Tag: I’m Dr Buoyant

Invisible friends can be real friends, too

April 2024
The Rossi Bar

Starting the evening we had I’m Dr Buoyant with a set founded on his heavily sample based new album. Its starts with a loop of what sounds suspiciously like half a John Barry orchestral phrase, with a tension building pause, superseded by a looped short orchestral jab. Finally Tony gets stuck in with some effects and a switch around with another stab, the two of them circling each other, with pings and whooshes. Another layer of brass on a much longer loop. The delays make it all a bit delirious. Then suddenly it’s into a slower more sonorously lovely phrase. Hmm oboes… and chimes, looping, looping, near repetition breeding disorientation. There’s a guitar phrase almost identical to the chimes swapping with it set against distorted seabirds. Some speech sits just above a slowly circling whistling breathy wind, the whistle goes and it all gets more ominous until a thumped beer bottle bang! Bang! Bang! Pause. Offset against this a distorted string does a slightly delayed matching rhythm. They both briefly step up. The sound is thickened with delays and slower sounds, bass hums. The rhythm steps up against. Its nervous, twitchy, some quick synth-y burbles. Insistent. Space laser zaps. There is a slow build-up of waves and an ominous undercurrent of delay feedback that swells to the end. The whole set is a really disorienting psychedelic repetition, slow evolution and textures


Gagarin starts his set off quietly, water, slow pads, before the warm middle-y arpeggio starts up set against whooshes and what must be called a pretty banging beat comes blasting in – uncertainly at first, but then pow. Bass drum pounding,pinging percussive sounds, the occasional tinging hi-hat. A cold long note, slowly evolving timbre. And a strong humming riff. It’s taken the recorded version of the track and used it for something much more insistent and driving. The beats stop and we have an almost jazzy set of flourishes out to end. The second track starts with beachy steps, or wet leaf steps, perhaps. A drone starts up, pulsing, bass-y, a thinner slow melodic line, matched by a lovely reedy counter line and then very electronic synthesiser, all working together building, watching, ticking hi hats tickle in, then the booming bass drum: boom boom  boom bdum. More relaxed this time if equally big, then a big sub-bassline that rolls up and down its notes. Everything now drops down to the rhythm tracks. A scratching over them. The melodic lines come back imperceptible until suddenly you notice you’re in the middle of them. The third track starts with a repeating nasal synth line of a rattling tonal electric motor synth. Birdsong and a fast hissing hi-hat pattern, followed by quitter shapeless bass drum, and staccato snare, the synth figure keeps going and the beat speeds along. Super low bass synth line pushes everything along even harder. Graham tapping away on percussion lines, interweaving, a choir sample “oo-ahhs”. A bit more of that birdsong, but this feels a long way from the mellow ambience of “Corvid”. The track segues almost seamlessly into “Stanmer” starting with slow piano notes echoed against the birdsong, it’s a stunning piece he conceived up at The Willow Dome on what is now the Eco-musicology project site at Stanmer Organics. The piano line continues, almost a repetition, but each time through slightly different.  A string pad slowly underpins the piano, and eventually a slow drum comes in, again not quite looping, hi-hat, and then a synth line that follows the piano. It gently eases back out to the slowly dissolving piano and birdsong. A set that worked really well in reverse to what almost anyone else would have done.


