Category: SOG-BLOG

As the evening light has faded

Posted on by Spirit of Gravity

July 2025
The Rossi Bar

Lewis Clay starts his set with a lovely warm introductory wash of synth with little sparkling notes met with stabbing interjections of synths and a hint or two of kick and clatter. This is going to be a busy set, and sure enough it almost immediately drops it down to a burbling bass note that almost speaks to us, seems that it may set off a groove, then starts switching back and forth, there are some, elements of the bass are given some room to breathe and finally they take flight with a scattering beat, the whole thing flying spaciously around the room leaving us finding the rhythm, then losing it when we try and focus on it too clearly. Its best held in the periphery. There is a brutal handover to a vast squelching jungle (as in the sweaty green place full of wildlife), full of sound and menace, murky drums ricochet, unseen things scream, birds chirrup derangedly. There’s a bassline with little seeming repetition, its possibly a horribly distorted kick, synthetic monkeys yammer from the trees.  Then a couple of big snares hit and we’re into a clearing. This is a more orthodox post Aphex percussion festival groove, we can nod our heads or shuffle a bit. Notes come in, a sort of melody, the notes are off, microtonal, shifting, the beats suddenly filthy up, more murk, reverb, the notes speed up, the beat pares itself down, the ornamentation lost but keeping its kinetic aspects, the melodic line is gone, too, beeps and burbles intersperse with snare hits. A quick breather of bass twist, then an arrhythmic track of shudders and twists, tones and buzzes. It pares down gradually to the scattered synth stammers and staccatos. Again we’re off on a new beat exploration. This one is like 16th played first on one sound then another, building a pattern eventually, but still all the time its one sound at a time. Bass bass bass bass snare bell bell bell synth synth synth synth synth tom cymbal tom cymbal and so forth, the delays and reverbs kind of allow it to build into layers until a steady scream drowns it out. Then there’s a bit of broken speech, and then back into a full flowing rhythm complex. Washes spin around the coruscating drums then flourishes of tones and ornamentation, back into it again, then the tones return, detuned and arbitrary, spinning off into space, a chopping bass buzz inserts itself into the rhythm which seems to gather even more momentum and then it all breaks down the bass turns squelching, and the drums pick up into just too fast rattling, its like nightmare trance at 500bpm to finish. Here comes the hoover. So many ideas, it’s a demanding set and a storming start to the evening.

Which then calms down considerably for Warped Love Group, which by contrast is all about repetition and groove. And delay, it’s very much about delay. Starting with syncopating cowbell and some weird murky buzz, hi-hats drop then the first delay comes in winds up, down then out into infinity. Eventually a kick drops in super slow. The delay soups itself up into a melodic line, wanders around then drops to let the snare start. Heads nod. The delay drops out, the hi-hats double up. The kick comes back in but skips a bit more, everything else falls away and the kick develops a tonal quality. The delay goes into guitar feedback mode. The new snare sounds like a snapped spring reverb. The first bass line. Extended, almost a drone or dubstep grind whipping up and down. The delay is going haywire now – pitching all over the place. It all drops away again then the kick is put through its paces, wow – up down all over. Hi-hats on the 16, the delay drops down into sub bass territory. Some weird tuned hi tom (maybe) starts bonging. Synth squeaks slip in, then after a bit of a delirious spell, it all drops away to an 808 sounding kick this time. Hip Hop speeds, Boo-Yah Tribe, say. Off-beat toy piano. The rest of the rhythm slinks in. There’s been no actual bass for a while, the booming kick covering that itch. The delay still keeping that melody line going over what sounds like a didgeridoo supplying a bassline. Whip snares, and such a groove now. Drop to hi-hats this time, open trance off beat hats, but on the 8s, claps, the delay gets some gate action, the kick gets  hard again, but is still syncopated, pan drums, the beat is thick, several snares, the delay is whistling then beeping. Then it all stops.

