before, and extra layers. Its catchy and pretty messed up. The second song is pretty straight, upbeat, tuneful, vocals for 2 verse and chorus’ then the games controller he’s given out to the audience beforehand takes control, tremolo, filter, sweeps, things cut out and come back or repeat or stammer. It’s a lot of fun, and stops its always over too soon. The third starts with super fat blocks of bass and guitar feedback and lopsided beat. The breakdown at the end is an immense set of synth bass, drones and detuned guitar.  The fourth song has a false start, but does start with some odd filtered voice, layered up, over a distant beat, spiky guitar figure, replaced by gated wash, and a weird guitar hero sustain solo. He finishes with 2 new ones, the first a 2 chord riff over some shudder electronics, that nicely degenerates into false stops, uneven gating, and a full strength glitching using the controller again. The final piece is a cover of a song from a local hero from his home town. Political. Hooky. “I know, you are, evil”.

Leifert

Finishing off the evening are Leifert, from Croatia via Leeds – they start unannounced eschewing my introduction and looming up over the general hubbub. They have a lovely synth a big square box, no keyboard, with an array of satisfyingly solid knobs on top, I made a note of the name and lost it. Its partly midi controlled and partly live fiddling. Petra stands at the back singing. The sound is correspondingly solid, strong basses, pinging tops and fidgeting drum tracks. The melody lines swerve around, timbre changing as the pitch swoops. The atmosphere they generate reminds of a couple of 80s duos I used to see in The Fridge, I briefly wonder if we’re living in the 21st Century Weimar, and then they get some proper arpeggios going and the temp picks up and the mood all changes. This one is all about driving onward. The intensity drops for the next one and we get back into slurred notes and washes, the beats are fast but lighter weight, Petra’s voice floating around over the top. The beats gather weight and the washes become more urgent as we move on. The next track starts with a four to the floor bass drum and staccato jabs of toppy synths. These are then mirrored by some detuned bass, which sees some nice filter work, getting at once buzzier and squelchier at the same time. It ends with the drums dropping out and the bass getting fatter and tastier and fatter and tastier. Nice. The last track has an almost comic stepping bass line and frenetic drums, the middly synth rolls around growling like a set of cats singing on you wall avoiding boots. Some strange melodic line comes in over the top with Petra singing in unison with it. Disconcerting. A monster sawtooth bassline finishes it off, like something from “Playing with Knives” underpinning a deranged dub with sounds zooming everywhere.

https://www.youtube.com/embed/nRk01S1FXWI https://www.youtube.com/embed/yKEaZYxaOEk https://www.youtube.com/embed/Vx6MELIBK8o https://www.youtube.com/embed/-ts7I-U0ZTs

Thursday 5th March at the Rossi Bar: Bela Emerson & Hervé Perez duo / Meljoann / Ascsoms

Posted on by Spirit of Gravity

Bela Emerson & Hervé Perez duo
Cello, alto saxophone, laptop, electronics.

Bela and Hervé met at Buddhafield Festival in the summer of 2019. After a very brief musical encounter in the middle of a field amidst sun and wind, the duo realised that they had to play again, and involve their passion for improvisation with acoustic instruments and electronics.
Both experienced improvisers have performed for many years across the UK and Europe. As a duo, they are able to merge fluidly gestural, textural and melodic phrases, with great ease and near telepathic communication
https://soundcloud.com/nexttimeproduction/20190721buddfieldberv

Bela Emerson is an innovative cellist who uses electronic processing to compose in the moment. She has toured worldwide and performed collaborative residencies at Sydney Opera House and Royal Festival Hall, as well as being commissioned by BBC Radio 3’s Late Junction as a solo performer, playing four John Peel sessions for BBC Radio 1, and releasing four solo albums to date.
Her artist CV includes a wide range of collaborations: with artists such as acrobats Mimbre, filmmaker Tereza Buskova, musicians Sarah Angliss and Stephen Hiscock, and comedians Tamsin Greig and Rory Bremner (commissioned by BBC Radio 4 and the BFI).
Bela also works extensively as a community music facilitator with Open Strings Music and in healthcare settings with Wishing Well, using music as a tool for connection, creativity, and wellbeing, as well as training people at Goldsmiths in using relational music-making for dementia.
www.belaemerson.com
www.openstrings.co.uk
www.wishingwellmusic.org.uk

Hervé Perez: Artist, composer and improvising musician from France who now lives in England. He plays saxophones, shakuhachi and laptop in various groups and produces music inspired by jazz, contemporary and electroacoustic music, experimental, sound art and sound therapy.
He has released three albums with Inclusion Principle (Discus label), many recordings in collaboration with artists from around the world, and also solo work on various netlabels. His latest album, Imploding Stars (Focused Silence, 2019) features solo saxophone and live processing.
Hervé has worked as sound recordist and sound designer on a number of short films, and is currently carrying out residencies doing location recordings and concerts with Maja Bugge’s Northern (Full of Noises, Manchester Jazz Festival, Lancaster Jazz Festival).
Live performances incl. Huddersfield Week of Speakers, Mantis festival Manchester, insubordinations microfestival in Switzerland, Sheffield festival of the Mind, mopomoso at the Vortex London, megapolis and dumbo arts festivals New York, Jazz à Luz, Manchester Marsden and Lancaster Jazz festival, Full of Noises, etc.
www.spacers.lowtech.org/herve
sndsukinspook.wordpress.com

Meljoann
Dystopian pop, disorientating noises, corporate video testimonials

Originally from Dublin, Meljoann produces experimental electronic pop. In her latest single ‘Assfuck the Boss’, she explores the “stockholm syndrome of the employed”. Her sound has been described as “like a long-lost soul-pop album from the mid-1990s as remixed by Aphex Twin” (Eamon de Paor, Metro Herald)

Ascsoms
Field recordings and miscellaneous electronics

Adam Wimbush’s solo project Ascsoms is an evolving sound world formed from a semi-generative system of analogue and lo-fi equipment, tape players, loopers, field recordings, miscellaneous electronics and a rotating cast of effects pedals. His recent experiments explore layering and signal routing. These morphing environments, often dense and full of texture, feed into further productions – creating an ongoing experiment in sonic reproduction and reprocessing.
He is a keen collaborator, a member of  Thee Electric Spotchworms Tape Orchestra and half of sound effects duo Electronic Sound Pictures Visit https://ascsoms.bandcamp.com and https://soundcloud.com/ascsoms for more info and follow at @ascsoms on instagram and facebook

Thursday 5th March 2020 | 8pm – 10.30pm | £5
Downstairs @ The Rossi Bar
8 Queens Road, Brighton, BN1 3WA