Author: Spirit of Gravity

All sounds are up

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July 2019

The Rossi Bar

Rapt

First up was Rapt, sat behind a laptop, his whole performance was an exercise in stasis, an almost Zen-like lack of activity, featuring variations on his first EP. Starting with shimmering drones layered several deep the overlying shifts between, I don’t know, three or four notes in an almost achingly emotional slowly unfolding melody line. The second piece takes things a bit more up-tempo, the parts moving around more dynamically, some murky bass drum and hint of hi-hat. It keeps the intensity up, without appearing to do much. Close listening reveals cycles of clacked bottles buried in the mix, but he is stationary at the monitor, not giving anything away, occasionally sipping Polish lager. The third and final piece has another slow motion melodic top line (this time it starts the piece off), the sound slowly filling out with bass washes and modulating synth lines underneath it. It doesn’t really unfold as engulf you in a warm wave of feeling. His new stuff is quite a bit different, but worth hearing: soundcloud.com/raptmusicuk/albums

Kina:Suttsu

Kina:Suttsu was about as far from that as you can get, we’ve been playing some of her music as bobobobin!!!? On the radio show, but this was a different thing. She was joined by local percussionist E-da Kuzuhisa. Kina starts on her odd guitar stick with gentle strumming, E-da has a contact mic on a rain-stick and some bells, Kina sings gently out of focus. The sound comes out of the quiet, slowly. Occasionally E-da bats his floor tom with a beater. Some cymbals wash and we shift; slowly the guitar becomes effected a Sitar-like chime, a rhythm picks up on a hand drum, her vocals shift into gasped phrases. This breaks down into a reverberant rainstorm. After that E-da picks up a tapping rhythm on a ride, and Kina moves briefly onto an Alto sax and gives us a good skronking while E-da gets a proper battery up on his limited percussion. Then she is back with the guitar on her lap with beaters and E-da is getting some shakers going. And some more distant singing to end.

Simon James

Finally And to finish we have Simon James, we had intended bringing his Synth and space echo to the front, but in the end it was too intricate a setup, so we left it at the back of the stage, which meant that Simon had to perform with his back to us – but that did mean we got to see the Buchla synth in all its glory. Simon had his NASA suit on as the set was to be a tribute to the Apollo 11 mission which had just had the 50th anniversary of its launch, so his set was suitably radiophonic in sound. Starting with a thin drone underpinned by a Sputnick-y beeping and full bass, this soon picked up space arpeggios and all sorts to take us on our journey. As we move out into orbit we get a stripped down bass drum and odd pong sound that slowly evolves into a grooving bass thing with more odd space noises. The further we get into this piece the harder it gets to describe. Glorious old style electronic space music. We can feel the stars moving in the sky and the Earth recede. As we get into Earth orbit things quieten right down for the slow beauty of Earthrise as we come round from the dark side. And finally they walk on the moon. Simon gets called back for an encore, so he treats us to a bleep and booster space jam, that ends abruptly with an “that’s what it sounds like in my room!”. Marvellous.

1st August at the Rossi Bar: Jonathan Higgins / Luxul / Andrew Greaves

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Jonathan Higgins
 Turntablism on hacked CD players

Jonathan Higgins – Glitch Turntablism

London based performer and composer working with methods for using noise as a generative force. Performing using hacked CD players designed to uncover noise hidden within digital audio.

https://jphiggins.co.uk/glitch-turntablism

Luxul
Viola based noise/drone/black metal

Emilie Newman makes improvised noise/drone/black metal/experimental sounds under the name luxul using an electric viola and effects/loop pedals.  The whole thing is created from scratch on the night so there are no pre-recorded sounds. 

Here’s video clip of a previous performance: https://www.facebook.com/luxulnoise/videos/1895085310600253/

Andrew Greaves
Minimalist systems based organ & electronics

Andrew Greaves lives in Brighton and is a member of Broken Star, who perform live soundtracks to screenings of early silent cinema. Andrew has also worked with Ron Caines (East of Eden), The TR Agency, Deobrat Mishra and Some Some Unicorn. He is a member of the Brighton based, Spirit of Gravity and Safehouse collectives.

