Author: Spirit of Gravity

4th July at the Rossi Bar: Simon James / Rapt / Kina:Suttsu

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Simon James
Buchla 200e, Lorre Mill Double Knot, Apollo 11

The Simonsound’s Simon James will be performing using the Buchla 200e and Lorre Mill Double Knot. Celebrating the Apollo 11 50th anniversary. 

Brighton based, he played at the first Fort Process. Under the name The Simonsound, he took inspiration from the cold war, space race, science fiction and library music, and the album ‘Reverse Engineering’ was selected by Giles Peterson as one of his BBC Radio 1 Records Of The Year.  A darker sound in Black Channels (a collaboration with singer Becky Randall) found a home on cult soundtrack label Death Waltz Records. The soundtrack to the radio drama Akiha Den Den, described by Electronic Sound Magazine as ’21st Century Radiophonica at its very best’ and ‘a seamless adventure in spot on sound design’, has recently been released by Castles in Space Records.

https://thesimonsound.bandcamp.com/

Rapt
Neo-classical drone with a techno influence.

Jacob Ware’s electronic music operating on the liminal areas between drone, neo-classical music and techno. Inspired by late night thought loops and long distance collaboration.

https://rapt.bandcamp.com/

Kina:Suttsur
Japanese experimentalism from minimal to maximal

Kina:Suttsu (from joumon-JAPAN) Ambient, noise, experimental music using guitar, sax, voice etc…. The sense of the world takes what it listens to another dimension. Kina:suttsu is the word of Ainu tribes in Japan and means dragon god.

Thursday 4th July 2019 | 8pm – 10.30pm | £5
Downstairs @ The Rossi Bar
8 Queens Road, Brighton, BN1 3WA

Next radio broadcast on ResonanceExtra FM: Sunday 23rd June 8.00 to 10.00pm

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Gravity Waves and the Spirit World

Please note the new time slot from June:

Sunday 23rd June 2019 from 8.00 to 10.00pm on ResonanceExtra FM. extra.resonance.fm/

Details to be confirmed

The April edition of the Spirit of Gravity Radio show is available on the ResonanceFM Mixcloud page: https://www.mixcloud.com/resonanceextra/gravity-waves-and-the-spirit-world-ellis-warren-9th-april-2019/

Audio from points within the quantum field of the Spirit of Gravity collective, including Noteherder and McCloud live + a full hour from Brighton producer Ellis Warren – a.k.a. Zero Margin Reality presenting his Staly mode mixtape project – “A homage to Soundcloud poverty; a relentless stream of hyper self-awareness; a big ol slapp. Staly is the brine. This is R££L LYF£!”

Noteherder & McCloud live at The Rose Hill, Brighton / Dame Area – Luce / Monzen Nakacho – Planeto De Mortuorum Part I  / Iain Paxon – Decades – Days / Ugly Animal – Unco-ordinating 

Staly mode mix tapes – Ellis Warren for Zero Margin reality

Don’t think about it that way

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May 2019

The Rossi Bar

Zener Breakdown

So we jam packed the acts in for the May show.  Starting us off nice and early we had Zener Breakdown, a new project from Jason Hotchkiss, notorious creator of the Tesla Organ, and Chris Calcutt. They were line checking kit as folk were coming in, the demarcation of their set starting was a bit of introduction. Starting with an LFO activated pulse that they soon subsumed with some distortion and gritty bass washes, they were off. Lo-fi drum sounds mixed with crystal clear hi-hats, they got filtering the synth rhythms, and it came over like some old style acid on heroin rather than ecstasy.  Uneasy and indefinably itchy before glitching out into something else a lot mellower. Which burbled for a while until joined by some lovey string synth. The glitch re-asserted itself in some clowning gait and Cabaret Voltaire stabs. Things picked up again with an off centre groove accompanied by shots, swirls and meeps. Dropping down to another odd rhythm track they set up for an altogether slower emptier and more ominous ending.

The Zero Map

It was lovely of The Zero Map to ask us to share in their tenth birthday. Karl and Chloe unfold more slowly. Recordings of birds, dozens of ‘em, with a slight shimmer of a drone to give them something to bite against. The drone slowly becomes less slight, awash with endless reverbs and perhaps hints of guitar flourish or rumble. It seeps into your consciousness, erasing thought until you eventually become aware that ITS ACTUALLY QUITE LOUD NOW, PEAKING… Chloe adds voice, and bowed bass tones. Then it subsides again into something like one of Steve Hillage’s late 70s albums with Karl playing light guitar lines. Chloe brings in her pipes, there is a second swell, not quite as subtle as the first one, that ends in some definite roaring and a hefty wall of distortion. And then a final tail off into space