And completing the evening of Three Very Different things we have Robyn Rocket And People You May Have Heard Of, Robyn with space trumpet, Arlen (R. Dyer) on various things I can’t really see including soprano sax, & Karl MV Waugh on guitar, all with lots of effects. Robyn Starts proceedings with some short notes from the trumpet into lots of delay, Arlen (it must be) warbles in some musical saw and we have a few notes from Karl pinged into a slow delay. We’re taking this super slow, the arc of the evening has been about reducing beats and we have none, now. The trumpet has a lovely melancholic tone as Robyn slips a line of long sonorities out of it, the guitar delay washes gently underneath, with twinkles and spangles from flexitones and other chiming percussions. Little breathy sounds signal things changing and we shift down even further. We’re in interstellar country here, drifting gently through the cosmos. There’s a little flourish as things layer up, building then washing away again, to a fragmented scatter. Scratchy noises skitter about a quick wind down of the delayed guitar, some long warbling trumpet, wind whistling through the room. There is a melodic line from Robin as we get more space noises from the known. Karl gets a nasty blast of something which causes a little merriment, but amazingly doesn’t distract anyone from the unfolding sounds being produced. There’s a further resetting with a flurry of improv scratchiness, that develops into a bit of a flurry of notes from Robyn that again winds down. We get some quiet scurrying electronics, there’s a set of organ chords that have got into the Looper setting everything on a path. Karl pings sets of notes into the ether. Karl gets a little backwards guitar into his Looper. The soprano makes its appearance walking over that, the trumpet just laying down background drones. The soprano gets into the looper too, several lines layered up. Robyn starts to get a bit more fire into the trumpet, Arlen follows with the sax. Some small bells indicate a wind down. A little loop of staccato trumpet winds us out, warbling guitar, sinuous soprano sax and spacey trumpet all tend it as it leaves, last out is the sax.



A balanced view as summer dawns

Posted on by Spirit of Gravity

June 2025
The Rossi Bar

The evening starts with a banging set from Spheress, he has added a Volca to the minimal setup of TR-08 drum machine and two reverb/delay units. He starts with a feedback loop through the FX which settles down into a noise pulse and then modulates out into bass. A kick on the ones comes in, the bass is modulated, and chaotic hi hats introduced, followed by heavily delayed claps, the bass is driving on, the claps fall over each other in disarray and the kick comes in on the fours and drives the bassline off. The delays bring in an off-beat pulse and the Volca brings a new bassline in. The beat steadies briefly, then falls apart into staccato racket. Stan tweaking away at the TR-08s controls, suddenly the beat is back and driving. We have cascading delays, weird pulses and the bassline falling over each other, then thinning out; back to basics, driving on again. The bassline mutates slightly then a squall of feedback and the Volca is off in a new direction. The feedback returns under strict control and we get a trance breakdown with bass feedback on the offbeat and everything is gone into a squall, the bassline returns slow as you like. A boinging super slow bass drum creeps in. we have noise, delayed snares, a heavily spring reverbed beat like something from mid 80s Public Enemy, the reverb is almost vocoder-ish in its depth. Noises build back in, its pretty groovy in a noisy Cabs-y fashion. The bass drum providing the bass line. Drum FX syncopating away. The Volca gives us a beepy offbeat. Imperceptibly the tempo inches up, the reverb drenched noise swirling away. Someone whistles. Intensity mounts.
The Volca comes in again with a mid range-y stab rhythm, the kick is back on the fours. Delays swirling all about. Feedback pulses on the 8s, hi hats 16s, energy levels are high. He’s working away on the drum machines controls again tweaking, scattering, glitching. The filters go on the Volca.  Some weird loop happens and everything judders. It all drops away to nothing, a slight swirl which is caught then sent back into the FX, feedback then the drum machine gives a floor tom staccato beat, with reverb generated bass and again glitched out drum noises spiralling all around. Everything is in motion against that tom tom pulse. Then that drops away leaving us adrift, the clap steadies us, the bass gets abrupt, suddenly it’s all in place and the toms are back or was it a kick all along – bang! A brief respite, then it’s back to the fours for the finale. Section again the intensity builds over the rock solid beat. And it’s done.

In the middle slot we are really privileged to have Ingrid Plum’s first live show in quite sone time. She starts with an astounding version of “Wayfaring stranger”. She’s set up on a table with a few devices, including a custom circuit board synth. Beginning with full sub-bass drone, she adds in rich crackles and scratches. And then she starts singing pure and clear. A few lines in and a second wobbling bass joins. The juxtaposition of traditional song and 78 crackles & crickets and the electronic tones adds a weird tension increasing the sadness that seems implicit in the song itself. The bass is very intense. After a couple of verses she loops in some humming and gives everything a bit more emotional heft. There are about six layers of vocals cycling under each other and she sets a massive sweep off across the song. The bass drones shift and one ever so slowly aeroplanes off into the stratosphere. Then everything drops apart from a single drone and the vocal loops. A rhythm track of rattling cupboards becomes perceptible, field recordings of voices? Or is it the audience? The bass drones intensify, slowly beating. She returns to the main vocal line “There is no good in me….”  Stark against the drone and rattling shutter. The bass becomes steady then starts pulsing again. a keyboard drone eases in. and a swirl of echoes, ushers in a second set of much higher pitched drones, so we’re pretty full spectrum. Ingrid starts whispering scarily,  ghosting quietly into the microphones. It’s vaguely churchy, but not in a good way. A pointed nasty note fires in, then drops down. The whispering layers up via the looper. I’m scared. The drones start beating against each other all pulsating slightly, the effect increases as more and more notes are added. Then Ingrid starts singing again – long slow “aaaAAAAhhhhHHHHuuuUUUHHHs”. This slowly develops, circling, meandering. Everything becomes steeped in meaning, eventually the whispering falls away, but the drone chord seems to keep building. Then it gently drops away to just the bass note and Ingrids final singing wordless, soulful, forlorn.

