Author: Spirit of Gravity

Next radio broadcast on ResonanceExtra FM: Sunday 28th August – 8.00 to 10.00pm

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Gravity Waves and the Spirit World

Sunday 28th August 2022 from 8.00 to 10.00pm on ResonanceExtra FM, DAB radio or online at extra.resonance.fm/

This month’s show is taken from music around the orbit of The Spirit of Gravity, friends of friends and beautiful strange music we found online:

Emily McWilliams – silver.orange.rose.silver. – zzz – silver.orange. – z – silver. / Jef Guillon – ECUME / Richard Youngs – Koln Diary / Map 71 – One-Dimensional Bang (Fourth Dimension Dub) / Mahler Haze – Regimental Goat (Geezer Burton Dub Mix) / KleistWahr – Take The Low Road / Band of Pain – Withered Beetle / Philippe Petit – Creatures Inside The Planet Human

The July 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-july-2022-sunday-23rd-july-2022/
Another bumper crop from the infamous Brighton sonic arts collective; featuring a new and epic long-form work from Kieran Mahon.

 

No Looper

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August 2022
The Rossi Bar

Secret Nuclear starts with a nice fat drone that gradually resolves itself into a 2 note bassline with a ticking hi hat. Over this we get some very Trans Europe melodic lines. The droneline resonates out into nothing, then comes back as a muted electric piano riff. The second piece alternates fat squelchy bass and pinging acidy beeps, they gradually merge. The third starts with an empty wind that slowly tonalises around nocturnal clicking and growling wildlife. Another little pinging riff sets us off in another direction. The growling returns, detuned and unsettling that’s overtaken by noise and nasty synth slapping. The next piece starts up with a sparkling piano riff, a sneaky staggering bass slips in with the first drum part in a while, the piano comes and goes, the drums fade and more parts interweave around the piano ending on a riff that just repeats into delay for a nice while. The next track starts out like Dick Hymans “Bell and Tony” with a bit of squelch underneath, a nice meandering top line gives it some depth before a rhythm track bubbles up like a crunchy robot in a fish tank. It drops down to a one note bassline for the end. The final track gets into spooky territory, a delayed two not pinging riff, gloomy growling bass, lots of swampy atmosphere, a slowly arpeggiating Goblin-ish riff finishes off the atmosphere properly.

Mark Wagner is next up, just wearing a pair of shorts with a set of hand pricked Hermetic tattoos covering his body, microphone and his kit set up on a shiny black clad alter. He plays his new album, Son of the Sun, distorting and twisting it into new and alluring shapes, using the album as a starting point for something a lot more interesting. The first track is sparse drums, ominous basses and stentorian vocals. Everything is louder and nastier than on the album. The vocals thicken up, the synths more Carpentarian. It’s pretty big stuff, of a piece, really coherent; focussed, the bit of “Shout, Shout” was a bit of a surprise, but works really well in context. The middle of the set he plays fairly straight  but towards the end he gets into some nasty glitching of the songs again, mangling beats and backing vocal tracks, some almost Gabba moments there.

So finishing off the evening was Rotten Bliss, her cello feeding – left foot right foot – into separate effects chains. She starts with a raspy mid tone line. Occasionally swelling out into something more sonorously bassy, but really taking a free improv approach, bit of side of the bow to give it a proper scrape, not too much going on with the effects at first. Eventually a two not blast makes itself into a refrain, alternating with what she was doing before. She gets into something that could be a tremolo, before some proper blasts of screeching noise. She lets that unfold for a while. Lulls us into a false sense of security with some more of that tremolo business, then gives our ears a bit more of a lash, but at a much lower volume. She rides that for a while, layering it up with a nice simultaneous bass line. She goes out on a different mid-range line from here, lots of space, almost repeated motifs. More space. Avoiding the smooth full cello sound, she keeps the two effect chains in trim, reining back the overloads and distortions, a little melodic line rasps out of this space. It fills, takes larger form, marching, developing. Eventually she moves off onto a variation of this melody, developing that for a while. It reverts back to a polka inflected version of the previous melody. She keeps that going while with the other foot gives us a few delicious pulses of noise, then winds it right down for a super slow motion run through to end.