Xylitol

Taking us away from the amorphous wash of The Zero Map, Xylitol is discrete chunks of mostly song. Catherine starts with an odd chime and Casio and sound effects number, to confuse us into thinking we’re on a different tangent, before the spooky riff starts. The second song starts with a cheap rhythm through slight delay, that gives the song an odd slurred quality like trying to avoid the staggering drunk on the way up the hill, the organ drones and melody enhancing that effect. The next segment is like testcard music played by skeletons, the song after the skeletons are joined by squeaky toys and balloon farts. Its delirious. Everything is short, energetic, tending to frenzy at times, and manages to reference Bruce Haack, Raymond Scott, DAF and house music in the space of a few seconds. By the time we get to the penultimate number – a tremulous drone, with bleep and booster larking over, I’m in quite an odd state of mind. The epic last song (at 7 minutes) has a steady beat looming from a warehouse several miles away, over this melodic splashes of bell and tone permeate the mind quite irresistible.

Robyn Steward

So finally it’s Robyn Steward, Radio Mic’d trumpet through delays and octavers (up and down), this really is space trumpet. She kicks off with a stepped riff into the loop pedal that she uses as an intro, before getting into some improvvy blowing air into the instrument giving us a ground to add some sonorous bassy notes before dropping some gloriously detuned melodic top layers. She talks too us a bit before starting off again along a similar route that goes to a very different place, breath again starting the loop, with short parps, and blocky notes, before she gets into some much higher register stuff over the top, and wanders off into the audience playing Arkestra style (even if it is a procession of one). The next section starts with a tape delayed almost indefinitely, valve noises. She plays some slow mid notes over this, again with that odd octavy detuning effect. The space noise layer up in this bit without making the sound dense and she gets into some really nice playing over the top. She rounds the set and evening off with a staccato segment. Getting people clapping, with bass notes, and a really weird thing where the octave trumpet is REALLY squeaking quite wildy. Its all gets a bit intense, big bass tones, these scurrying mids and a thick, thick layer of high frequency noise that washes out to leave Robyn’s solo trumpet playing cleanly to flourish the end.

6th June at the Rossi Bar: Mai Mai Mai / Dolly Dollycore / Muster

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Mai Mai Mai
Italian Gnod related scorched synthesis AV set

As a child, Toni Cutrone aka Mai Mai Mai followed his parents around Europe and the Near East, ending up in the south of Italy, assimilating different cultures, atmospheres and sonorities of the places he was involuntarily taken to. These sensations and sounds were intense enough to leave indelible traces in his music, but Roman noise omnivore Cutrone own decade-plus experience in the Italian underground has doubtless played a role as well .

Each and everyone of Mai Mai Mai poisonous, punishing electronic miasmas are named after characters of the Greek alphabet, beginning with Theta (Boring Machines, 2013) and followed by Δέλτα (Delta) (Yerevan Tapes, 2014) and Φ (Phi) (Not Not Fun Records / Boring Machines, 2017), final installment of his Mediterranean trilogy, which pushes the project deeper into a vivid interzone of digital synthesis and scorched ritual.

Mai Mai Mai latest project, “Nel Sud” is also in a way inspired by the Mediterranean. “Nel Sud” is a journey in the past of the Italian south, done through original footage taken from Italian ethno-documentaries made during the 60s and 70s with original soundtrack by Mai Mai Mai mixed with sounds from the original movies.

Films by directors such as Luigi Di Gianni, Gianfranco Mingozzi, Vittorio De Seta and Cecilia Mangini, edited and manipulated in real time by the video artist Simne Donadni, together with Mai Mai Mai hypnotic music, make you wander in the “Mezzogiorno d’Italia”, exploring the intertwining of pagan rituals and Catholicism in southern Italy, the labor and the dignity of Life and Death, the fragility of man subdued by Nature, by “Divine” and “Magic”. The original soundtrack for this project is due to be released as an album at the end of April 2019 by La tempesta International.

Recently, Mai Mai Mai was also part of last Gnod record “Chapel perilous” (on Rocket Recordings) as a member of the recording band. In his many European and Uk tours he played with Silver Apples and Tanya Tagaq, toured with Gnod, was invited at Liverpool Psych Fest.