And to round off the evening it’s the third visit of Kina: Suttsu and E-Da. Both set up on – or at least near – the floor, so I couldn’t see from the back. They had their usual array of keyboards, percussion, soprano sax, effects and ephemera scattered all around. Also starting off with a drone, but also a whistle and whisp-y synth. A shifty cymbal through delay. It’s all textures. Bass drones filter in, squeaks, some big long reversed cymbal makes everything else drop. A bassy drum booms about. Tabla sounds. Scrapes and squeaks. The delay provides the rhythm, ill defined. Bells bowed and gently ring. There’s an ill-defined presence emerging slowly from the soup. Tape rewind or birds or shakers – just pitched ever so slightly and through shimmering effects. I can hear water, a sine wave, ducks in a flightpath. A sense of trepidation. Heartbeat drums, so slow; b-boom. A build in intensity and the sounds swirl together in a cauldron as Kina unwinds the sax – long notes at first, then odd flurries, the background still ramping up somehow. There is an un-beat of bass-y drum in there. A pattern, but not an obvious one. The drones quieten out, shift and then step up the scales and down, then up. And thicken in a wind tunnel. A bass note. Just one, then the drones fall away, an ending, but E-Da keeps the un rhythm going. Zither flurries flutter away in a loop, a bassline seems to start. Then a new intense set of drones set right off, ramping up in intensity and pitch, E-Das percussion following it. Shakers, sine tone bells, the wind tunnel is back. Star chimes looped infinitely a skronking sax line fierce but subsumed by everything around it. E-Da keeps the framework steady around Kina as she really wails away. I want to start yelling. It’s delirious heady stuff. She gets into some growly low end stuff before getting up into harsher squalls at the top. A big pinging. And somehow it seems to descend into a big bassy synth ball, and a plunging watery hole to end.

Thanks to Jim Purbrick for the photo



Number station crackling

Posted on by Spirit of Gravity

May 2025
The Rossi Bar

Thee Boxx Menn start with a super sub that could be bass or kick and a filthy speech based short loop that’s 120% distortion, the loop slows down and we get into the business of the set. The sub gains some definition and confirms it’s a kick. Whistling swoops through a helicopter buzz. Everything gains squelch, the whistling included. The helicopter turns into an ominous fleet, and the whistling into an incredible slow long sweep. A filtered military brass band serenades the choppers with what sounds like it may be the opening bars of “Take on me”. There’s a lot of reverb. The choppers do this thing of slowing down considerably but still end up beating at the same speed. Twice. Maybe three times. Everything drones up. A buzz floats up and down the scale, and some other percussion finally joins the kick bring in a lot of energy. Some percussive buzzes and car door rattles herald the arrival of a bassline and then an acid squiggle. So many ideas just rattle through. Morse code short wave tuning, bird song, charging rhythmic noise, delay grime. Amidst the swooping synths a thin fuzzed synth pics out a melodic line and you can sense a drum pattern is emerging from the aural mist a long time before you actually hear it lurking about on the edges of your hearing, then finally it emerges skittling out of the morass. everything drops away to a driving synth riff and the drum track locked together. Around this alarm bells rattle, a second drum/synth pattern locks out the first, and brings some blistering waves of bass that completely obliterate all before it. A rhythm track of ticking brings in the third bassline in about as many minutes. This one with an evil synth riff and kicking double kick pattern.  The drums get looser and louder, the synths fall apart into eratticism. The percussion levels up into syncopated psychotic complete with deranged whistles.it filters down to next to nothing; a nice 50Hz hum. A stripped down version of the drums comes back that’s 50% filtered beeps. Again distorted vocals in the mix, maybe some kind of tribute to Mal who’s in the audience. It finishes on sweep and foghorns

