Month: October 2023

Next radio broadcast on ResonanceExtra FM: Sunday 22nd October – 8.00 to 10.00pm

Posted on by Spirit of Gravity

Gravity Waves and the Spirit World

Sunday 22nd October 2023 from 8.00 to 10.00pm on ResonanceExtra FM, DAB radio or online at extra.resonance.fm/

“October, year 2023. This month marks the handover of the controls from spearmint Caleb Madden to the Think Twice, a fewtime past time guest. Think Twice will be occupying 50% of the 2 hour Slot every time for 6 months. This month, Mohammad Adam has been ushered in with a gentle gesture, bringing a dark cloud of smoky glooming dank from the Morrison’s car park in Leicester, that dark haze in the whip, the silence because nobody’s talking to each other but everyone’s dark brains are so loud. The holiday, the relaxation of it all. the blanket of blankness and the roach inside. Afterwards, a Spirit of Gravity analysand Remember Glaciers cools us down with the sub-zero that’s starting to rise, has bin starting to rise for a while. Darkness. Thinking.”
1st Hour: Mohammad Adam – Morrison’s Car Park
2nd Hour: Remember Glaciers – 2023-10-03 Ice Core (Muir Glacier 1890)

The September 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-september-2023_mixdown/
This month’s show features a special audio collage by Geoff Cheesemaster from the recent Sound Art Brighton: Sound Plotting event, new music from I’m Dr Buoyant, and a selection of tracks from the latest release by Warped Love Group on the Spirit of Gravity label.

Surprisingly heavy on ordinary instrumentation

Posted on by Spirit of Gravity

October 2023
The Rossi Bar

Ron Caines, Andrew Greaves & I’m Dr Buoyant: if you don’t know him, Ron was the saxophone player with the near legendary prog rock band East of Eden, long before half of us in the audience could walk. He’s been playing with both Andrew (and with his band Broken Star) and I’m Dr Buoyant for a number of years, but this was the first time they’ve played as a trio. The set starts with some layering up of synths by the electronicians but when Ron starts they drop away leaving him to lay some plaintive lines before a thin stream of near feedback creeps in and ever so slowly swells to some lovely swirling, echoing space noises. Ron starts to bounce back off this; trilling and parping, Andrew responds with a flurry of notes and then slows it down to another deep space tone. As things progress Tony starts channelling Ron’s saxophone back through the effects chain, which is nice. Andrew gets into some synth runs, then back into the spacey washes and occasional organ scurry. About 20 minute sin Andrew starts a much effected drum pattern, pinging echoes and squelchy reverbs all over. Ron switches to slight, tremulous bursts until everything starts to thicken out and he gets into some harder blowing. And then it all winds out in light arpeggios and looped sax breath.

The Organ Grinder’s Monkey, it’s the first time we’ve had Ben back in a while, and he’s changed things around a bit, the lovely Black and Chrome Jaguar guitar has gone to be replaced by some multifunctional high end (but at least black) modern thing. He’s also changed his set around a bit, gone are the tight punchy songs and he’s loosened up a bit, but there’s still plenty of structure. No singing though. The first song he starts by getting some guitar loops going through Bill the laptop. There is some odd glitching and you can visibly see him deciding on whether to restart or use it as feature, he decides to forge ahead. When the chiming interlocking guitar loops are cycling away, he gets the guitar to show some of its other features, messing with things, triggering midi sounds, the wayward glitches mostly fall away leaving on the deliberate ones. And thankfully for his stress levels the rest of the set seems devoid of issues. Apart from the unexpected triggering of an amen break. The next one starts with one of his pop guitar riffs, there’s some madness noises and the amen break. The whole thing has that clarity and lightness that reminds me of my favourite of Cornelius’ work. He gets really into messing with the beats at the end, building on his work with the games controller the last time we saw him. The next one starts with the messed up beats. Slower and rather chunky, he plays in a bassline and some more nicely interlocking guitar parts and glitchy frills. There are some great guitar controlled breakdowns on here. Theres a really quick switch into the next song, it’s almost completely formed. Guitar and rhythm doing what I can only describe as tripping along with extraordinarily filthy noises over them. Unless its some kind of dub of the previous song. Organ Grinder’s Monkey on the Version. It does go through a quite expected silly breakdown/chop up at the end. But a great example of what can be done with a bit of imagination on how to do things. An interesting experimental approach to playing, with a great ear, combining to make something really out of the ordinary.