And finally we had Melancholic Robot Tantrum easing into his set with a pure warbling set of reversed bell like tones dodging round each other, then a stately buzzing bass in foghorn timing. The bells drop a couple of octaves and then a monster mid-tempo beat kicks in along with some detuned rhythmic synth noises. Hi-hats pick up the energy. Then a vicious noise synth ramp. This is the main melodic component. There is a slightly malevolent air to the piece, it lives in that place where you aren’t sure if it’s repetition or s l o w evolution., the rhythm cuts out and three or four delay feedback strands carry us into the next track, identified by a thunderous jungle rhythm and noise bass. This is driving. Full on, the noise synths just adding passing juggernaut washes. The bass solid. There are no breakdowns, just powering through. The melodic line here provided a metal on metal screech. At some stage the bass breaks up into a cut staccato 8th note battering. The rhythm eventually just falls apart. The next starts with fast pulsing bass and hammer snare. The drums sourced from abstract sounds this time round. Odd noises rhythmically punctuate the bass. Eventually a hissed beat murks up around the bass, and everything morphs to let it in, then a much slower almost Laibach rolling beat takes it out. Everything around that becomes sparer, dubbed punctuation. Then a lighter jungle rhythm floats in. The density overwhelms us then thins out suddenly. Ending on a bass drum, voice (?) and more feeding back effects. A slower D’n’B beat starts the next track with an even slower march beat restraining it. The bass is a double off beat, the drum track evolves quickly, new snares endless changes, the bass coarsening in sound. Its fast/slow, head-nodding. The next one starts with a superfast thrumming bass, syncopated drums work around it, some nice white noise snare, rising synth notes. A breakdown at last for the drums to get all Drum and Bass-y again, and then another build. Some squelching, and a rolling interlocking set of sounds driving us on, the bass thickens , expands and dominates turning into a continuous rumbling morphing note. Another breakdown for something that sounds like a version of the Get Carter soundtrack recalled in a nightmare, while a racketing build builds up hysterically under it. And it all ends chaotically again. We have a few minutes left, unexpectedly, so another track is done, but it takes a while to find. It’s another junglistic monster, this time the rattling fed by drones and pads. This one has a lot going on in the beats they evolve and change constantly. The drones are more subtly altered until you realis that everything is this nasty noise and then some squelchy bass starts in and the drums scatter and everything stops.


Many thanks for the video shot by Tony Bowall:



Surprisingly heavy on ordinary instrumentation

October 2023
The Rossi Bar

Ron Caines, Andrew Greaves & I’m Dr Buoyant: if you don’t know him, Ron was the saxophone player with the near legendary prog rock band East of Eden, long before half of us in the audience could walk. He’s been playing with both Andrew (and with his band Broken Star) and I’m Dr Buoyant for a number of years, but this was the first time they’ve played as a trio. The set starts with some layering up of synths by the electronicians but when Ron starts they drop away leaving him to lay some plaintive lines before a thin stream of near feedback creeps in and ever so slowly swells to some lovely swirling, echoing space noises. Ron starts to bounce back off this; trilling and parping, Andrew responds with a flurry of notes and then slows it down to another deep space tone. As things progress Tony starts channelling Ron’s saxophone back through the effects chain, which is nice. Andrew gets into some synth runs, then back into the spacey washes and occasional organ scurry. About 20 minute sin Andrew starts a much effected drum pattern, pinging echoes and squelchy reverbs all over. Ron switches to slight, tremulous bursts until everything starts to thicken out and he gets into some harder blowing. And then it all winds out in light arpeggios and looped sax breath.


The Organ Grinder’s Monkey, it’s the first time we’ve had Ben back in a while, and he’s changed things around a bit, the lovely Black and Chrome Jaguar guitar has gone to be replaced by some multifunctional high end (but at least black) modern thing. He’s also changed his set around a bit, gone are the tight punchy songs and he’s loosened up a bit, but there’s still plenty of structure. No singing though. The first song he starts by getting some guitar loops going through Bill the laptop. There is some odd glitching and you can visibly see him deciding on whether to restart or use it as feature, he decides to forge ahead. When the chiming interlocking guitar loops are cycling away, he gets the guitar to show some of its other features, messing with things, triggering midi sounds, the wayward glitches mostly fall away leaving on the deliberate ones. And thankfully for his stress levels the rest of the set seems devoid of issues. Apart from the unexpected triggering of an amen break. The next one starts with one of his pop guitar riffs, there’s some madness noises and the amen break. The whole thing has that clarity and lightness that reminds me of my favourite of Cornelius’ work. He gets really into messing with the beats at the end, building on his work with the games controller the last time we saw him. The next one starts with the messed up beats. Slower and rather chunky, he plays in a bassline and some more nicely interlocking guitar parts and glitchy frills. There are some great guitar controlled breakdowns on here. Theres a really quick switch into the next song, it’s almost completely formed. Guitar and rhythm doing what I can only describe as tripping along with extraordinarily filthy noises over them. Unless its some kind of dub of the previous song. Organ Grinder’s Monkey on the Version. It does go through a quite expected silly breakdown/chop up at the end. But a great example of what can be done with a bit of imagination on how to do things. An interesting experimental approach to playing, with a great ear, combining to make something really out of the ordinary.


