Next Spirit of Gravity gig: Tuesday 16th October

Spirit of Gravity presents

VOLE / JILK & TULIN FÉE / THIS SOUND BUREAUCRACY

Marlborough Theatre, Princes Street, Brighton

8.30-11pm, £4/£3 concs.

Vole
Modern improvisers using acoustic and electronic sources.
(www.myspace.com/vole)

Jilk & Tulin-Fée
A glitch-fest of cut & paste electronic science meets beautiful, live, string-led folktronica.
(Bit-Phalanx / Fractals / Clean / Boggle).
(www.myspace.com/jilk)
(www.myspace.com/tulinfee)

This Sound Bureaucracy
The latest report released under the Freedom of Information Act, revealing the shocking use of sound experimentation on audience members at musical concerts.
(www.myspace.com/tonyrimbaud)

Hosted by our very own electro-comedian Lee Hume
Visuals by _minimalVector

Also this month: Friday 26^th October

Taken vs. Spirit of Gravity presents

THE HUMBLE / NOTEHERDER VS. MCCLOUD / SAME ACTOR

Ryan’s Bar, 181, Stoke Newington Church Street, London N16 0UL

8.30 – 11pm, £3/£2 concs

The Humble: twisted sweet songs

Noteherder vs. McCloud: investigations undertaken – analogue grit vs. free soprano

Same Actor: BiP/Hop – stringed instruments and electronica

Visuals by _minimalVector
For details of future Spirit of Gravity events, go to www.spiritofgravity.com/.

· Greetings:

Look out for the new Dizzy Tiger release “ANTI” with Same Actor and Rashamon plus many others (http://dizzytigerstu.proboards58.com)

· Reviewings:

Spirit of Gravity at the Marlborough Theatre, Brighton, Tuesday 25th September

We fell prey to one of the Classic Blunders: the first being never get involved in a land war in Asia.

I had an absolutely stunning walk down to the Marlborough from up on the Race Hill, I do truly love the month of September, especially for its remarkable sunsets, and cos I know next month it’ll be dark. But even so I had to stop several times just to watch, and look out over the buildings to the sea. Remarkable.

Inside the theatre, Komuso, no hang on, Fallow (No, hang on: http://hoodlumpriest.net - a proper website, vague and wilfully obscure) started off by tacking Buddha machines to the walls and switching them on, the rest of his set was comprised of raw and treated Fallow Deer field recordings. Remarkable noises, gentle and fierce with great sonic weight, this was an abstract, enveloping piece of sound art. Complementing the visuals of _minimalVector, Fallow arranged for “Renaissance” ( www.imdb.com/title/tt0386741/) to be projected, there were some nice continuities between the two sets of visuals.

More ( www.irislight.demon.co.uk/lhoodlum.htm)

Continuing our recent run of artists arriving from the West Country too late to sound check was Little Boat (www.myspace.com/littleboat ), a slight man with a mass of curly hair a lovely guitar, a rack of pedals and a big old fender twin reverb. Chris Reed builds songs from loops created on the fly from his guitar with percussion, bass, melodic parts carefully and quickly constructed, and vocals, too. Little Boats music was diffident without being coy, a certain confidence about his art that stopped such spacious music from becoming fey, but without tipping it over into bluster. I’ve not heard the recording yet, but expecting the set to be chock full of earworms (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earworm). There was a cover of a song I didn’t know, but I get the feeling I should have.

Powerup (www.myspace.com/powerupup ) stepped in at the last minute for Voltek, who couldn’t get over what remains of the Berlin wall. We liked their demo CD as it was full of misdirection, sound that seemed it was going to lead in one direction only to sneakily nudge you off another.

I liked their sound check as it was a sonic blast of Tuxedomoonesque violin and synthesised roar.

Neither thing prepared me for their actual set. Which started quietly, abstract vocalisations, big old keyboard pads and laptop chatters, morphing continuously and seamlessly, through the violin and the modern 80’s rhythm that ran through one section before disappearing into the dust. It was stunning. Ambitious, tuneful and elliptical.

They sent me this descriptive bit of text, but it arrived too late to go on our site. So I thought I’d include it here.

“Chris wishes Powerup sounded like Oasis. Kathy is pretty glad that they don't. Jo thinks they sound like adventures and spaceships, which is good cause she has to listen to them rehearse A LOT. One time they played their stuff to Thurston Moore. He thought they sounded like electric blood. Powerup thought that was pretty cool. They will be megastars one day I'm sure....”

I’d agree with Jo, and I think that’s pretty cool, playing stuff to Thurston Moore.

Spirit of Gravity at Brighton Live – Juju, Brighton Saturday 29^th September

The second show of the week was for Brighton Live’s North Laine Promoters Festival. We had a prime spot this year (see last year: spiritofgravity-brighton.blogspot.com/2006/10/battle-of-brighton-live.html) The window of JuJu on the corner of Gloucester Street and Sidney Street. Starting at 6 meant it was daylight, but we still managed to get the _minimalVector projector up and it was visible right from the start.

The owners of Juju ( www.jujubrighton.com ) were great, they cleared the window and made some space inside and didn’t mind us climbing all over their shop during the regular opening hours. We parked a big speaker outside and Chris climbed into the window with his sitar and kicked off 6 sharp a Hot Roddy set that pulled a crowd and kept them entranced for 40 minutes. Lots of new tracks old tracks, short tracks and long tracks. And it was great eavesdropping perplexed kids “Hey, look mum that dummy’s got a big guitar –YEEK – IT MOVED!”

Rashamon played his second set of the day (or year) hot foot down from “The best of Brighton Live” at the Concorde2. Laptopped up the window in the few moments it took people to move on, and he was off. From the moment he started it was unmistakable classic Rashamon. There’s something so distinctive about the drum sounds – rolling, punchy but almost understated. With the warm bass and twinkling detailing, it was a lovely reminder of what we’d been missing while Lee has been Standing Up for the last year. Again we pulled a nice sized crowd on the paved area

Then with darkness fallen and the light show in full effect I donned the Terror Wogan mask, picked up the Atari console and did my worst. Here’s an edited posting by Carolyn on the Dizzy Tiger blog:

“Brighton Live was much, much fun Got to see some really great bands. The Sticks were fantastic (and hot - even in long johns). Peepholes were fun, although couldn't play / sing / have any awareness of timing - glad they got a good crown reaction. Static Crash and Diamond Family Archive were both lovely to listen .I'd never seen The Flesh Happening live, so that was a real treat. Saw Sweet Sweet Lies again. Watching Lee (Rashamon) playing in the main room in Concorde 2 was fun, shame the rest of the audience didn't notice.

The absolute highlight however, had to be Terror Wogan. Hopefully there will be a YouTube link at some point so we can share the magic of the crazy mouse and his Atari playing in a shop window.”

And thanks to some Mark who was on “Chris’ stag” we do: www.youtube.com/watch?v=3I9I6zqAcRA

Mp3’s and pictures from Spirit of Gravity events are on the SogBlog, (spiritofgravity-brighton.blogspot.com/), and there are videos on the Spirit of Gravity MySpace page (www.myspace.com/thespiritofgravity).

Yours as ever

El Maestro Con Queso

Editor.

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