Thursday 4th August at the Rossi Bar: Son of the Sun / Secret Nuclear / Rotten Bliss

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The Spirit of Gravity Presents:
S☉N OF THE SUN: Hermetic fable: live show, ritual, dance
Secret Nuclear: Sonic venturing
Rotten Bliss: Cello / noise

Mark Wagner presents S☉N OF THE SUN, a ritual-performance based on Hermeticism and the Great Work of Alchemy. Hypnotic and immersive, featuring warped electronica, mangled beats and live remixes of his latest release out on ZamZamrec / Adaadat.
Mark Wagner is an artist and composer whose work centres on Mysticism. www.markwagner33.com

Secret Nuclear is the artist name of Surrey-based musician and designer Tim Spear. Secret Nuclear aims to explore experimental electronica, from woozy minimalism, treated field recordings and loops which he describes as “paranoid ambient”, through to all-out noise. ““… a disturbing echo of cold war paranoia” – Electronic Sound Magazine.
He has released a series of EPs and also contributed mixes and guest sessions for radio shows such as Kites & Pylons, DARK TRAIN and Urban Mutant. He also produces a quarterly radio show for CAMP, an arts centre based in the Pyrenees.

Rotten Bliss: Disturbing dreams and tender imagery haunt the violent, warm & weird visions of London based cellist, vocalist and instrument inventor Jasmine Pender, whose work voyages through noise, drone, folk, blues, and sound collage: “coarse and beautifully heavy songs” (The Wire Magazine, July 2018)
rottenbliss.bandcamp.com/

Thursday 4th August 2022 | 8pm – 10.30pm | £5
Downstairs @ The Rossi Bar
8 Queens Road, Brighton, BN1 3WA

Next radio broadcast on ResonanceExtra FM: Sunday 24th July – 8.00 to 10.00pm

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Gravity Waves and the Spirit World

Sunday 24th July 2022 from 8.00 to 10.00pm on ResonanceExtra FM, DAB radio or online at extra.resonance.fm/

Another bumper crop from the infamous Brighton sonic arts collective; featuring a new and epic long-form work from Kieran Mahon.

First hour: Kieran Mahon’s epic – Morning Brings the Light (Full Length version)
Second hour:
D!HR – Mosj /Sullivan Johns – Assembled Parts, Part 3 / Satisfaction Shift – Polarity / Beware of the 4D Gonk – Psyched by the 4D Gonk / Shaun Robert – Κουλοφοβία / Breathilizor – Mastication of Death / Future Punk – Dead in Japan / Awkward Geisha and Smell & Quim Toxic Cock Syndrome / Dr Awkward – Granit Ingrate / Safehouse Improvisation – 17 M17 N18 O01 / Safehouse Improvisation – 17 M17 N18 O01 / Sullivan Johns – Assembled Parts, Part 1

The June 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-december-2018-tuesday-the-11th-of-december-2018/
This was a repeat of a show from December 2018 featuring the minimal impact release ‘6’ in full, plus tracks from Map 71, Tom Hall, Freedom Frampton and Karl MV Waugh, amongst others.

Thursday 14th July at the Rossi Bar: Robyn Steward / Eyal Talmor / Nuclear Whale

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Please note that this event will be on the 2nd Thursday of the month, not the 1st as usual

The Spirit of Gravity Presents:
Robyn Steward: Space trumpet
Eyal Talmor: Dysfunctional Access Virus synth
Nuclear Whale: Ambient Drone based on ‘The Wake’ by Paul Kingsnorth

Robyn Steward is a musician, writer, promotor and autism activist based in London, she runs the regular event “Robyn’s Rocket” at Café Oto that leads the way in neurodivergent inclusiveness in experimental music. She has written extensively on autism and its intersections with experimental music and runs workshops for artists and promotors interested in increasing accessibility for audience and artist alike. Robyn’s performance will be exploring trumpet improvisation with electronic processing.

Eyal Talmor is an Israeli experimental musician based in Lisbon, Portugal. His performance is centered around a dysfunctional Access Virus synth that is operating beyond the machine’s capabilities, generating corrupted MIDI data and transmitted to several other machines. This method allows him to create sounds that otherwise would be impossible to reach and have unexpected results due to the chaotic nature of the process. This is part of an ongoing project collaborating with artists such as Jose Lencastre and Nuno Veiga (Portugal), and performing alongside Raja Kirik (Indonesia), Otto Von Schirach (US) and Broshuda (Germany).
crippleclerk.bandcamp.com
www.ursss.com/2022/02/eyal-talmor/
A recent collaboration with Nuno Veiga www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZohtcrzTMG8

Nuclear Whale will be playing an ambient drone set incorporating his modular synth, exploring a post apocalyptic 1066 Norman invasion landscape based on his readings from the book ‘The Wake’ by Paul Kingsnorth

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.