In the middle slot its Em- (apparently it’s a typographical thing, a particular kind of dash), she just gets better every time she plays. The set kicks in with a frantic squiggle of a synth line something from a sugar rush 90s J-pop single with equally frenetic drums soon tippy tapping hyperactively under it. Some ominous synth washes stabilise everything, briefly give it a centre from which it explodes into fragments, half bass lines, creaking Halloween synth riff, voice or non-voice, implied acid squelch. The drums worry away at the beat, unstable, bass drum hit-hit-hit, hit, hit-hit, hit-hit-hit-hit. Some big buzzing deep piano notes hint at a change, eventually giving structure for everything else to fight against. Everything falls away leaving the piano and then in comes a new set of skittering synth pulses flurrying away against a super slow snare hit that seems I don’t know – a tenth of the speed of everything else? A mid-range synth part that sounds like some kind of alien trying to communicate with us comes in, to be answered by a whistle thing, the rest solidifies around the snare, slower, more substantial, but still swerving around any kind of normality. It’s like a coked up Bach playing half a dozen bent toy synths with broken fingers. There are still superfast percussion elements, but at around halfway through the set its lurching; there are these odd rhythmic pauses, sudden inexplicable percussive voids that throw you. The sound slowly thins, and seems to slow as it does so, still definitely lurching, a percussion track equal parts buzz, hum, gong, synth stab, altered voice, shimmer. A new percussion track builds out this, a head smacking kick drum and woozy flatulent bass. Woodpecker knocks, two note electric piano, toy piano. Imperceptibly it picks up speed. A groove, so calm after the frenetic rattling from before. Heads nod and shoulders go. A melody hinted at by something in there: a line passed from sound to sound, reverbed piano, gong, buzz, swoosh, bin lid, whirr. We even have a breakdown with some chattering lightweight snare and pads, then the insects are back and the itchy beats return to overwhelm everything, stripping down and speeding up to pure rhythm. There’s a little synth riff as it speeds up then slows down to finish. Tasty.

Finally we had Soborgnost, down from that big city. He leapt in with a big buzzing roar that gave way to a nice riverbed old Skool break, eventually that got some beefy kick and a sub sinewave bass all sonic and tasty. Swirling all round this were skewed delays, flashing synth pads and spiralling gurgles, it felt like it had just got going and flipped into a new beat. Something from the back of a factory, the foreground sonics continued their distractions and again a sudden switch. An insistent kick and snare about 160bpm, followed by 3 note bass, cowbell clang, and a vocal line swerving around it. Drop the drums everything else carries on, 16th gongs, voices, more voices. Or tones? It’s driving now, he hits the groove and sticks with it, the occasional drop or swirl, but its right there. The next track starts with two detuned synth riffs working against each other, they get into a rewind, come back with a solid Residents/Bovell bass line and fast echoed rattling hi hats. Barely audible dub sirens wibbling delays, operatic vocal or high slow synth line? A melancholic piano meanders about, everything seems pitch bent. The next one starts with a mid-bass stomp, heavily delayed bursts of something (guitar? Synth) then some drum thing out of a Throbbing Gristle track comes stomping in. a one note synth line over the top and the delirious delays and screaming and whistling squelch about. The next one starts with another sub bassline stomper, skipping drums, and distorted vocals. It’s as if Sherwood had been involved with the Jack The Tab compilation. There are confusing fuzzed our organ lines, swooping noises, metallic whines. The next one starts with some nasty 8 bit pan drum and backwards zombie calls before another monster flanged bassline kicks in over a 4 to the floor industrial beat. Shouting, rattling, roaring all lost in swampy delay. There’s a breakdown of someone destroying a typewriter to finish. Another flanged bass, this one a bit slower, with a relaxed 120 4/4 kick, and minor destruction noises. The typewriter snare bounces against a white noise punisher. In a totally groovy manner. A masterclass in solid grooves and deranged effects.


WARNING: there is extreme glitching in the following video:

Before you know it, its daylight all the way up

Posted on by Spirit of Gravity

April 2025
The Rossi Bar

Wasps, Dan and Andrew from the collective are an interesting setup, covering the Glass Armonica, effects, synths and laptop set up across two tables facing each other. The laptop seems to be running some processing software like MaxMSP, rather than a DAW, but we’ll come back to that. Their set starts about 15 minutes before they get on stage with a cheeky speaker hidden away under the benches playing back field recordings quite quietly. Slowly a bass-y synth drone emerges and some burbling from something electronic, slipping backwards. The drones are joined by others: deep space drones, and warbling shimmering drones. Into this come time travellers travelling backwards past us without stopping, the Glass Armonicas scraped and reversed by the processing. Loads of rather lovely detail. I can hear Andrew playing a little part on his synth. Almost everything drops away leaving long strokes of the glasses and Something mimicking humpback whale song. Musical chimes stutter, decay first. There’s a faint hiss of sea. Andrew plays a little motif again, this time it almost repeats, lengthens and stretches and disappears again. Sounds rumble and slur. Some delayed drums slowly rattle noisily about. There’s the occasional hint of a bassline. Another little motif from Andrew, this time as a sequence, bobbing about. The sequence hides again, the drums roll slowly up and down. Odd noises twitch from the depths. There’s the wind (though it doesn’t feel as cold down in this basement). The drums give way to abstractions again, as though the tide flows from Andrew back to Dan. Slowly the drones weird space noises begin to overwhelm the chatter of static and erroring 1950 devices. And again one of Andrew’s exotically scaled keyboard runs leaks into consciousness. And switches mine off, I’m quite mesmerised.

