Author: Spirit of Gravity

4th April at the Rossi Bar: Not By Radium / Distant Animals / Stone Cornelius

Posted on by Spirit of Gravity

Not by Radium
Dice Driven Droneworks

Promoting the new release on the Spirit of Gravity netlabel “A Symphony of Bones”, Not By Radium, I’m Dr Buoyant’s occasional project concentrating on longform works, uses samples that have been stretched, overlaid and manipulated to create work of epic loops and drones, selected, sequenced and organised according to the roll of dice.
New Release: https://spiritofgravity.bandcamp.com/album/a-symphony-of-bones
https://soundcloud.com/im-dr-buoyant

Distant Animals <In a Forest of Signs>
Alternative scores for a modular synthesiser.

Distant Animals <In a Forest of Signs> is the artistic output of Daniel Alexander Hignell, a researcher and sound, video and performance artist from South East England. Hignell has developed a practice indebted to political and participatory resonance of creative acts, interrogating notions of autonomy, collaboration, and the tension between sense (what is perceived by the senses) and sense (what is made sensible by the community). He has recorded, written, performed and researched numerous socially-oriented sound works across Europe, often choosing to work with a diverse range of collaborators, including visual artists, choreographers, theologians, lawyers, and political activists.  In 2017 he was awarded a doctorate in Musical Composition from Sussex University. He will be continuing his research into alternative means of scoring for the modular synthesiser, to create a long-form electronic audio-visual work.
Daniel’s album ‘Lines’ is available: https://hallowground.bandcamp.com/album/distant-animals-lines. His next album ‘Weaves’ is soon to be released on Hallow Ground.
Last time he played for us was just after releasing his drone masterpiece Lines and he dressed like a rabbit in a tux, or a member of DAF and played a monstrously beaty set accompanied by a painter.

Stone Cornelius
Sound Collage and live performance

Stone Cornelius brings together voyeuristic sound collage of background life in the city with live performance of activities that pass the day. An unsettling blend of actuality, and things as they actually happen.

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

A Hot August Night. Oh hang on.

Posted on by Spirit of Gravity

March 2019

The Rossi Bar

Ensemble 1

The first act of the evening is Ensemble 1, sitting in (as has been the case a few times recently) for an act that couldn’t make it down. It turned out really well. Basically it was one person, Tom, a guitar, one effects unit and a looper. So a lot more minimal that we’re used to seeing with “real instrument and effects” setups. I think minimal being the operative word. He took his lead from Terry Riley’s “in C”, in that instead of layering up a bass line and a percussion part and something noisy etc., he started with small pointillist picked guitar lines, which locked together moving forward, enhancing each other replacing earlier parts, progressing always shifting. Yes it did layer up and build, even reaching a crescendo about 2/3 of the way through – but as I say not in the usual kind of manner. It was intricate. Delicate. Finessed even. There is a second slighter crescendo involving some light strumming and a small amount of distortion towards the end and that’s it.

Monzen Nakacho

The second act was Gary Short in his Monzen Nakacho disguise. He has eschewed the space visuals but still plays what I inherently feel is space music. It all sounds super analogue coming as it does off his laptop, nice little detunes and vibratos on various tones. He starts down tempo, a wash and chimes, light chittering percussion and slow development, some prepared some played. The key changes in the first song provoke the ghost of Piero Umiliani oddly. The second song steps it up, both fast and slow, with flashing arpeggios and slow-motion tonal bass drum washed about with a gritty tailed tuned down snare. Halfway through this gives way to some ray gun effects, and then we’re back into space, this falling through time segues at some length into the next song, evoking lost eons and tumbling starships. The third song when it arrives has massive string synths and fat analogue sounding bass and some proper squelch and after some development goes out on the groove of bass and percussion. The fourth song is a brief creepy nursery chime led horror waltz. The last number it’s only fair to say is a Moroder inspired stomper of the highest quality.

Adam Bushell and Will Prentice perform Alvin Lucier

Rounding off the evening we had firstly Adam Bushell performing “I am sitting in a room”, after which he was joined by Will Prentice for “Criss Cross” both pieces written by Alvin Lucier. The first explores the sonics of a room by having the performer reading a text out into the room, recording it (in this case through a big old mic at the back) and then playing that recording back into the room, recording it and so on… It’s interesting and this is the third venue he’s performed it at for us. It degenerated fairly quickly into a spacey quite toppy drone with insect buzzes which I wasn’t expecting. “Criss Cross” is quite a different beast. Will and Adam sat opposite each other each with a guitar laying down in front of them plugged into an amp. They each had an e-bow on a single string, one tuned down from the normal note and one tuned up, they set the strings droning and at a set rate moved towards the normal note then on to where the other had been. This sets up all sorts of things in the room. You notice first the notes beating as they do when you tune a guitar, then you may accidentally move your head and all hell breaks loose inside as your mind tries to cope with what happens. On one level it’s a simple thing, on another…. wow

