July 2025
The Rossi Bar
Lewis Clay starts his set with a lovely warm introductory wash of synth with little sparkling notes met with stabbing interjections of synths and a hint or two of kick and clatter. This is going to be a busy set, and sure enough it almost immediately drops it down to a burbling bass note that almost speaks to us, seems that it may set off a groove, then starts switching back and forth, there are some, elements of the bass are given some room to breathe and finally they take flight with a scattering beat, the whole thing flying spaciously around the room leaving us finding the rhythm, then losing it when we try and focus on it too clearly. Its best held in the periphery. There is a brutal handover to a vast squelching jungle (as in the sweaty green place full of wildlife), full of sound and menace, murky drums ricochet, unseen things scream, birds chirrup derangedly. There’s a bassline with little seeming repetition, its possibly a horribly distorted kick, synthetic monkeys yammer from the trees. Then a couple of big snares hit and we’re into a clearing. This is a more orthodox post Aphex percussion festival groove, we can nod our heads or shuffle a bit. Notes come in, a sort of melody, the notes are off, microtonal, shifting, the beats suddenly filthy up, more murk, reverb, the notes speed up, the beat pares itself down, the ornamentation lost but keeping its kinetic aspects, the melodic line is gone, too, beeps and burbles intersperse with snare hits. A quick breather of bass twist, then an arrhythmic track of shudders and twists, tones and buzzes. It pares down gradually to the scattered synth stammers and staccatos. Again we’re off on a new beat exploration. This one is like 16th played first on one sound then another, building a pattern eventually, but still all the time its one sound at a time. Bass bass bass bass snare bell bell bell synth synth synth synth synth tom cymbal tom cymbal and so forth, the delays and reverbs kind of allow it to build into layers until a steady scream drowns it out. Then there’s a bit of broken speech, and then back into a full flowing rhythm complex. Washes spin around the coruscating drums then flourishes of tones and ornamentation, back into it again, then the tones return, detuned and arbitrary, spinning off into space, a chopping bass buzz inserts itself into the rhythm which seems to gather even more momentum and then it all breaks down the bass turns squelching, and the drums pick up into just too fast rattling, its like nightmare trance at 500bpm to finish. Here comes the hoover. So many ideas, it’s a demanding set and a storming start to the evening.
Which then calms down considerably for Warped Love Group, which by contrast is all about repetition and groove. And delay, it’s very much about delay. Starting with syncopating cowbell and some weird murky buzz, hi-hats drop then the first delay comes in winds up, down then out into infinity. Eventually a kick drops in super slow. The delay soups itself up into a melodic line, wanders around then drops to let the snare start. Heads nod. The delay drops out, the hi-hats double up. The kick comes back in but skips a bit more, everything else falls away and the kick develops a tonal quality. The delay goes into guitar feedback mode. The new snare sounds like a snapped spring reverb. The first bass line. Extended, almost a drone or dubstep grind whipping up and down. The delay is going haywire now – pitching all over the place. It all drops away again then the kick is put through its paces, wow – up down all over. Hi-hats on the 16, the delay drops down into sub bass territory. Some weird tuned hi tom (maybe) starts bonging. Synth squeaks slip in, then after a bit of a delirious spell, it all drops away to an 808 sounding kick this time. Hip Hop speeds, Boo-Yah Tribe, say. Off-beat toy piano. The rest of the rhythm slinks in. There’s been no actual bass for a while, the booming kick covering that itch. The delay still keeping that melody line going over what sounds like a didgeridoo supplying a bassline. Whip snares, and such a groove now. Drop to hi-hats this time, open trance off beat hats, but on the 8s, claps, the delay gets some gate action, the kick gets hard again, but is still syncopated, pan drums, the beat is thick, several snares, the delay is whistling then beeping. Then it all stops.
And completing the evening of Three Very Different things we have Robyn Rocket And People You May Have Heard Of, Robyn with space trumpet, Arlen (R. Dyer) on various things I can’t really see including soprano sax, & Karl MV Waugh on guitar, all with lots of effects. Robyn Starts proceedings with some short notes from the trumpet into lots of delay, Arlen (it must be) warbles in some musical saw and we have a few notes from Karl pinged into a slow delay. We’re taking this super slow, the arc of the evening has been about reducing beats and we have none, now. The trumpet has a lovely melancholic tone as Robyn slips a line of long sonorities out of it, the guitar delay washes gently underneath, with twinkles and spangles from flexitones and other chiming percussions. Little breathy sounds signal things changing and we shift down even further. We’re in interstellar country here, drifting gently through the cosmos. There’s a little flourish as things layer up, building then washing away again, to a fragmented scatter. Scratchy noises skitter about a quick wind down of the delayed guitar, some long warbling trumpet, wind whistling through the room. There is a melodic line from Robin as we get more space noises from the known. Karl gets a nasty blast of something which causes a little merriment, but amazingly doesn’t distract anyone from the unfolding sounds being produced. There’s a further resetting with a flurry of improv scratchiness, that develops into a bit of a flurry of notes from Robyn that again winds down. We get some quiet scurrying electronics, there’s a set of organ chords that have got into the Looper setting everything on a path. Karl pings sets of notes into the ether. Karl gets a little backwards guitar into his Looper. The soprano makes its appearance walking over that, the trumpet just laying down background drones. The soprano gets into the looper too, several lines layered up. Robyn starts to get a bit more fire into the trumpet, Arlen follows with the sax. Some small bells indicate a wind down. A little loop of staccato trumpet winds us out, warbling guitar, sinuous soprano sax and spacey trumpet all tend it as it leaves, last out is the sax.