Category: SOG-BLOG

There’s a really strange noise coming over the speaker

Posted on by Spirit of Gravity

December 2024
The Rossi Bar

To start the evening is Resting Pulse with some space dialogue, that whirrs off into delay then a slow uneven lurching beat with a bassline to match. Half bass half whistle, it’s possibly the same sound pitched across several octaves. The beat is a grating machine through a warehouse door. It’s constantly changing, not really evolving, but the lumpiness is shifting enough to keep the ear engaged. Eventually a grind comes in, some more dialogue, back to the beat, then drops to just the dialogue again the beat comes back warped. The machine takes control, briefly, then the doors slide ominously open. We can hear large machines working off in the reverb-y distance, space scrapes rhythm akin to the lift from “Are You Being Served”, scrapes and clicks. This does have the feel of vastness. The bass is an enormous and vague booming. A reversing alarm finishes that piece off. Or does it start the next one – a bass drum! Or at least, an occasional bass drum, with a simultaneous but open bass. Mid-range warps of caught machine saw. The bass flattens out in a something between a shifting drone and a bassline, it’s very sonic. There’s something of a melodic string synth line that unwinds into view before disappearing back into the void along with everything apart from the bass. A more insistent bass drum breaks in to herald the string synth’s return. Some huge stapling machine brings its own beat and the bass starts spiralling into itself. There’s a drop away to the reversing alarm again, some murky airport announcement, everything slows and unravels.

Melinda Bronstein next, reverbed toy drum looped, Casio (ah, joy) looped bassline and vaguely Telstar flourish, layered to something else, then suddenly all slowed down to ominous levels. Melinda sings, heavily delayed through one of her twin mics. Shaking shells again pitched down to a clanking rattle. “Strange Information”. The next starts with a Casio piano part, overlaid with a more synth-y bass noise, and a creepy whistling line. Possibly “Every time you go” judging by the vocals. A scurrying pan pipe solo breaks it up, the vocals return. The phone drops to the floor. A shake-y egg starts the third song, off into one of the loopers, the mysterious metal pyramid provides the percussion it’s a big sound from what looks like an M&S Xmas biscuit tin. Then reversed and joined by Casio bassline, another found object provides the clinking percussion sound then again it’s all suddenly dropped in pitch to a scary level. A 70s sugar bowl chimed with an afro comb, and the shaky nuts return, vocals occasionally double up. There’s a note in the bassline of the next song that makes the speakers rattle. A drone off the Casio, layered up humming, the main vocal line is wordless to start, the drones seem to become more malevolent as the song progresses. Everything drops away apart from the voices, she adds more layers to them and brings the bass back in, chains drop between the stainless sugar bowls, providing a stately rhythm that’s all that’s left at the end. It’s great to listen to, but special to watch.

Martin Chick for finish, modular-ed up, starting with block of bass-y noise, a bit of filter and bloop, then some harsh noise wall, by turns percussive, then glitch-y until we can feel a bassline forming behind the randomness and the noise gathers itself then winds down into delay feedback and we can really feel that sub bass. A rave alarm and 160ish bass drum starts knocking, typewriter drums clack away, the noise drops. Mostly. The bass filters up and some beeping begins. There quite some malarkey with the bass line morphing up and down in and out until it gets a right buzz on it. There’s some nasty noise line that crashes in and something that whirrs off as a monster new bass overpowers everything and drops away again, leaving this wandering synth line that ambulates away for a while then the drums are back, overloading something. One note bass (a personal favourite) heralds a change of beat. Everything gets a bit abstract, all the synths confused. And then it’s all stripped down to the beat, squeals of screaming noise punctuate proceedings bringing in a wildly morphing bassline like something from the days before hardcore codified. This rides away for a while, eventually joined by a slapping snare, the bassline chopped, and another dropped in beneath it. A sine tone hits a Brazilian whistle percussion line, the drums get all Masters at Work for a while, but the synth heads off for radiophonic-land. Back to the beat. There’s some filtering happening on the drums now and it all gets very loud and the instruments lose their shape and then gain them again back to the beat. This time he sets them off into some very grainy territory, a place of grey pointillism, the beat slows; disintegrates then speeds right up into chaos levels, delay swirls flail about, squalls of trebly noise trail off, the beat tries to bludgeon back but fails and stop.