His latest album on The Spirit of Gravity label is:
https://spiritofgravity.bandcamp.com/album/octabeast-ethiopian-dervish

Thursday 1st August 2019 | 8pm – 10.30pm | £5
Downstairs @ The Rossi Bar
8 Queens Road, Brighton, BN1 3WA

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

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Gravity Waves and the Spirit World

Sunday 28th July 2019 from 8.00 to 10.00pm on ResonanceExtra FM. extra.resonance.fm/

Audio from points within the quantum field of the Spirit of Gravity collective, including Johanna Bramli, Paul Khimasia Morgan and Olivia Louvel:

DR:WR – Infinite Hi-Rise / Spaghetti Blacc – Zero million / Johanna Bramli – Spirals / Keith Seatman – Trudie’s Delight / Paul Khimasia Morgan – More Like The Slow Leech Of Ink Through Blotting Paper  / Cosham Community Player’s Association – Projectile / Olivia Louvel – O Let Her / Kosmische Glass – Nearly Circular

The second hour contains a special radio collage called “RF Wn” made by Jordan McDermott.

The June 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-not-by-radium-25th-june-2019/

This month’s show features an hour of Spirit of Gravity and former Rimbaud Brother Tony Rimbaud’s long form Not by Radium guise. The rest of the show has a shorter set of pieces by mostly local female acts.

Not by Radium – a Symphony of Bones – Radio Edit / Movement 1: an inner agitation 

YOU&TH – Te Voglio Bene Assaje / Johanna Bramli – Tales from a Bargain Bin / Sarah Angliss – Wan / Olivia Louvel – Mes Taches de Rousseur / Map 71 – Ex-Socialite Needs A New Invention / Dame Area – Pluma blanca / Lia Mice – Human Being / Mark Saunders & Suzueri – Track 4 / Sealionwoman – Sands / Bela Emerson – Incarnidine / BOBOBOBOBOIN! – Dear Love Child〜Single Mother Blues

Over winter, into summer. It’s still in the box.

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June 2019

The Rossi Bar

Muster

Dan Powell was perched just off the edge of the stage, with all his kit on a table onstage. He was (to all appearances or whatever the audio equivalent is) working mostly electronically, rather than filtering small percussion. He had some new Raspberry Pi devices and switched between tonal washes, thrums and scratchy electronics. James O’Sullivan was using prepared guitar, mostly with it horizontal on his lap, things under the strings, things over the strings, around the strings, pulling at the strings, tweaking, scratching. Occasionally shouting or whistling into the pickups. They work together well, listening, switching, complementing. Dan dropping out so James can scratch, James dropping out to let a bass-y spacey noise pass through their sonic universe. Muster is a duo of subtleties, odd quiet things that impress. Which isn’t to say that they don’t get loud or frantic there’s a nice sequence with a bubbling synth noise, some clumping sounds and James picking up his guitar in an orthodox hold and fretting at it in quite a frenzy. Or another point where he has it feeding back – albeit in a quiet and controlled manner. Overall, it’s a set I’m happy to listen to with my eyes closed, which means I don’t get the pleasure of watching them worry away at their devices, and it is a pleasurable watch, full of interesting activities.

Dolly Dollycore

Dolly Dollycore returns with her latest reworking of the piece she did last time she played for us. Along with her vocal, gong & percussion, her laptop work has moved on a step with the addition of a controller adding extra levels of inference. She starts with the gong, booming and more tickling stick work, she weaves in and out of the acoustic and electronic worlds, sometime her voice, sometimes percussion, sometimes electronics, combining, layers of recorded and live voices, words. Creepy hints of savannah nights worm through. It’s more disturbing than previously. The electronics wield field recordings, recorded percussion and musical fragments, they build shapes around her words and drop down to silence for some particularly salient point. Emphasis. This time I didn’t cry though.

Mai Mai Mai

Finally we have Mai Mai Mai, he’s live soundtracking a film of a southern Italian religious festival filmed in the 50s full of possessed folk dancing, singing, rolling on the floor and such. One problem is that Toni’s synths are still somewhere in Italy, this is the first day of his tour and they didn’t arrive when he did. In fact they stayed in Italy for the whole of his trip. Fortunately he did have his hand luggage, with laptop including a pre-recorded version of the soundtrack, some effects and a couple of pieces of kit he can use. And use well. Voices whisper, things creak, there is NOISE, booms. As suits a soundtrack it’s pretty abstract – at times building up to some pretty torrid sound pressure. At other times it settles down to odd rhythmic patterns with sonic washes and tones. Sometimes the voices come through strong talking, singing, laughing. Strong, but not un-effected. There’s a nice lengthy section with some monks singing layered up with a child’s voice and some church bells slowed down to infinity. His set ends on a two tone pulse with Residents-y singing, gradually being swamped by increasingly massive drones…

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.