Lee Ashcroft is an imposing figure standing behind his Theremin and black box setup – I never did get round to investigating it. The last time he was in Brighton was for a Wrong Music event down at The Volks. Which is to say quite some time ago. He starts with some slow melodic parts on the Theremin, a voice talks about bus stops and rain. A bassline starts, the woman’s voice continues, as does Lee on the Theremin. A string counter line joins the bass. A walking bassline. There’s some distortion quietening the Theremin, A slow bass drum and chime come on the backing track and the woman’s voice is replaced by a man’s. A piano part. It all drops, there’s some singings and the backing gently re in, the returns parts layering up. A nicely buzzing bassline. There is some Theremin almost birdsong. “I’ll never fight Mike Tyson….. I’ll never play in The Championship…” and some whistling. Its fog music. Disrupted by a vast shivering TD arpeggio that swoops across our vision out of sight then swooping slowly back and forth. The next track starts with a nice harpsichord line, with more singing and Lee getting some nicely atypical drones out of the Theremin. Then swooping Starfighter laser blasts. Beatless and weirdly epic even before a massive wall of fuzz kicks in. The singer on this is quite exercised about something. Slow heartbeat kicks start the next track, with a swelling bass low. A woman singing again on this one. It all finishes on a quite unexpectedly meaty finish, all beats and  basslines and counter rhythms. But most of the set is oddly melancholic; reminiscent of Low without ever sounding remotely like them. He must have been exhausted after playing the Theremin for the entirety of the performance.

Finally we finished the evening with R. Dyer. The stage abounding with typical R. Dyer devices from the artfully broken harp held together with a big G-Clamp at the top and strung with a variety of piano/guitar/violin strings, soprano sax, saw, synth, effects and a looper. She starts with the harp and voice, the harp rattle-y, loud and creaking. A séance in a log cabin. Arlen plays a plucked harp loop into a lopsided creaky rhythm then plays a looped sax over the top before singing again. The next song is based around polyrhythms played on the harp. (“This song is about …. 7 minutes long”). The harp is looped then the saw provides a tremulous top line, there’s also something that sounds like vibes to provide the backing track, while Arlen sings and provides more punctuation on the harp. Arlen threatens us with an electric guitar for the next track, which is somehow my fault. And no looping… But there is a key change. Oh, I lied, there is some looping to let the sax be played. The next song is little victories, slightly revamped. Starting with a ticking percussion loop, descending synth part and the looping double soprano lines. It’s more Spartan, Arlen listing the little victories of her own “Spring”, “A new one from someone in Bognor – that I didn’t know!”. We then sang happy birthday to Leanne. There was a lot of back and forth between the audience and R. Dyer that I’ve glossed over, but if you’ve never seen them play, it’s a big thing.

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Thanks to Dan for the photos




An evening of mixed doubles

Posted on by Spirit of Gravity

March 2025
The Rossi Bar

A balmy evening, unexpectedly give us Emma Papper and Jason Smart on a return from their Daytrip to Europa set last time, for the night bus to Bognor. To be fair I think we got a lot more space music this time round, but let’s investigate. Starting with a kicking bass drum and abstract electronics and glitches, Jason introduces the set with the title track, there’s a nice counter-play between the straightforward drums and speech and the total abstraction of the clicks, whirrs and bells of Emma’s electronics, I can’t quite work out what she’s triggering from the Electric Wind Instrument. The next song has something about dentists, an acoustic guitar loop from the laptop, shaker rhythm, and total space wibbles, shooting stars etc. from Emma. The next track starts off with a much fiercer rhythm, double kicks, and plenty of percussion, “It is what it is” Mr C style, delayed swoops, gated pings, little swirls. The next one starts with strummed acoustic again from the laptop, “Humdrum” vocals and space swirls from Emma, the second half takes off, losing the guitar and whirling off into swooshing spirals and Casio drones. The next starts off with a nice plucked 12 string riff and synth parts, something of Lazy Sunday Afternoon’s about it. Back to beats for the penultimate track – 4 to the floor, shimmering synth pads and a bassline, “I’m losing you” The EWI seems to be summoning up feedback guitar screech alongside the familiar space-noise and offbeat synth propulsion. A nice little bit of reverse drums to end. There’s a very short custard song. The last one is back into the interaction of poo-psyche acoustic guitar strum and space music.

