November 2025
The Rossi Bar

The Belarina Project is a new musical project from cellist Bela Emerson, and we’re really honoured for her to debut her set of composed pieces at the Spirit of Gravity. Her performances are usually improvised so this is a departure for her. The first piece starts with strong bowed lines into her looper, over this she places a line of equal notes in a higher register, occasionally these are looped, sometimes they are just played and lost, chords are built and shifted. Its surprisingly moving, seemingly simple, an echoing short loop is left trailing off that piece and onto this she builds a rhythmic plucked or is it slapped part. It’s a long line that is looped and subtly built over, before a single melodic line is added, it speaks to me of snow and hills. I’m not sure about anyone else. The third piece starts with a drone and then a bassline that reminds me of Henri Texier for reasons I can’t fathom, Bela sings about past love. The following piece is faster, it starts with a piano part, after a time a plucked bass and buzzing melody part, it’s uplifting in a soft way. The next piece starts off with a raw cello line looped, and again layered up into developing chords, no syncopations here, just exposed emotions. It feels like a lament until some jabbing chords chime in. followed by a bang on the cello bass drum. And finally into the end of the set breathing space.

For Bennu, originally a synth doom outfit according to Zizo’s introduction, he is now playing guitar while his oppo is handling the electronics, it starts with a huge slowly sweeping drone from both sets of hands. The rhythm track is super slow, a couple of kick beats here, a crushing snare there. A super sub bass gnarls up from the drone and wobbles in. A murky synth line is almost lost in the distance. A breakdown, some feedback, the room shakes a little. Great blocks of bass march into view and take us along with them, a thin trebly line and some noises like something from Cabaret Voltaire’s cassette archive, indistinct voices, warbling strings. The kick comes back with its own bass part and a faulty cash machine offset, grinding drones. Its dislocated but still rhythmic enough. The high guitar lines just cuts through. Repetition, halting, starting again, repetition, halting. Finally. Delays spin out from the guitar, the cash register now drones and we can hear a fairy funfair in the distance. It’s unsettling, a female voice can just be heard singing. All the delays slur down. The guitar now sounds like a flapping bass guitar. Entwined around this we get wiry abstractions, thin, circuitous. The rhythm falls apart into stuck cd stammers, swirls of saw-tooth and sine. A snare, or a tin sheet being hit at the bottom of a well, one or the other starts off the next segment in tandem with a blocky buzzing one note synth bass. A synthetic wind blows in from the west, hot and humid, the guitar gurgles malevolently. The drums churn quietly away in the background. A giant brush sweeps the room in lieu of a hi-hat. More machine rhythms, big bass booms, sonic whiplash snare, a drone whines in the midrange and drops away leaving just the blocks of noise.  An arpeggio of tonality disrupts the murk. A sledgehammer kick stomps by. Motorbike engine bass, thunk of a snare, rhythmic synth parts. School bell percussion, more voices. It drops to a bassline nicked off a poorly pigeon coo, we get breakdowns – pregnant pauses in the punishing beats.

Morwell is chatty, the first track is an old track of his that he’d slowed down, its starts straight in, chiming synth part weaving with odd reversed synths, claps but not much else you can hear of a beat, until a while in a shuffle starts up. Some horror film samples. There’s a fair amount of phaser action in here, too. The next track starts with voices “into the light” variations and a lurching erratic beat. Everything is super clean sounding. Nice switch into bongos, with a syncopated plastic rattle. Some trumpet sounds. The beats slowly distort. Still off kilter. Slightly. A breakdown for some stabs. Syncopated like they are from a slowed down Drum and Bass tune. Detuned synth hits on the one, too. Crowd noises. A sweeping rhythm track starts the next one, then a bulbous kick drum boings in heralding a vocal sample.  Distant, indistinct, creepy. The drums firm up losing murk and then it stops. The next track is another slowed down track; a tribute to rave. Slowed down and speeded up vocals, stabs, intermittent bass, it’s hardcore but ~120bpm, and all the more delirious for it. Back to clean beats for the next one. Weirdly lumpy, too. Nice subby bassline.  Drifting synth stabs, all serving as a bed for space noises. The next starts with film samples and synth shimmers, the voices glitch up into the scattered rhythm track, noises slur around in the background, everything is unfixed until a drum and bass beat starts in and brings it all together. The final track starts with a skanking keyboard, then the hardcore kick stomps along, rattling snare loops, dub trumpets, vocal samples, it’s a short build and drop, build and drop, a lot of energy in the builds, each subtly different, feeling faster than the last..The history of rave rewritten as ‘Artcore.