“Cutrone deserves admiration for how much he crams into such a short space of time, preventing the listener from ever locking the record into the straightjackets of genre and influence.” – The Quietus

“Mai Mai Mai trades in energising blasts of biomechanical synth noise which snarl and throb like a demonically possessed star cruiser” – The Wire

“Diggin this f-cked, weirded out, atonal mad shizzle from Rome” – The Bug

“Mai Mai Mai records rich and challenging drone, ambient, and electronic music, which is often as elegant as it is abrasive” – Daily Bandcamp

www.theransomnote.com/music/news/italian-noise-artist-gnod-affiliate-mai-mai-mai-announces-new-lp-nel-sud/

Dolly Dollycore
Spoken words and electronics

Dolly Dollycore is sometimes Dolly Turing and works in poetry, sound, play, ritual, magic. They are interested in process, and in what going through experiences of sound, words, smell, movement and play may invoke in us, in our consciousness, and in the world. She is currently working on two projects, one (Quest)ion)) exploring home, attachment, interruption, ancestral impacts, wide open space and nothingness, the other (Play Stance) play as transmutation, metamorphosis and meaning cookery. Both with a side of queerness, and with plenty of interesting spirits getting involved. Her first pamphlet OH (PARA)COSMIC BEING came out with The Vinter Olympiks in October 2016. They had work in the recent anthology Spells published by Ignota, and have had work published by Datableed, Hesterglock and Litmus. There’ll be gongs, words, electronic soundscapes and “bold anthem(s)” – The New Statesman (wtf).

They also play in various bands including God’s Teeth and The Interstellar Tropics

dollydollycore.bandcamp.com/

Muster
Electronics/guitar

MUSTER is the improvising duo of Dan Powell (Brighton) and James O’Sullivan (South London), formed accidentally on 2nd November, 2016, in the Catford Constitutional Club. Its musical elements are simultaneously intricately interwoven and related far from their point of origin, both site-specific and existing nowhere in particular.

James O’Sullivan is an experimental guitar player, active on the fringes of London’s free improvisation scene over the past decade. He aims to exploit the full sonic potential of the guitar, relating it meaningfully and enduringly to both the immediate physical environment and the domain of recorded improvised music. His interest in improvisation, recording and performance has led him to record and perform across the UK and internationally, both solo and with numerous improvised music groups. More longstanding arrangements include Found Drowned, a trio with Pete Marsh and Paul May, and his collaboration with Thanos Chrysakis on several releases on the Aural Terrains imprint. His debut solo album, feed back couple, was released in 2011. His second solo album, IL Y A, is out now on Linear Obsessional.

Dan Powell was born in Essex and moved to London to study photography at The Polytechnic of Central London. After college he ran a gallery on the South Bank, showed a few installations and was involved in the OMSK collective putting on arts events. He moved to Brighton in 1999 and is a sound artist who uses handmade and proprietary electronics, tuned percussion and a variety of acoustic instruments and household objects to make his work. A lot of the time he prefers to work with other people in various combinations, especially with Gus Garside and Chris Parfitt in The Static Memories and Nil respectively. Solo projects include a hand built electronic instrument and, and a piece marking 75 years of St Dunstans hospital.

soundcloud.com/dan-powell/muster-live-at-club-integral

vimeo.com/200731403

Thursday 6th June 2019 | 8pm – 10.30pm | £5
Downstairs @ The Rossi Bar
8 Queens Road, Brighton, BN1 3WA

2nd May at the Rossi Bar: Robyn Steward / Xylitol / Zero Map / Zener Breakdown

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Robyn Steward
Psychedelic space trumpeters

The London based psychedelic space trumpeter joins us for her Spirit of Gravity debut.
https://hatonauts.com/

Xylitol
Lo-fi synth-core

Xylitol is the long-running lo-fi synth-core project of artist and actor Catherine Backhouse. With a battery of casiotone keyboards and still using the same copy of Fruity Loops given to her in 2005 by poet, musician and flaneur Edmund Davie, Xylitol’s music channels the fiery brutalism of early grime, minimal-wave and the potting shed electronics of unsung tape-music pioneers such as FC Judd. She has soundtracked radio plays and films by Peter Strickland (who also released her second 7″ EP ‘Kunst Ist Tot’ in 2013) and Piaou Xie, collaborated with Sculpture, Belbury Poly (Ghost Box) and industrial music legends Nocturnal Emissions and recorded split releases with Gloria Gloucestershire and Libbe Matz Gang. Her 2015 mixtape “The Pavilion Is Half Finished” was described by Simon Reynolds as “glorious […] drifting between radiophonia, sinogrime, Aphex […]” while her current work explores shifting notions of class and identity under neoliberalism, drawing on elements of UK garage, oi! and the chanson tradition.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9CHNS3nafFs
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vPgIcs3d9Bg&t

The Zero Map
10th Anniversary Show

…”thought provoking and mind expanding” – Avant Music News
“The sounds themselves are never less than engaging and often very lovely” – Wire Magazine
“If spooky, atmosphere-heavy (and I mean: VERY heavy) and heady electronic music is into your alley, The Zero Map is very well worth checking out” – Weed Temple

Zener Breakdown
Improv electronic/noise

Zener Breakdown is a new Improvised electronics and noise duo from Jason Hotchkiss, notorious creator of the Tesla Organ, and Chris Calcutt.
https://soundcloud.com/zenerbreakdown