Nina Kohout starts with heavily affected multitracked vocal, thick and well layered. We fall silent, piano comes in and she sings on, simply and alone. Electronic bass tones well up, and a fairly brutal waltz beat starts. The sound is surprisingly spacious after that heavy start. The next song is deceptively simple with an electric guitar and voice. Followed by something that starts with some deep electronic pulses, and slow dread-full beat. Some nice use of a what sounds like a scrapingly bowed cello sound. The beats pick up, heavy on the toms, intensity ramps, yowling backing vocals add to that. And it rounds off with a nice drop to a spooky ending. The next song is about consent, pretty dark, angry and as it’s new I guess raw. Intense, something of Kate Bush about the way the vocal lines interleaving. After a light break for a middle eight we get some seriously heavy synth riffing, deep and ponderous. The next song is much lighter, starting with vocals of a high thin drone before a piano line comes in. There’s a really nice string synth interlude before things go off at a bit of a tangent with interplay between pre-recorded and live vocals and back to the piano line. The next song is a song for waking up and in Slovakian. Multi-tracked and affected vocals start with drones, and a bass pulse “hah!”, church organ washes and reedy pipe melodies follow with synthetic bird whistles. The final song starts with a plonking marimba pattern, the vocals come in, everything fades briefly then a deranged Latin rhythm starts, with some proper sonic bass. Its almost channelling a gothy Herb Alpert, only without the trumpet.




21st Birthday party

June 2022
The Race Hill

Thanks again to everyone who came to the All day birthday party, we had a brilliant day. Thanks to the artists who came down and without exception played a brilliant set.
Thanks to Abraham, Kassia and Jukes from The Rose Hill for their help and support.

McCloud:

 

Bela Emerson and I’m Dr Buoyant:

 

Distant Animals:

 

R. Dyer:

 

Terror Wogan:

 

Screaming Alice:

 

Rashamon:

 

Dan Powell:

 

Fallow:

 

Dhangsha:

 

Meemo Comma:











An opportunity for reflection

August 2018
Green Door Store

I’m Dr Buoyant

I'm Dr Buoyant

So in front of an animation of a method of straightening a spine twisted by scoliosis Tony Rimbaud aka I’m Dr Buoyant wrestles with his dark looping equipment and tries to distract our slightly perturbed eyes. He starts off with a drone of heavy slow machinery drawn up through a long zinc tunnel, occasionally a slow human moan or stellar slope of thin fuzztone guitar emerges and disappears, before the dark wind takes over. Footsteps come up the tunnel, the two tone riff of the guitar comes back with a jetliner friend. The riff filters out into a horrible thin resonant ghost of itself before Godzilla’s vast footsteps stomp in. Some really nicely detailed trebly grained up drones wash through everything from here with some flying saucer pulses that eventually soar off into a delay loop hammershop crunch. And finally we get washed up with a really nice layered drone that degrades well into a locked groove.


Not for the Suffering Type

Not for the Suffering Type

Iain Paxon & Eleanor Campbell, performing as Not for the Suffering Type, set up on the floor in front of the stage on one of the trestle table covered in a range of keyboards and things, Iain having a bass guitar. Eleanor plays a long descending keyboard part into a looper. Iain plays a bass part, and sings. Eleanor punctuates things with odd sounds. A drum part is written into the Volca beats. It’s wonderfully low key and engaging. Eleanor reads from her book. The bass rolls gently, the noises squirrel around them.


Distant Animals (in a forest of signs)

Distant Animals

Distant Animals (in a forest of signs) finish us off for the evening, with a set of 3 or maybe 4 halves… starting at a mic stand in front of the stage Daniel Alexander Hignell is dressed in a rabbit outfit. This goes on for a while then he peels that off and gets into a worn dinner suit. I don’t think he’s said anything during this time. Nor made a sound. He gets onto the stage left and some business goes on with a cassette player. His accomplice at some stage appears at a chalk board. There are projections based on a camera pointing at the blackboard that feeds back into the main screen. An oddly modulated string part emerges from the cassette. And he makes some odd sounds on some things he has on a table a zither I think. At some stage he gets down of the stage and changes into some NDW type cap sleeved t shirt and things get into a bit of a modular stomp. We then get into an odd bit where the groove goes, and we have the acoustic things getting processed going through a tablet, and the cassettes come back. It’s somewhat confusing, definitely entertaining and if I hadn’t almost immediately gone on holiday I’d be able to remember what I thought it was all about…