Next radio broadcast on ResonanceExtra FM: Tuesday 12th March 10.00pm to 12.00

Posted on by Spirit of Gravity

Gravity Waves and the Spirit World

The next edition of the Spirit of Gravity radio show will be broadcast on Tuesday 12th March 2019 from 10.00pm to 12.00 on ResonanceExtra FM.
extra.resonance.fm/

The first hour this month 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

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 February 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-beatrice-dillon-keith-harrison-outlands-12th-february-201/

In this edition there is a conversation with the producers of the new Keith Harrison/Beatrice Dillon touring show: Ecstatic Materials, followed by some selected tracks from Dillon and tour support Copper Sounds, then an hour of music from inside the orbit of the Spirit of Gravity Collective.

1st hour:

  • OUTLANDS – Meet the Producers Podcast
  • Beatrice Dillon – Face B
  • Carl Craig ( Beatrice Dillion Remix ) – Darkness
  • Beatrice Dillon  – Ecstatic Materials
  • Copper Sounds – Gong
  • Beatrice Dillon – Reebs Dub
  • Beatrice Dillon – Carrier and Mask
  • Beatrice Dillon – My Nocturne

2nd Hour:

  • Lia Mice – Which Memories Will Make It (The Sampler As A Time Machine, Optimo Music)
  • My Cosa de Resistance – 7 Sisters (Music from Airports- Vol 3ª Krakow Airport.)
  • The Static Memories –  Recedes at Daybreak (Pudding)
  • Karl M V Waugh – Last ticket at the spaceport
  • Twocsinak – New Senile bias-I Enable Sinews. Vs. Edward Chambers Went The Wrong Way
  • Rapt – V
  • Paul Khimasia Morgan – Pneumatophores
  • My Cosa de Resistance – 5 leaves has left (Music from Airports- Vol 3ª Krakow Airport.)
  • Lia Mice – Human Being (The Sampler As A Time Machine, Optimo Music)

7th March at the Rossi Bar: Alvin Lucier / Monzen Nakacho / Electric Elizabeth

Posted on by Spirit of Gravity

Alvin Lucier’s “Criss Cross” and “I am sitting in a room” performed by Adam Bushell and Will Prentice.

Monzen Nakacho: Synth-heavy, atmospheric soundscapes with a horror movie twist.

Electric Elizabeth: Investigative sounds, possibly from metal buckets & beyond

Thursday 7th March 2019 | 8pm – 10.30pm | £5
Downstairs @ The Rossi Bar
8 Queens Road, Brighton, BN1 3WA

Snowshoes on, then

Posted on by Spirit of Gravity

January 2019

The Rossi Bar

Rough Work

So we started our tenure at The Rossi Bar and the evening itself with Rachel Cohen and Kev Moore as Rough Work. Rachel most visibly had some teapots that she started, lid off, pouring water from one to the other, and bubbly blowing down the spout. Kev had some things probably electronic inside an attaché case, lid up. There are resonant ringings and janglings, chains and occasionally you can see Kev moves onto a physical thing. Rachel has found some school books from the year of the drought, if I’m any judge. She occasionally reads from them. There is paper unravelled and torn and some encounters with tightly stretched parcel tape that seems comically to stick to everything. Clatter and burble, rattle, the clash of lid on pot. Big electronic stereo exhalations. Tapping. Space noises – “The water came from the pond”. They chant in unison “A force cannot be seen” as a kind of chorus to readings from her physics exercise books. There is a brief discussion on whether a word is Pirate or Pivot. Then some more time spent showing unstructured can be fun and it’s over.

Kieran Mahon

In contrast to the empty improv of the first act Kieran Mahon kicks off his set with a thick meaty electronic drone, mostly sourced from a Microbrute, with a nice resonant sweep over the top. A third strand powers through the middle of this for a while, before chunking up into a slow stepping sequence, while we’re concentrating on this the original drone is mutating away out of sight into a LFO driven braid of intersecting tones. By now the drone has completely given way to melange of discrete sonics, beeps, buzzes, chunks of bass all stepping around each other in some semi delirious Edgar Froese vision. This slowly steps out of phase through noise into some inverted version of the original setup, a new stepping sequence, a drone with a new shimmering space tonality. At this stage Kieran introduces a hint of unfolding melody hidden away that again morphs into space dust.

