Author: Spirit of Gravity

Ghosts

Posted on by Spirit of Gravity

March 2020
The Rossi Bar

We’re posting this now, a review of the last Show before Lockdown. It all seems strange now, being in the same room as friends and strangers. Enjoying people making music in the room, playing from their hearts into ours without the mediation of the internet. Writing this is partly a reminder to myself of what life was like a few weeks ago…

 

Ascsoms

So first up was Ascsoms, Adam, and a small table of kit. A bouncing word in a swirl of space delay starts the set, followed up by fatly quiet drone. He says something that’s distorted to hell into a munging delay, as space crickets and odd burbles get in on the act. A distant pair of notes as if played on a Mississippi bridge loop ominously, as we get odd foregrounded sounds like creatures of the river bank scurrying about their business. We get into a more industrial soundspace, like finding a vast working quarry in the middle of the downs. Giant Gerry Anderson machines slowly grinding their way round its circumference. We’re past, we can still hear the bridges in the distance, cyclists and door chimes, uncanny wildlife. This idyllic landscape becomes subtly more intense until it’s overwhelming. We go under a bridge where some pretty serious welding is occurring before getting into new, more tonal, country. A 3 tone beeping riff starts up, tape spooling, slowly denuded by a scouring wind bringing swarms. Finally we find some piece in some kind of saturnine lagoon. This was definitely a journey.

Meljoann

Second up was Meljoann. Mel, office ready, with laptop and recorder. I don’t have a recording of this set so my review will be light on details, sadly as it deserves them. Mel lured us in with her deceptive pop like charm, modern beats and shiny electro surface sheen but as with all our song based artists, she takes the songs off to strange places, amping up the energy levels with some rattling drums and extraordinary bass. I also get tricked by the brevity of her set and only get one song videoed. Its brilliant stuff, and we ask her back, but she’s done. You should have a look at her office life themed videos and feel nostalgic… www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLhUrDac40s-VNUDMVVJYucqcqPKHchme2

Bela Emerson and Hervé Perez

And to round off the evening we had the return of Bela Emerson in a duo with Hervé Perez.  Bela on electric cello and electronics, and Hervé on laptop, electronics and occasional sax.  They start with Bela looping up a scouring edge of the bow on the cello strings and a nice edge of feedback drone, Hervé providing field recordings of birds in an electronic murmuration that swings in and out of sonic sight. He then brings in his first saxophone intervention. Flurries of notes, that Bela responds to, the birds swirl about too, before everything levels out in drawn out tones against an itching cello loop that drops away leaving the saxophone taking on electronic tones against a drone. Bela brings up a cello line and the sax drops away completely leaving her to slowly layer up an evolving that imperceptibly transforms into Hervé taking it on. I think this is the point at which Bela sat back with that smile of “this is why I love improvising” she takes back the line and passes it on again it a slow back on forth of stunning spontaneous composition. We move on, with Bela taking a slow bass line against bird song and smoky midnight sax. There is a hint of electronic manipulation from Hervé as he plays. After sitting back for a while Bela brings in a disarming cello loop of high frequency tremulous drone. Hervé octaves his sax against that to build the unnerving atmosphere some more. Bela contributes a bassline. And after an exchange of flurries from Hervé and an electronically mutated version of himself, Bela worries away at a bass string and the birds quietly return.  Hervé playing quiet high pitched bursts of notes, it rains, an odd 3 note trebly cello riff loops, Bela plays a slow line almost a drone it moves so slowly, Hervé’s electronics moving slowly round it, an accidental squeak gets into the looper and fades slowly away to smiles, an almost crystalline thin feedback line takes us slowly and beautifully to the end.

I think it was quite a show to take us into the current situation. It was our first night with visuals by midi-error, we were projecting onto the black curtain, which gave things a nicely subtle effect, but means you can’t fully appreciate them in the photographs and video.

https://www.youtube.com/embed/QmvOPExkf-M https://www.youtube.com/embed/_iMR7VMsna0 https://www.youtube.com/embed/eepHx1tZM74 https://www.youtube.com/embed/5kIIy7UvLrk https://www.youtube.com/embed/tAobyK-DH3o https://www.youtube.com/embed/OzcY-W3Y3d0

Save the Rossi Bar

Posted on by Spirit of Gravity

Spirit of Gravity live gigs have unfortunately been cancelled for the foreseeable future, due to the closing of the Rossi Bar in line with government COVID-19 guidance. However, we are releasing new material via the Spirit of Gravity netlabel each month in lieu of live events, and the radio show will continue on the 4th Sunday of each month.

In the meantime, as The Rossi Bar, our current venue, is on the #SaveOurVenues Red list, if you’re lucky enough to be in regular work at the moment, please think about contributing to their crowdfunder page: www.crowdfunder.co.uk/save-the-rossi-bar

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