Nina Kohout starts with heavily affected multitracked vocal, thick and well layered. We fall silent, piano comes in and she sings on, simply and alone. Electronic bass tones well up, and a fairly brutal waltz beat starts. The sound is surprisingly spacious after that heavy start. The next song is deceptively simple with an electric guitar and voice. Followed by something that starts with some deep electronic pulses, and slow dread-full beat. Some nice use of a what sounds like a scrapingly bowed cello sound. The beats pick up, heavy on the toms, intensity ramps, yowling backing vocals add to that. And it rounds off with a nice drop to a spooky ending. The next song is about consent, pretty dark, angry and as it’s new I guess raw. Intense, something of Kate Bush about the way the vocal lines interleaving. After a light break for a middle eight we get some seriously heavy synth riffing, deep and ponderous. The next song is much lighter, starting with vocals of a high thin drone before a piano line comes in. There’s a really nice string synth interlude before things go off at a bit of a tangent with interplay between pre-recorded and live vocals and back to the piano line. The next song is a song for waking up and in Slovakian. Multi-tracked and affected vocals start with drones, and a bass pulse “hah!”, church organ washes and reedy pipe melodies follow with synthetic bird whistles. The final song starts with a plonking marimba pattern, the vocals come in, everything fades briefly then a deranged Latin rhythm starts, with some proper sonic bass. Its almost channelling a gothy Herb Alpert, only without the trumpet.



Thursday 5th October at the Rossi Bar: Nina Kohout / Ron Caines/Andrew Greaves/I’m Dr Buoyant / The Organ Grinder’s Monkey

Posted on by Spirit of Gravity

Nina Kohout: Dark electronica, classical & eerie Slavic folklore
Ron Caines / Andrew Greaves / I’m Dr Buoyant: Sax, synth and samples in sync
The Organ Grinder’s Monkey: Guitar loops, breakbeats and glitch FX

Nina Kohout is a sonic storyteller who pushes the boundaries of musical obedience, forming a constant conversation between an invasive horror and a fragile purity. In her music, she connects the eerie atmosphere of ancient Slovak folklore, classical music elements, and the freshness of innovative electronica.
In 2020, Slovakia-born, UK-based artist Nina Kohout won the Radio_Head award for the Newcomer of the Year (curated by the Slovak national radio), which she received for her debut single Blue Sunray. Her critically acclaimed debut EP Pandemonium (incl. the song Moonlight featured as the Song of the Day by KEXP Radio) got Nina’s name mentioned in BBC Radio and music magazines such as Under the Radar, Louder than War, and Electronic Sound magazine. Her past shows include playing at the iconic Kino Šiška in Ljubljana, the United Islands of Prague, the Ahoi! Pop Festival in Linz, as well as the biggest Slovak festival Pohoda.
At the beginning of 2023, Nina played at the biggest European showcase festival Eurosonic, where together with a string quintet she introduced her uniquely coloured art pop. Her autumn tour will include playing at the Waves Vienna, BUSH Festival in Budapest, as well as Santeria in Milan.

Ron Caines / Andrew Greaves / I’m Dr Buoyant: East of Eden saxophonist and stalwart of Brighton Safehouse Ron Caines returns with regular collaborator, Spirit of Gravity founder I’m Dr Buoyant, this time as a trio with Spirit of Gravity keyboard magician Andrew Greaves (Broken Star, solo and other collaborations): improvised saxophone, live sampling and swooping synthesiser combine in spontaneous composition.

The Organ Grinder’s Monkey is the brainchild of Brighton-based musician/producer Ben Garnett. Ben provides guitar and vocals while his laptop/best friend Bill handles beats and FX. The resulting sound is an attempt to combine the glitchy stutter and madness of Bill’s favourite electronic artists (Aphex Twin, Squarepusher) with the freewheeling maverick indie-rock of Ben’s youth (Super Furry Animals, The Boo Radleys, Grandaddy). A shared love of 8-bit computer game sounds provides further inspiration.
Having not played live since the pandemic, 2023 finally sees TOGM re-emerge with an entirely new approach to their sound. Two years of experimentation has armed the pair with an array of different techniques, technology and a whole set of fresh semi-improvised material that is now created completely live in the moment, ending the previous reliance on pre-programmed backing tracks. With instrumentation stripped back to just a single breakbeat, two tracks of looped guitar and occasional bass, the focus now shifts to taking these basic building blocks and employing endless banks of effects to remix them into a restless and unpredictable soundscape.
These sounds will be recorded and edited down into an EP set for release by the end of the year.

Hosted by our very own DJ Cheesemaster

Chris [Symmetrical Forces] creates live visuals for each performance using his own lo-fi footage, dusty VHS tapes and obscure videos from the internet to create futuristic images from the past overlayed with out-of-reach memories and vague fragments of lost visions.

The Rossi Bar is a small grade II building, and they are restricted with how they can improve access for anyone with mobility issues. The live music venue is located in the basement, which can only be accessed by a short spiral staircase. More accessibility information and images of the venue are in this document:
spiritofgravity.com/site/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/The-Spirit-of-Gravity-at-The-Rossi-Bar-for-audience-members.pdf

If you can’t make it to the Rossi Bar, you can now live stream all of our gigs on our new Owncast platform at stream.gravitons.org/.

“The Spirit of Gravity: making experimental music a threat again – since 2001”

Thursday 5th October 2023 | 8pm – 10.30pm | £5 (cash only)
Downstairs @ The Rossi Bar
8 Queens Road, Brighton, BN1 3WA