Child

Child finished the evening off, Annabelle starting her set with an echoed chime riff and high flutelike parts underpinned by some seriously detached bass. She sings, while the parts loop around her. She speaks. Its eerie. She feeds some shaker into her delay chain and morphs into the second section. The decay on her vocals seems endlessly spacious. Some bass drum and twisting resonant synth brings in the next piece. Then its game time, it seems we start the Experience half way through her set. The bass has been pretty lightweight for a while, but she brings back seriously after this with a filtered bass line and a slow motion cascade of drums, she sings into a wine glass. There is some more physics (Newton’s Gravitational laws, rather than forces) as the beats drop away just to the bassline and vocals. To finish with the bass takes on a drone quality, while around it percussive synth parts shift in space and tone, her voice drifts in and out and weirdly Casio-tic keyboard melodies surprise us and shimmer.

By the time we finish and get upstairs, early as it is, the snow is thick and buses and taxis have stopped running. Kev has to get back to Southampton, and I think I have a hard time getting up to the racecourse.

Next radio broadcast on ResonanceExtra FM: Tuesday 12th February 10.00pm to 12.00

Posted on by Spirit of Gravity

Gravity Waves and the Spirit World

The next edition of the Spirit of Gravity radio show will be broadcast on Tuesday 12th February 2019 from 10.00pm to 12.00 on ResonanceExtra FM.
extra.resonance.fm/

This month we are talking to the producers of the new Keith Harrison/Beatrice Dillon touring show: Ecstatic Materials. The production is touring the UK this month and stops at De La Warr Pavilion on Friday the 15th. Following some selected tracks from Dillon and tour support Copper Sounds, an hour of music from inside the orbit of the Spirit of Gravity Collective.

1st hour:

  • OUTLANDS – Meet the Producers Podcast
  • Beatrice Dillon – Face B
  • Carl Craig ( Beatrice Dillion Remix ) – Darkness
  • Beatrice Dillon  – Ecstatic Materials
  • Copper Sounds – Gong
  • Beatrice Dillon – Reebs Dub
  • Beatrice Dillon – Carrier and Mask
  • Beatrice Dillon – My Nocturne

2nd Hour:

  • Lia Mice – Which Memories Will Make It (The Sampler As A Time Machine, Optimo Music)
  • My Cosa de Resistance – 7 Sisters (Music from Airports- Vol 3ª Krakow Airport.)
  • The Static Memories –  Recedes at Daybreak (Pudding)
  • Karl M V Waugh – Last ticket at the spaceport
  • Twocsinak – New Senile bias-I Enable Sinews. Vs. Edward Chambers Went The Wrong Way
  • Rapt – V
  • Paul Khimasia Morgan – Pneumatophores
  • My Cosa de Resistance – 5 leaves has left (Music from Airports- Vol 3ª Krakow Airport.)
  • Lia Mice – Human Being (The Sampler As A Time Machine, Optimo Music)

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 December and January editions of the Spirit of Gravity Radio show are available on the ResonanceFM Mixcloud page:

https://www.mixcloud.com/resonanceextra/gravity-waves-and-the-spirit-world-december-2018-tuesday-the-11th-of-december-2018/

Featuring the new minimal impact release on the Spirit of Gravity Bandcamp label in full, the show also features tracks from Map 71, Tom Hall, Freedom Frampton and Karl MV Waugh, amongst others.

https://www.mixcloud.com/resonanceextra/gravity-waves-and-the-spirit-world-tuesday-8th-january-2019/

The first show of the New Year featured a field recording of a jungle clearing being swept, plus tracks from Map71, FAmpism, Sealionwoman and others.

31st January at the Rossi Bar: Child / Rough Work / Kieran Mahon

Posted on by Spirit of Gravity
Note – New venue!
Note – Strange date!

Child
One woman electronic whirlwind

Solo vocal & electronics with beats, ambience and noises.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=2MyteE6rjWs

Rough Work
Electro-Acoustic improv

Rough Work is a new electro-acoustic improv duo of Rachel Cohen and Kev Moore. Rachel plays with voice and movement, domestic objects and found texts, Kev with electronics, voice and percussion.
soundcloud.com/user-495862808/safety-rules
soundcloud.com/user-495862808/a-force-cannot-be-seen

Kieran Mahon
deep synth drones & echoes

“I make electronic music with a heavy emphasis on drones, repetitious sequences and long-form ideas.
“My music is inspired by many things, with a recurring theme of space – both inner and outer. My overall aim is to allow the listener to hear more than is being played.”

Thursday 31st January 2019 | 8pm – 10.30pm | £5
Downstairs @ The Rossi Bar
8 Queens Road, Brighton, BN1 3WA