There is no pilot in the plane

Posted on by Spirit of Gravity

November 2024
The Rossi Bar

We begin the evening with a stunning set from Marina Moore, her kit is all set up at floor level, definitely a looper, possibly a laptop and some effects. She definitely has visible her violin, from which she throws a trembling fluttering part into the looper, over this she plays an almost cello like deeper melodic line. A scuttling arpeggiating synth line swoops out from somewhere, a plucked motif, and then she drops out of sight to the floor and starts singing through a distorting mic and some interesting feeding back delay. There are two synth lines swirling around each other. Three. Some waves. Then she insouciantly tosses off some fiddle flourishes into the looper and gets back to the serious melodic violin lines. The synth arpeggios are punctuation, I see. The next piece starts with a slower mellow plucked violin loop, layered up a bit, slower deeper lines added then some more distorted singing. More and more layers of violin going in as she progresses through the song. This time the vocals get looped, the lead violin line quite low in the mix. A nice buzzing sees us out. The arpeggios lead us into the next song with a high long, long melodic loop and some impressively proper low end loops from the violin. The long loop has a counter melody that comes back in and out of time with it. Delay fun whirrs its way around everything quite satisfactorily. Its beautifully haunting. The next one starts with a lightly strummed loop, shorter loops are spun in and Marina’s voice is in a much higher register this time. The final song has a disturbing shifting slurred rhythmic part all nasty overtones and distress, over this a frenetic flurries of notes, and slow detuned strides, its overwrought & melodramatic redolent of mists and black and white denouements, a superfast drum machine kicks in quite unexpectedly, the arpeggios are back fast and distressing and the delay adds an edge of chaos and its done. Wow. Brilliant.

It’s a cracking start to a cracking evening, as it turns out.

Certainly, it was a tough set to follow, but fortunately we had Les Biologistes Marins up next. A duo, Beatrice on flute and electronics, Anton on synth and electronics. Starting with hums, blown flute – which is to say, the sound of blowing wind through the flute rather than the expected blown notes – sea-like unsurprisingly perhaps. As this builds in intensity, we get a foghorn, abstract noises, an indistinct pulse. Field recordings of waves. The pulse takes on a humming aspect, the foghorn becomes churchlike organ.  Station bells. The distance offers chimes, train scrapes. And we get the first massive drone of sub bass. Alien radio signals static through the detuning organ tones. The organ parts settle into a drone, a pecked bass line and slurring upper part. They also sing, both of them Anton lost in a reverb-y distance meshing with Beatrice’s pure and tremulous wordless vocals in the foreground. The static takes on a squealing aspect and a synth-y shimmery metal scrape slips into view. We find ourselves with just the organ’s left hand without having noticed, and the flute is back, whistles and lingering notes. We hear a watery cave, waves slurping at its edges. The flute takes runs, the organ notes now slower and finally droning and gone into something slipperier. A thin drone takes us away from the flute deeper into the aquatic cave, rattles of metallic objects, a monk singing(?[!]), that static still going. Whistling. That male voice still lurking in the background. Beatrice’s voice warmer in the foreground still, unexpectedly and briefly reminding me of Low. Bea doubles up her voice with another deeper into the depths. Bottle clinks. More. Into layers. Clanks even. Marker buoys tolling in the cave mouth. A two note keyboard riff, reverb-y squelches. That static – still! Humming slides unobtrusively into flute, the two note riff is cuckooed on different sounds. The bass part expands to a 4 note arpeggio, with a strong flute part over it. The flute switches to a repeated much higher part reflecting the bassline, playing variations around it. Without doing much in the way of actually changing the sounds seems to get much bigger, clear of reverb out into the sunshine, a sudden increase in tempo until its all a flurry and done. A very different journey, but completely mesmerising.