An unwell Evey occupies the middle ground this evening, his bifurcated set heading veering into both noisy techno and melancholy coldwave. Although… it starts with a slowed bell and wind, and hard plucked zither sample all Get Carter style, into melancholic piano, and the first sub bass of the evening drops. It’s a slow motion crawl into the set decaying out in a mush of delays and harpsichord. The second track is a pounder though fierce fast bass, the zither back harder, they shift about changing focus while a hissing snare heralds the rhythm track. Counter lines on a percussive synth storm in. Delay enhances the melodic qualities of the zither while everything else just gets more intense. The next track starts with bowed cymbal and feedback and an old fashioned bassline on the 16ths, with skittering kicks, Chloe sings: it’s a counterpoint. James reinforces on the chorus. The synth hooks layer up, and it feels very mid 80s Germany in the best possible way. Feedback out and into a monster arpeggiating bass. The lopsided beats completed by slow motion melodic synth, then some fiercely competitive percussion pushes it along into a weird drop, that doesn’t so much build as just get louder and more intense before dropping again to the arpeggio. We get another slow build into a more chaotic end section. The next son starts with a syncopated woodblock and James singing, an abstract synth melody, a slower bassline. Insistent without becoming fast or dense, a bit of a breather…. And then back into the fierce basslines again. Ringing, gently rattling hi hat and Chloe singing again. A breakdown, then back with a more relaxed bassline, and a snare, all nostalgic white noise. The final song starts with a bass guitar line James voice lost in a spring reverb, a shifting pad provides propulsion before a Dr Rhythm superfast hi-hat starts in. There’s some call and response between various synth lines and they’re done.

And finally, it’s someone new to us, part of the Ceremonial Laptop crew. Cederick Knox are performing an AV set, cut ups of video with Theremin and synth, the collages collated for more than disjointed disruption, it feels really carefully put together. Layers of church organ speech, looping and overlapping. Drums, chirruping bird song, children’s choir, this is going to be hard to describe, just a list of things a proper kaleidoscope of sight and sound. Hooky and rhythmical. At times beautifully melancholic, and then a hooter adds some daftness, before you realise it’s part of some cleverly designed beat, made of machines and speech and splashing puddles. A breakdown and a slow build from loops of ticking, violin stabs, voices, flutes, dancing feet, claps, eventually into bass and synth & squawking and clanking, and then a veer sideways into something confusingly psychedelic reminiscent of The United States Of America. The set is split into sections, the third (?) starts with a string quartet from hell, violins, bass, Theremin, big string stabs, dropping to swinging jazz basslines interspersed with applause and then it drops again, this time to a solo piano, bringing in cello with a slowly unfolding line that gets lost eventually in layers of teenage voices. The final section begins with a loop of a voice or breathy sax, layered against vibes, bass, bursts of a trebly drum solo, a chorus line from an opera (?), more of that applause, its mesmeric, then drops to a Japanese guitarist being interviewed on young musician of the year, while he plays in the background, looped for a couple of minutes, its gorgeous and melancholy. Apparently 5 months before he badly damaged his left hand. Which is sad as it was amazing playing. Literally cries of “Bravo!” at the end, that’s a first. First it was people dancing now “Bravo”.



This is what we do

Posted on by Spirit of Gravity

February 2025
The Rossi Bar

Purely because of the logistics of fitting his drums and electronics on the small stage we start the evening off with perennial favourite Dale Frost playing a largely new set. The first song starts with vision On chimes ping in counter rhythms before the punchy drums kick in around them, a complementary beat. A mesh. There’s a couple of nice isolated drum breaks just before the chimes come back in. The second song is much more staccato, backing track with partial rhythms, drums filling some more. The occasional proper sub bass. The jigsaw nearly complete. About halfway through the song a pad comes in that seems to add completeness, but it still feels oddly half time. The third comes on like some oddly time-signatured dub track – the “delayed” piano then de-coupling itself to emphasise the off kilter beat. Flurries of hi-hat, weird percussive squeaks. Then a super slow bass note/bass drum gives it some bottom and possibly bringing it briefly back into 4/4 before it all goes a bit loopy again and speeds right up. The fourth starts with a slurred synth that is then triggered by the drums. Big bubbly synths surround it before we get a rattly snare heralding another tricky rhythm. Theres some great bits in this one as things drop in to come back in including a particularly delirious section of the bubbly synth and rhythms all working around each other before the drums stop and the synth spirals off into the heavens. Dale seems to be priming the synths and pads before this final track starts, then it kicks off with a walking bass and hi-hat stalking drums. After a while there’s some steel pan melody driving it on. We get some breaks to emphasise the synthiness before it all lifts off into D’n’B flight, the bass stretching, steel pans lifting higher and higher, another drop then it’s back into flight again, the drums doubling up in intensity, more counter melodies, back briefly to the original version, a grounding. A slow plod into an organ-tastic breather and then back into full throttle for the end.