Thursday 14th July 2022 | 8pm – 10.30pm | £5
Downstairs @ The Rossi Bar
8 Queens Road, Brighton, BN1 3WA

New release on the Spirit of Gravity netlabel: Noteherder and I’m Dr Buoyant

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The latest release from the Spirit of Gravity, Brighton’s long-shining lodestar of the musical leftfield, is ‘Day’ by Noteherder and I’m Dr Buoyant

Since releasing “The Floating Museum” in February 2021, Noteherder (Chris Parfitt) and I’m Dr Buoyant (Tony Rimbaud) have continued to exchange sound files between Porthcawl and Brighton, the best elements of which will be released across two full-length volumes, ‘Day’ and ‘Night’.

We kick off with Day; more expansive in tone than their previous release, I’m Dr Buoyant uses samples and effects based on Chris’s reed and concrète recordings to create sound beds on which
further improvisations easily sit. The unique musical chemistry, developed over many miles, is well worth worth a listen and a download at: spiritofgravity.bandcamp.com/album/day

It may be confidently stated that ‘Night’ will follow ‘Day’, later this year

That hot week

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July 2022
The Rossi Bar

So first thing we had as well as the advertised Nuclear Whale we had the bonus of a completely banjo free Fane (I was a bit disappointed with that to be honest) But he did bring some acoustic instrumentation – but also – electronics! Starting with the pair of them on a super fat multi layered drone – organy, but nicely buzzing then added to with nasal whistles and bass nastiness. James started reading from some prepared Gnosticism, there’s a palpable tension to the drone by this point. There’s a deft transition when he stops speaking a modulation to the drone until it’s just a bleepy warble with a nasty glitchy rhythm struggling to come through. James picks up his acoustic guitar and starts a tape of bagpiping. The beeps and rhythm slowly form into actual things from their nebulosity. Shimmers, washes, drums all separate out and run on under James’ strumming. Jon takes his turn in a more declamatory style from his book. The drone storms back in shivery and strong with some chunky rumbling and beatwork under it. We get into a section of whirrs and more acoustic guitar, Jon has some vocal samples he gets into stuttering repetition asJames goes Americana on us. Although he does manage to get it playing backwards by the gentle fade out of the set.

Then it was the return of Robyn Steward, after a brief introduction to her sound world she starts with a breathy loop of her trumpet octaved down for a bass warble, a nice breathing part of mid-range, and a plaintive almost Cornet like line over the top. Stunning. The second song starts with another fairly slow 6 note trumpet line that underpins everything. Over this she harmonises some pads layered into chords, and takes a higher line for the next layer pf loops and drops in the occasional bass wash. She adds a heavily delayed vocal part. The third song seems to unfold immediately, a drone of whistles, bass trumpet pads and mid-range washes. Over this is more developed delayed trumpet part, again fairly melancholy, but this time wandering all over the acoustic spectrum. Some vocal parts lurk around in the background. The final part is more up-tempo seems to be something about trains, its starts with a nicely turned vocal loop that encapsulates a steam train really nicely. There are more interlocking trumpet parts for this Looping round, stuttering ribald notes, melodic parts, the train slips over the hill and stops.

And finally it was Eyal Talmor and his broken synth, he also has some other devices and delivers a set of great subtlety and invention.  You can read this but it makes more sense to go and watch the video on our YouTube channel with the best set of headphones you can find. Anyway, it starts with a chirruping uber murmuration, replaced by a big slow disjointed almost beat of squelching and booms. He uses the full range of the PA, quivering high ends, proper bass, the depths of sub bass, it’s never overbearingly loud but properly sonic with a lot of volume and timbre changes. Rhythms come and go, the sounds from the synth vary wildly, some distortions some fantastically digitally detailed. A lot of dynamic variation, some things unfold slowly some scurry around developing and fading in seconds. His hands move around the keyboards “Like Bobby Crush”, according to one audience member I spoke to, working away at the buttons – there’s one moment where you can see he’s just poised about to make a change but something happens … and… he’s just hanging waiting, enjoying that moment then the moment is gone and he’s back at it.