And to see off the evening the dressing gowned Manu Louis in a robe, a borrowed fluffy of many colours. It’s kind of incongruous with my Vox guitar on its second outing of the year/decade wrapped around it. He’s got a couple of keyboards he plays Rick Wakeman style as well as the guitar and a laptop I think, I can’t quite see. The first song starts, a jerky new wavy rhythm, stopping starting, buzzing, Manu sings, there’s a nasty noise for a breakdown, with a guitar solo tossed off with a similar flourish to Marina’s violin playing earlier. I don’t think that kind of guitar solos ever been played on that guitar before. Second song (“Internet”) has a nice detuning synth riff reminiscent of Meronomy’s set for us. Manu sings this one in French. The sound of the synth constantly rotates, now boops, now squelches. Manu gets quite worked up. He also dances. Third starts with a jazzy drum part, a similar Casio-ish sound plays the riff. Third starts off fairly minimal, singing over drums and a light pad. Eventually a lately bass drops in. This one has a definite cabaret feel, probably the French lyrics again. The third song is “The Stream”, it has an interactive dance, Belgian dancing at that. A skipping bass drum and a count of four, then a buzzing arpeggio bassline and silly noises, very Yello. Interesting; my references are very 80s for this, but it sounds really modern. It has a really warped out middle 8 and some very nice grooves. The 4th song is “Documents” and is new, some very silly synth lines over a very serious backbeat, pumping bass and a glorious nasty buzz-saw whine. The final song also has an interactive dance, and starts with polka style stabs, and some excessively fierce guitar runs. Key changes! And a hint of the Shadows. After the first chorus the rhythm steps up a notch as does the guitar. Everything gets more intense. The second chorus and then a breakdown. Into a reedy jazz organ. More percussion into the mix. The third chorus to maximise the frenzy and end.

It’s “Documents” that fills my head as I head for the bus.



Denuded by birth

Posted on by Spirit of Gravity

October 2024
The Rossi Bar

Starting the evening off one member down, but not unexpectedly was Altamode. Starting with slow dancehall beats and warm gently oscillating arpeggios Monty alone; shaded and gum chewing in a “Vroom Vroom” tee, did sterling work. A flurry of feedback delay and a voice starts in. next track starts with an unwinding bass and occasional square blasts of noise. Bells chime in. Monty works away at laptop and modular. The bells climb and carillon into a descending delay. The bassline completely unravels into parp and flap dropping almost out of hearing. More words from the laptop, threatening. The noise blasts mutate slowly into a second stentorian bassline. The chimes disturbing now. A woman’s voice “You’re number one” in a tight loop Suddenly “We’re going to take you one step further” and the noise proper kicks in, a bass noise bassline, wheel squeak, pinging feedback squeals. Layered-up voices. Bass and squeak alternate now drowned in racket, then bass drum reverbed to murk bashes in under it and end.

Next up is Hannya White in a very different mode to the last time she was down, much more song based, starting with a bass (drum? pulse?) on the fours and she talks her voice, disturbingly muted, with reverb chains spiralling off it. After a while the song starts to tick like a clock, bat wing drums flutter. The next song starts with a sub sonic throbbing, shortwave radio static, the bassline swirls up then back down again. Clicking bass drum and some truly terrifying screaming start in raising the energy levels right up, the shortwave voice from the future still there, the drums choppy, the screaming looped now alternates with a guttural roar. Something goes wrong and her laptop crashes, so we have a brief interval before it takes up again and carries on with a slightly less thick and intense version of the same song. The drums have dropped and eventually the wobbling deep bass comes back in against the looping screams. The third song starts with a staccato bass drum, again this has the vague air of Prince of Darkness, the static hiss disguising redemption, the hiss slowly recedes and we are left with a sub bass wash and infernal drumming. The next song starts with a slow count “1….2….3….” against a slow crunchy snow step. A toppy bass starts, sprightly and the bass drum follows suit. Vocal layer up against the counting, not densely, though, sparse, a little hum, some talking. The bass drum glitches and a saw-tooth bassline quietly lurks, a drop to the humming, then a ticking beat and everything comes back in. a little more driving. The bass drum starts to overdrive something. Off-beats. “Free, Free”. Another breakdown and then it’s all back again, louder and with more delay drowned in a swamp of bass delay noise. And I think that’s it.