In the middle slot we had Whitstable’s Sophie Sirota on viola and effects. She starts with some long notes drawn into new synthesiser shapes by the effects warping away, some plucked strings into decaying delay and the drawn bow alternating feeding into detailed layers of shifting something. Occasionally a tear of screaming distortion, a mutating murky backdrop of delay gives us a bed on which the rest of the first song is constructed, the way the main melodic part of the track warps from nylon to total artifice as the notes develop. With that main line going on she fills some trembling background into the looper before playing a longer melodic line against the first using the range of the instrument from whistling highs to almost cello-like swirling lows. The background swirls have mutated into ghastly whispers by now, she plays through the long melodic line again, but with delays spiralling sounds off it in all directions skilfully skirting feedback hitting that psychedelic sweet spot quite nicely. The second piece starts with the bow bouncing on the strings, feeding into the looper notes, clicks, laying down a bedrock. A succession of drawn single notes is fed into the looper as well, a second layer to slowly develop an overlapping chord. Its pretty static, some more unobtrusive layers sliding in, ghostly. That distortion that we heard briefly before is back, needle sharp. The repetition builds intensity until her lead line slowly emerges from the fog, melancholic & nostalgic before slowly letting the framing lines fall away from under it until all we’re let with is the pinging original rhythm line, choirs of angels and the viola’s melodic line and then it to is gone, dropping down to just the voice to end.

All electronic, Nanonic swirls in with a contact pad synth of extensive tonalities, some blistering swirls and deep, deep subs off into churning delay. Ghostly wails, hard whistling winds. Drops to beeps or lonesome foghorns. Distant gunshot snares herald a regular pulse and a frankly terrifying sub bass drone. A rhythm seems to coalesce, rattling chains envelop us, a bass line forms, other synth lines force their way in. cymbals, slurring delays. That aeroplane arpeggiator from dark side of the moon. Everything stalls. A distant door slams. Silence. The second piece starts with a slurring synth injected directly into a delay for maximum entertainment. Detailed layers of sound course out over us, spaceships shifting from some interstellar portal, Nick manages to evoke both 50s SF film soundtracks and the latest space music. Atonal beeps then shift us into a more structured (if seemingly semi randomly) segment that then leads into a pretty fast pulse beat. A great red noise snare sound. The rhythm disintegrates before our ears. The final piece is straight into the rhythm, a ticking of stick on metal hi-hat style, with rasping synths and pinging bass lines. Interlocking bass lines. Interlocking detuned synth noises. Delay chatter, a bass drum with a distinctly dancehall gait about its swing, if not the tempo. Some Cabs style reverb distortion, this could be something off a 21st Century Red Mecca. Everything here is in thrall to the rhythm. It ends with endless layering up, shrieks, machine thrums, feedback. Highlight. Nice.



Repetition not art

Posted on by Spirit of Gravity

January 2025
The Rossi Bar

Starting the year with a drone we have McCloud+1 start with a sequence bouncing out of the Fort Processor Geoff flicking a torch across the its light detector for more or less subtle modulations, winds coming from the Casio slowly coming up, Lou sitting onstage backwards, out of site mustering half audibly in and out of earshot; “Change the noise” and a push of a button brings in a different Casio sound the taped down keys keeping the drone going. The Fort Processor starts to bite deep as do the winds, then flashing round the knobs brings a harsh noise element then wailing off into feedback. “Laughing Out Loud”. A two note bass drone sequence makes itself audible through the squall. Lou’s voice all but submerged. Bass drum steals in, and gone, back again, Hi-hat, delayed claps bounce around the room. Head nods, McCloud is off for a drink, hood up. We can hear the words again, the bass and beats integrate into something “Change The Noise” – again the Casio drones switch. Then down to just the bass and bass drum. A cavernous reverb for the bass drum to lose itself. Snare now bouncing around our heads, then out again for the hi-hat. A drum pattern is lost. “No borders”, The missing pattern is rebuilt when it comes round eventually again and again. Gurgling in comes the noise synth again, Pulsating with bass heaviness that drives the beats away. The winds are back, a flurry then a very nasty biting noise and foghorn drones nautically come in against the continuing wind and mess with it, ending in a thin whining drill that toys with idea of forming into notes then squeals off again into grating machine noise, a new droning bassline comes in eventually. To be matched by a head whacking dancehall bass drum and hard snare. There’s some playing with the resonance on the bass synth to get a counterpointing beep and whistle to the bassline, very much trying to channel Higashi Hiroshi’s delirious swoops from “Pink lady Lemonade”, there’s some nice pinging as the sweet spot on the filter is hit. Lou’s voice still coming in and out, half heard dream words. The clap unobtrusively chugging in the background then slowly steaming full into awareness, the bass drum gone, swooping continuing now all gone apart from the steam and the swoop…