Thursday 2nd May 2019 | 8pm – 10.30pm | £5
Downstairs @ The Rossi Bar
8 Queens Road, Brighton, BN1 3WA

Exercises in ambience

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April 2019

The Rossi Bar

Not By Radium

So first, starting before anyone comes in for a proper long form set, is Not By Radium is sat sideways on at one of the small coffee tables that The Rossi Bar seem to have multiplied up from the one at The Green Door Store. We’ve seen his dice directed work before, but I don’t recall anyone ever performing with a notepad and paper. So everything unfolds very, very slowly. As you would expect. He starts with a slowly modulating wash of drone ebbing and flowing, after quite some time a fan like wisp filters through, to be joined later by what sounds like (but I’m assured wasn’t) the introductory chords to “Dream Baby Dream” complete with rim-shot tap at the end. By the time we get to about 15 minutes in things have filtered down somewhat and I’m starting to unwind. Around 25 minutes we hit minimal impact levels of stasis. The still of icy deep space. Somewhere around the half hour mark there is an odd interlude when someone slowly plays a piano in a church a couple of miles away. About 40 minutes in we get something a bit raspier in the drone department, and I’m starting to unravel a bit. As we come to the last 15 minutes or so a vaguely euphoric choral sound builds in and blissingly lifts us up towards the close. There is no climax or crescendo.

Stone Cornelius

Stone Cornelius starts her set with a wind up bird in a cage that chirps musically. There is also a loop of birdsong and some Mozart. The wind up bird in the cage winds down quite quickly. The birdsong is slightly distorted and a bit too loud. The Mozart is phased and looped into increasingly short loops. There is a voice as well giving what I’m sure is good advice, but it’s inaudible and uncomfortable. This should be ambient heaven, but it’s increasingly jarring; my shoulders slowly rise up alongside my neck. At various times Emu adds wind chimes, some kind of massive red apple, and various other ephemera into the mixture. It’s funny, at times it achieves a bizarrely cluttered level of relaxing as the Mozart loops have achieved a lovingly modulated numbness.

Distant Animals <in a forest of signs>

Distant Animals <in a forest of signs> started his set with an introduction saying it’s his first new piece of music for a while, and reading from the book it’s based on. After he’s finished reading Dann starts a two note wobbly beep loop that slowly emerges into audibility from his modular set up. Occasionally a sub bass rattles the PA in a wave underneath it like being chased by the Tardis in a snowstorm. Occasionally he crosses the room to pick up one or two carefully selected patch leads. There’s an odd flashback to Emu’s winding the cage sound that could be directly from the synth, or it could be rattling bits around the room. Here’s an odd thing, he never takes out any leads but at one point the sound subsides to a tiny vibration. He then builds it back up with a subtly layered set of durational sounds, whistles, washes vibrations and something of the icy calm from the deep space section of Tony’s set. This settles in nicely before some more patching brings in a spooky violin part counterpointed by ancient alien spaceships

Next radio broadcast on ResonanceExtra FM: Tuesday 9th April 10.00pm to 12.00

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Gravity Waves and the Spirit World

Tuesday 9th April 2019 from 10.00pm to 12.00 on ResonanceExtra FM. extra.resonance.fm/

Audio from points within the quantum field of the Spirit of Gravity collective, including Noteherder and McCloud live + a full hour from Brighton producer Ellis Warren – a.k.a. Zero Margin Reality presenting his Staly mode mixtape project – “A homage to Soundcloud poverty; a relentless stream of hyper self-awareness; a big ol slapp. Staly is the brine. This is R££L LYF£!”

Noteherder & McCloud live at The Rose Hill, Brighton / Dame Area – Luce / Monzen Nakacho – Planeto De Mortuorum Part I  / Iain Paxon – Decades – Days / Ugly Animal – Unco-ordinating 

Staly mode mix tapes – Ellis Warren for Zero Margin reality

Resonance Extra is available on DAB to listeners in Central Brighton and online to the rest of the world (how to listen). You can also listen online at extra.resonance.fm and directly using this link. Resonance Extra is also available via Radioplayer and TuneIn.

The March 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-march-12th-march-2019/

The first hour of this edition is dedicated to an extended noise track from new outfit Change and Stasis. The second hour transmits a selection of sounds from within the orbit of the Spirit of Gravity Collective.

Gravity Waves: Change & Stasis – 40 Windows

The Spirit World: Alea – Palaces Intro / Static Memories – The Fifteenth Boulder / Child – Love Rapt – II / Iain Paxon – Crater, Pit / Not by Radium – Movement 1 an inner agitation / Jair-Rohm Parker Wells – Safe Days