Tag: Dan Powell

In Henry’s Rain

Posted on by Spirit of Gravity

September 2015
The Scope XIV

Cheesemaster’s Home Video

Cheesemaster's Home Video
We start the evening off with some of my holiday video…. I’ve got some footage of a ride on a jet-boat in the Everglades, the engine sound is raw as hell – a 7 litre beast with no baffles that overloads the camera mic quite nicely. I projected the film onscreen and fed the soundtrack through a cascade of fuzzboxes, it makes a nice AV noise set. It’s fun and I can’t help leaning into the corners.

Andre’s Elbow

Andre's Elbow Second up is Andre’s Elbow, Dan Powell and Tony Rimbaud, the soundcheck was excellent, Tony processing Dan’s small percussion and throat singing to lovely effect; a rolling thick exotic mosaic. The set itself is marred with some tonal feedback that seemed to get deep into the effects chain and won’t go away, and as a consequence they were too distracted trying to dispatch the thing to really gel. I’d like to see them do it again, as when they had everything back and under control Dan had some whistling vocal drone and singing bowl going on and it finally started to show the promise of the soundcheck.

Deemer

Deemer Rounding of the evening were Deemer; Dee Byrne and Merijn Royaards down from the big city. Dee plays saxophone and Merijn had a stack of old acid boxes; then, between them, they had some old portable CRT style TVs and a whole lot of processing kit. It was a set that felt full of opportunities and at any moment could go shoot off in any of a number of directions – there were elements of jazz, some suppressed 303, some noise things bubbling up through magnetic sensors in front of the TVs – the frame hold lines buzzing through them. And they did visit a number of these places in a remarkably coherent way. Dee plays with a number of the improviser’s we’ve had down recently and they both pay a great deal of attention to what’s going on around them.

It’s hard to explain

Posted on by Spirit of Gravity

November 2014
The Scope

Stuart turned up early and cracked jokes and kept everyone (well me at least) entertained before we opened. The evening was a performance of a few of Bobby’s scores from his new book “Music in Text”. Which will help explain some of the things that happen.

As people were coming in I was getting them to do some lemon sucking while listening to the pinging tines of a fork.

Dan Powell and Paul Khimasia Morgan

Dan Powell and Paul Khimasia Morgan The evening started with a new duo of Paul Khimasia Morgan and Dan Powell. Dan had his laptop and a scattering of percussion and Paul had a tape player, zither and some jumble of things. Quiet and elliptical, rattling and humming.

Bobby Barry

Bobby Barry Robert Barry / Bobby Barry / Monster Bobby introduced his book, explained some pieces and what the book was about. He performed three pieces which were more loosely based on his scores than following them. Lots of processing and electronics.

Nil

Nil nil set up an impromptu kitchen for Culinary Music, mic’d up the boiling pan and shopping board. Chris Parfitt is so wonderfully deadpan, a career in silent movies was sadly avoided. Dan has a lot more ham. But not literally.

Tony Rimbaud has some of the more prepared pieces worked out, and a rather lovely vocal piece compiled out of previously recorded parts.

For the next piece musicians are scattered around the room hidden in corners arpeggiating away, Chris in one corner, little Kev in another, me under the screen, Tony and Steve over by the door…

We have an attempt at conducting a new language, splitting the room by vowels and consonants. but it all ends up as swearing.

It might not help with understanding what went on, but there are some rather lovely photos at Agata Urbaniak’s flickr page:
www.flickr.com/photos/agataurbaniak/sets/72157648968324729
Tony Rimbaud has also uploaded his full pieces on his SoundCloud page:
http://soundcloud.com/im-dr-buoyant

A new home

Posted on by admin

So the first show in our new home The Three And Ten in Steine Street.

We like it, it has something of the Albert, Something of the Marlborough and a little something all of its own.

We were the first show in apart from the comedians so things were a bit tricky at first. but we soon got the hang of it.


Dan Powell opened the venue, playing from the back. Perversely. Accompanied by very abstract visuals from _minimalVector.

he never gives me titles for his pieces, so I’ve called this segment “Wilf”
dan_powell-wilf.mp3


Setting up on the floor of the stage with his Sitar, out of sight, but partially in range of Bartosz video feed was Same Actor making his second appearance in this blog of recent times. It is another good one, natch.

same_actor-life_drawing.mp3


Stepping in at the last minute for Bemass, who couldn’t make it due to bela being caught ill in Vancvouver, was ‘J’m black (again) with a Safehouse Wildcard Electro-Acoustic Ensemble.
Featuring Monty Oxymoron, from The Damned, Alasdair Willis from The Vitamin B12, Alastair Strachan from Vole, and matt Grey, who I’ve not seen play before.

This is a bit from the space section of their set, before Monty got into jazzy chords.

safehouse_wildcard_ensemble-60_cycle_groan.mp3

Safehouse @ Spirit of Gravity

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Bells

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We have a new host, tying things together and making up for the fact Rashamon is on holiday, electronica superstar and funnyman Lee Hume.

If you really want I’ll put some of his introductions up, just so he gets a soundfile too.

Dan Powell started the evening with a set of electro-acoustic improvisations and new sound processing software. It was mad, like a kids toy train stealing a 1950’s computer.
here’s a track called Bells.
dan_powell-bells.mp3

Following dan was Made out of wool, an act with a special place in the heart of the Spirit of Gravity. After blasting us with a solo set as yellow not yellow at SoG@Wrong, this collaborative set between Jason and Nikki, was a much more subtle beast. The mp3 starts from the point I started hallucinating. Its a track called Bells.
made_out_of_wood-bells.mp3

They said it couldn’t be done. “The Gross Consumer playing at Spirit of Gravity – you’re having a laugh, it’ll never work”.
So proving two things, the broad tastes of The Spirit of Gravity, and the broader musical reaches of The Gross Consumer, we proved them wrong. We love it. Heres a track called Bells.

the_gross_consumer-bells.mp3

And thanks to steve at minimal impact we have a (large) download of the whole of The Gross Consumer set, including feeble attempts at justifying his actions in light of what was on the flyer (that is, it has all the banter).