Nuclear Whale next, starting with a different wind and an audible warning bell, delayed swoops of modular synth wash across the foreground, it’s like an escape from an alien internment camp, The Grey Area in audio form. A beeping sequence across bass booms, everything shifting relativistically; space burbles and melancholic Carpenter melodies. A slow drum steals in against the beeps the bass drum shifts from the fours to a lopsided stutter across the bars, the beeps start to vibrate and shimmer, I can hear a church bell in the distance. They always remind me of Rowan. We’re just down to the aliens interrogating the church organ – the bell puts up a struggle but is overwhelmed and lost. The country chapel fills with the green folk, a stone tape memory of a beat tries assert itself against the new congregation, there’s a pinging in the apse, muttering in the nave, everything indistinct and muted, filtering away until a springy synth emerges to bring us an insectoid interlude and the Tibetan monks in the monastery next door start to do their stuff. But they’re mutating too, buzzing, the chrysalids chirrup and chilling winds push us all outside. The fields flatten and the skies yellow, time slows. Vast doors open and we’re pulled into the vortex. Everything expands, everything thrums ecstatically. I try not to look at the vast churning machines, the jet engines roaring, machine saws going about their infernal work. Beeping at last brings some relief, but the machines are taking flight against the workshop’s giant automatons. Carpenter-esque arpeggios from the chapel organ invoke nightmare melodies that grow and envelop us in their dark embrace. A squelching Lovecraftian march in place of a beat, that dissolves actually into a beat, the alien-ness recedes. And sanity prevails. At least, that’s what happened to me.

And finally…. Its Lekomo, Lee’s first set at The Spirit of Gravity and we can’t believe that. He’s usually to be found running the monthly Sunday Machine nights at The Brunswick. But this Thursday he’s standing tall behind a speaker balanced on the usual low coffee tables at The Rossi with his Teenage Synths device perched on top. And it’s off to a thunderous start Lee nonchalantly boshes in a monster staccato unison bass and kick pattern, a counter patter of noise slices in and morphs into a bassline, the same noise slides in again, but this time continues to slip around the beat. He’s pretty dynamic with the mix, things dropping in and out slurs and tight repeats. The second piece starts with a monster continuous bass, and a pounding that runs and stops, runs and stops. “Agony, fear, Pain” switches to 4 to the floor, then back to the pounding. And so on. Its all very big a bit like Lee. Some squelching and grinding works its way into the mix. And before you know there’s a kettle whistle melody wormed its way into things as well. Just when you have a grip on it you realise the bassline is a slow 50Hz pulse shorting out your mental processing. The next track is all in, ticking toms, slow kick, lopsided bass whoosh line, some vocal indistinctness telling you what’s right, the bassline is supplemented by a lower level flapping bass tone that dries the speakers a bit wild. More energetic ticking. Its all a bit relentless now. Slippery, too. Is that Click or kick on the 8s? the its pitchshifting all over. It’s a kick in the head up to 16s, back to 8s. the bass is suddenly proper loud. “You will know I was written to delete you”. There’s something Carpenter-ish about the atmosphere. A brief return to the first track then industrial strength circular saw, train whee drums, something mot quite like a crunching guitar riff, hom, hom,    hom, hom,    hom, hom. Lee starts to wobble and we get a faster kick, a proper full on buzzing saw-tooth bass, he seems to programming something on the fly, a clacking slap round the head, 8 to the floor. Bassline like a Space Liner slipping past fast. Then on to another, and another the return of the circular saw, the trains, the trains… The next starts with an old hardcore riff, pounding gabba speed kicks and keeps running like that for a while. It keeps dropping down to the kicks, deliriously, it’s like having the prince of darkness biffing you upside the head. A tease to finish that one, and then a slow down for the final track. A slower bassline on the 8s, saw riff again, all lopsided this time. A clopping slow beat comes in, other percussion scatters and stammers around it. A bass counter point to the saw riff, it’s a hypnotic, pulsating ends to the set. We wobble and throb. Lee beeps in response. Sound effect techno.