And rounding the evening off in classy style is Alien Alarms & Ieva Dubova. They’ve apparently had a run through and Ieva has scored some parts for herself. She plays the piano, Jim as usual chopping the beats and such on his laptop. They start with one of Ieva’s pieces, “R”, solo piano to start, the room noise drops to next to nothing. Jim has some delayed percussion flourishes and slight seagull scrapes. It’s very subtle and rather lovely. Next is one of Jim’s pieces. Starting with bass drone, AI voice, beeps. This time Ieva providing the haunting flourishes. It subtle and minimal but remarkably atmospheric, adding a tangible layer of dread. No drums. The AI voice breaking down into glitching stammers as the song progresses. the bass drone never falters, and slowly the electronics fade out. The next track is “A leap” another Alien Alarms one, bass line, drums and Jim’s singing. Ieva’s piano again understated, and for “time to take a leeeeeaaaap” a cascade of notes as everything else drops out and it feels like she’s going to take off McCoy Tyner style, which she eventually does after the third chorus, when nothing comes back and she lets fly with the occasional bubbling from Jim. The next track is “The Spirit of Gravity” their first collaboration. Based on the Nietzschean text from which we got our name. Its slightly reworked from the original on the “A poem in 6 parts” compilation for which it was first written, more space, more sub bass drones, more eerie piano, less broken drum parts. Jim watches like a hawk. There are breakdowns, the piano comes back the electronics crescendo as the piano gets higher into tinkling intensity of dripping rains. Back and forth between the two of them now the drums to the fore and now the piano takes control, flurries of notes to end. Avril 14th to end, which Ieva can obviously play in spite of the ridiculous leaps between notes. And extemporise around, so she leads this with the piano, then Jim pitches right in with the drums and full tilt getting into chopping and Ieva gets working right around the song. The closest we’ve had to jazz in a long time, the two of them improvising around each other. I think given the nature of the sound, though, no chance of the Jazz Limiters being triggered. They are on fire. A proper creative energy around the room.


Wringing loose the tiny titans

Posted on by Spirit of Gravity

September 2024
The Rossi Bar

Armatures started the first track with watery whistles and strings before long bass vibratos tucked in under an arpeggiated piano. Moving on with staccato piano and noises which nearly get overwhelmed by this vast squelching noise that mutates as it sounds into liquid mud. The third track segues straight out of that with an Orbital-ish repetitive stabbing, eventually joined by synth-y water and  a half time kick. The drums get all glitched and we get a bit of filter on the synths. The fourth starts light, interweaving high synths pinging about, featherweight pads swirl and a fast beat kicks us off into space, planets spin past… mmmm arpeggios breakdown, then it gets a bit tougher, filtering and such, harder sounds. More pinging arpeggios and strings on the fifth. The sixth starts again watery this time aquatic piano, bubbles and an emerging rhythm track that dances around the synth  parts and the rhythm., before a stammering pointillistic superfast synth part. The final track starts with wind synths, seagulls, and a deep Edgar Froese arpeggio and string synth combo. Nice. Mid-tempo, a breakdown brings in the drums, some really great development on this track and a great rounding off for the set.

Due to stuff we had a bit of a sneak preview of the start of Yewen Jin’s set as a line check, but that didn’t matter, as it meant we got to hear it twice. She starts with nicely textured drones and a very digital sounding synth taking a bagpipe like line around it swirling up and down through several octaves. There’s repletion, almost, things drift, the drones slowly move in pitch and timbre, the synth line misses notes. Add new ones. Splits notes. Almost merging with the drone and shooting off again at tangents. The drone hitting a churchy tone. A single not leads us out of this, passage, then does that same thing of sliding up and down its melodic line, a melancholic counter line, low, reflects back weeping. Some mutating bubbling bass monster comes up inside this sound – dragon in a cave-like, the melodic lines get subsumed by abstract beeps and detuning tones. Suddenly there’s reverb and cavern feelings. And amazing levels of sub-bass. For something that comes across as simple superficially, there are amazing levels of sonic detail. Rumbles, pencil swishing, reverbs and slapback delay. Swipes, bells. There’s a lengthy passage of chiming piano.  More detuning synths, some kind of tacking machine, melodic burbling delay feedback. There’s some weird point  where Ennio Morricone gets munged with John Carpenter in a nightmare fairground. Her set ends on drones then Casio notes and delayed synth meeps.

