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.