And rounding off the evening we had Bantu, Gary testing out a new set and some new kit for a show in Finland. It’s a pretty low key start, some whirring, some humming, he has a bell which he processes and loops through the synth, there’s a slow bass drum that slowly fades up and modulates into a tone, then back again. Other synths spin off, some radio interference, delay whirrs, horror sounds, chirping. The first half of the set continues like this, that pulse that goes through the whole thing morphing away, sometimes fading to nothing, but always seemingly returning. There’s a lot of space, and not much bass. Odd radiophonic interludes of clanger conversation take over, watery burbles, robot dogs barking. Slowly it gets more structured, a stepping fuzzed synth line build in intensity, getting thicker and noisier, faster and more intense. There’s a short break and we get a perhaps more usual “Bantu” set of tumbling basslines, thick and raucously burbling away, the final piece starting again as some nightmarish radiophonic set of beeps and tones that slowly takes on more and more disturbingly loud forms, some ghoulish humming and resonance whistling. Emerging from inside this we get some hard bass tone slapping, everything converging into the upper registers for the end.



Circulatory somnambulism

Posted on by Spirit of Gravity

August 2024
The Rossi Bar

Marienbad
Someone in the audience described them as like being tuned into every radio station in the world at once. It certainly starts with a static-y screechy pulsating loop, dial spinning shortwave blasts of voice and tumbling notes. There’s a constant shift, one second glitching repetition , the next a spool spinning churn through the entire universe. And just as you’re used to that they’ll settle on something, letting it run for a while doing its thing – whatever that is – before disrupting it with squeaks or burbles or a shard of noise, a spurt of tone. It all sounds very tape based but is in fact sourced off a laptop. There’s even a short burst of “The BBC has shut down” sinusoidal tone, which they are far too young to actually know first hand. For a brief period we actually have a rhythm, a pseudo repeating pattern of bass drum, beep and grind. The set ends with a call to revolution.

MelJoann
Plays another intricately arranged AV set, integrating inspirational videos from her Mustics wellness cult into backing video for the songs. She also plays a keytar for part of the set. The songs are a mix from her past centring around “Assfuck the boss” from her first album “HR”, we’ve got a couple from the as yet unreleased new album. The second Mustics break channels the 80s adverts from the Sigue Sigue Sputnick album really nicely (the drum sounds and stabs are amazing). Mel looked confused when I mentioned this. Anyway if you haven’t seen MelJoanns disturbing RnB nightmare of modern life I really can’t describe it – I’ve tried and failed the last two times she played – watch the video.

Simon Pyke – Four Flex
Interesting software, it would have been good to have this displayed on the projector. Not Ableton, that’s for sure. Before his set he has something odd just shifting about in the air for about 15 minutes. Then his set proper starts. Beats, 4/4. Loops as texture, wind whistling witters. An odd take on techno, based on repeating sounds and textures: field recordings, tones, delays. Clatters in vast rooms. Vamps. La Dusseldorf in a new context. Some interesting use of pure sounds being wiped around the ears. The beat is front and centre, but there’s some really odd things going on around that, then you get some “nice” keyboard parts that distract you from the odd choirs, and tortured sea-life. The white noise slurs, and peculiar bass tonalities.



It’s all part of the selective unconsciousness

Posted on by Spirit of Gravity

July 2024
The Rossi Bar

It’s a very quiet start for Bagombo Snuffbox, I can hear some flute music possibly leaking through from upstairs, or maybe one of Adam’s tape loops, or maybe it’s this growly glitching backwards voicing. But possibly that comes from Gary’s laptop. Everything gets munged into the spiralling effects chain anyway, to curdle away like that fermented foodstuff that’s so good for you. It was a flute! I can tell as it comes back over a steam train reversing into a spaceport. Something vast slides by surrounded by burbling synths. Loops of ¼” tape are switched around with those lovingly set up on a stand. Dinosaurs are loosed. The tape is manipulated by hand, sounds slur or speed up. Rhythms generate themselves in the effects chain. There are little radiophonic spoops of synth like tugboats attending to the still emerging starship while a Tannoy quietly mutters to itself a couple of miles away. At one point it sounds like short & improbably fast games of table tennis are being played. More odd little half melodies emerge from open ports as everything slides past. The duo are constantly at work fidgeting away at things, nudging and knurling. Towards the end a worrying rhythm starts, against paper tears, balloon squeaks and thumb piano which swirls away into hand rewound voices, synthy smirks and a railway terminus announcement. Then, Adam: “See it, Say it … Sorted..”

Bye Bagombo

Next was Teashape, solo rather than the usual duo (one half is in the North) the set started with technical difficulties and earthy crackler somewhere in the chain, later deduced to probably be after the looper, but it wasn’t to be found. Fortunately, the interference it provided died away quite soon into the set. The chain was fed by some broody soprano saxophone lines and reverb-y guitar. There was a laptop providing some backup beef by way of rhythm, piano and drones. And the bass really hit the PA’s sweet spot. Rosie also sang, not something we have too often. The first song becomes unstructured quite nicely at the end, spoken vocals and surrounding sounds falling backwards into seascapes. The second song starts with a chiming guitar loop and vocals. The soprano makes a sorrowful appearance; sad and distant. The interleaving lines bouncing well together, then she’s back on the guitar for the remaining verses. Again the sea closes the song out. The computer decides otherwise and overrides that with a jaunty folk song. The sea however takes into the next song with a long harshly picked guitar loop and harmonica from an evening jailhouse somewhere. The guitar seems to turn into a dulcimer, tonally, to usher in the vocals. Then some monster bassline humps in, with a subtly ticking percussion. The guitar sings out. The final brief section is all about the low key backing track, all slippery backwards slides and bass and voice.

Bubble People has a teeny keyboard on a small flight case on the usual tables we have at the Rossi. He starts with a harpsichord-y line, again the bass is well tuned to the PA, and more singing! The harpsichord is like the lead instrument in the Get Carter soundtrack. He’s not afraid to turn everything backwards in the breakdown either. An evening for reversals and voices. There’s something of early 2000s loungecore turned in on itself about the first song. The second starts with fast arpeggios falling over each other in a psychedelic tumble, followed by a mutated Italo piano and some piercing space pads. The track seems to operate at three speeds, I’m reminded me of the confusion I felt the first time I heard “Playing with knives”; that sense of not quite knowing how it works. It falls into a 21st century breakdown: muted basslines and skittering beats, and delayed piano without that transition being remarkable.  The third song is all sonic bass and imploding radiophonic swirls, and fast ticking beats with more vocals. The next track falls again into two speed slow motion, super slow basslines, superfast beats, and delay confused pianos and synth riffs. The final song is about a hundred-year-old tree being cut down. Starts with pings, tape spools and more delays before storming into a rave-up stab-y synth riff, the beat builds up slowly under it before the kick stomps in. the rhythm track plays due homage to the Detroit masters, little Flexatone warps and subtly timed snares and layered bass drums. A really nice set of 21st Century psychedelic techno.



Graham Dowdall aka Gagarin 01.08.54 – 16.06.24

Posted on by Spirit of Gravity

We’re sorry to have to let you know that Graham Dowdall, aka Gagarin, died on the 16th June. He had been ill with cancer, and amazingly his last two shows in Brighton were while he was undergoing treatment, including this one for us back in April:
Gagarin Live at The Spirit Of Gravity April 2024 – YouTube

We first met him in January 2008, when he played for us at “The 3 & 10” in Kemptown, during one of our lower points in terms of audience numbers, but something clicked and he returned many times as both a solo artist, as part of Roshi (feat Pars Radio) and in a duo with David Thomas in a special show at The Coach House in Kemptown.

Anyone who chatted to him at one of our shows will know what a lovely man he was, and considering how much cool stuff he’d done, remarkably humble. We’d recommend reading this interview with him:
bassmidstopsandtherest.substack.com/p/no-18-graham-dids-gagarin

Then check out his last album, including a track written up at Stanmer Park during the Sound Plotting event…
Komorebi | Gagarin | Geo Records (bandcamp.com)

It’s really upsetting to lose someone like this who still had a lot to give, he was already working on his next album, and an autobiography that would have been hilarious & endlessly fascinating.