November 2017
Green Door Store
I’m Dr Buoyant
I’m Dr Buoyant kicks off the evening sharpish, set up at the side of the stage. He starts in with an uncanny wind, voices lost in the northerlies. It’s frankly terrifying. There are hints of tonalities before razor sharp his edges in to unbalance things for a while. The second piece starts with some modernist string loops on a nicely dissonant figure. This is augmented by some kind of gated phased wash, we get into some serious repetition, displaced slightly by the return of the harsh whine. Everything leaves us apart from the stabs, slowly getting more distorted. The third starts with a murmured conversation heard through a monastery corridor and two oaken doors, it loops and gets caught up in an echo of Tuxedomoon, before being belaboured by that distortion again. The parts circle around each other getting confused & harder to distinguish. Then a jet engine comes along with its orchestra and plays merry havoc and it ends.
Ahtuf Kontrol
Shortly thereafter we have Ahtuf Kontrol, starting with small clean guitar figures and some serious, if occasional bass ramps. They are lacking a dancer, and the trumpet player from the last time they played, but have gained a laptop to go alongside the keys. The bass is joined by sparkles of tones, odd detuning swoops and cascades forming a vast space music. At some stage the bass switches to drone and an odd sequence starts up and we get into some kind of dark Side of the Moon territory. But the rhythm keeps ambushing us with stops and starts, while someone gets messing about on the delays… We switch out of the big sounds for some high synth washes and get back to the pinging guitar and celestial chimes. After that brief respite a one note tonal bass steps up and brings some electric piano and more space (soundwise this time) things happen, then stop happening. What there is detunes, filters and sweeps away. Returns and gets tangled with a flurry of up the neck guitar strangling and we’re back into space for the final segment which hovers somewhere between Tangerine Dream and The Radiophonic Workshop.
The Diamond Family Archive
The Diamond Family Archive all the way up from Devon, not your usual Spirit of Gravity setup, acoustic guitar, drums, hurdy-gurdy, zither. Hidden away are a couple of keyboards and enough effects pedals to keep us happy. We start with a drone, equal parts Casio, guitar, and well, everything really, the drums roll around beaten rather than sticked. Somewhere I’m sure is a buddha box, a scratchy bowed figure is slowly eked out of the murk on the guitar, the drone takes on a bit of a swirl and the guitar goes all Henry Flynt before everything drops away for some singing. Both of them sing. For a while. Then everything comes back slightly different. The guitar gets scratchy and starts to shred a bit sitting on the verge of feedback, a bowed violin loop gives a hint of Cale and the drums get a bit of exercise. And then it drops again for a lengthy bit of call and response over abstract drums and hit string loops, with rattles and bass string buzzes. The second song is called blackbird. It starts with cymbal washes and wiped guitar string loops. The Casio drone is a bit more prominent on this song. At least at first. Some really articulate guitar flourishes get into odd loops while one of them plays the harmonica. More singing! More harmonica! What’s going on. Straight into the final song, that’s what. The drone carries through. An odd funeral rhythm is started and a think modulated unregulated synth sound comes through. A sitar like strike of the string and short burst of guitar feedback are added to the loop. The guitarist rides the feedback with a tremolo for a while. They end singing about horses over soft beater rolls around the toms and the guitar feedback loops. Bloody marvellous.
Motherbox
The Diamond Family Archive all the way up from Devon, not your usual Spirit of Gravity setup, acoustic guitar, drums, hurdy-gurdy, zither. Hidden away are a couple of keyboards and enough effects pedals to keep us happy. We start with a drone, equal parts Casio, guitar, and well, everything really, the drums roll around beaten rather than sticked. Somewhere I’m sure is a buddha box, a scratchy bowed figure is slowly eked out of the murk on the guitar, the drone takes on a bit of a swirl and the guitar goes all Henry Flynt before everything drops away for some singing. Both of them sing. For a while. Then everything comes back slightly different. The guitar gets scratchy and starts to shred a bit sitting on the verge of feedback, a bowed violin loop gives a hint of Cale and the drums get a bit of exercise. And then it drops again for a lengthy bit of call and response over abstract drums and hit string loops, with rattles and bass string buzzes. The second song is called blackbird. It starts with cymbal washes and wiped guitar string loops. The Casio drone is a bit more prominent on this song. At least at first. Some really articulate guitar flourishes get into odd loops while one of them plays the harmonica. More singing! More harmonica! What’s going on. Straight into the final song, that’s what. The drone carries through. An odd funeral rhythm is started and a think modulated unregulated synth sound comes through. A sitar like strike of the string and short burst of guitar feedback are added to the loop. The guitarist rides the feedback with a tremolo for a while. They end singing about horses over soft beater rolls around the toms and the guitar feedback loops. Bloody marvellous.
Renfield is Dan Powell and Geoff Cheesemaster, Dan had his laptop with some Pure Data patches scratching out noises fed through an effects chain while Geoff had a no input mixing desk setup with some old fuzzboxes and a couple of analogue delays feeding off an old noisy Yamaha mixer. Definitely it was one of those things where you’re wondering who the hell is making that sound. Dan’s output was quite digital and grainy, but the effects chain put some analogue spin on that and the two setups merged into a nice mulch of noise. Textural.
Ron Caines and I’m Dr Buoyant started with Colleen-ish chimes looping from Tony and Ron slowly starting in on his soprano sax from the shadows off at the side, the whole thing was rather lovely, aching with melancholy. It took some time in unfolding before Tony got to work on the effects units and it degenerated into something altogether a bit gnarlier, with Ron picking up the Alto and blowing a bit and Tony got into some orchestral rhythm hammering. They then seemed to do a piece based on loops of Ron’s Sax and it all went into an uneasy dreamstate before rounding off in a circular synth sweep with heavily delayed sax resonating feedback washes overlaid. A really good performance from Ron and Tony, possibly their strongest to date. They’re up again at SafeHouse soon.
Chemical Bbrench is Karl Waugh and his mate Felix. Apparently they play annually, but its their first time at The Spirit of Gravity. They had two guitars, two lots of effects chains and all played back through the PA. Literally. Occasionally you can tell a chunk of noise originates in some chirruping fret run or string scrape, but rather than guitar music it was mostly a solid blast of effects chain full throttle overdrive leavened with slow phaser grinds and broken down by low bouts of feedback. The temptation is to think of it as a straight noise set, but listening back, its a lot more nuanced than that, quite textured and with some nice interplay between the two of them. Which isn’t to say that it didn’t have some nice HNW moments. 
I’m Dr Buoyant and Ron Caines have played together a few times now and Tony Rimbaud seems to bring out the best in Ron, giving him the freedom to weave his lines as he wished. At the start Tony started by working on Ron’s sounds, looping and effecting them round. As the set progressed he worked up some more orthodox backing tracks to rumble away under Ron’s improvisations.
Rounding off the evening Tim Holehouse in collaboration with Ashtoreth. Ashtoreth started by burning a great swathe of Sage in a quite alarming manner before getting to work on his acoustic guitar loops. Tim had some doom-y chords going on under that before they both got into some gravelly vocalising and then twin electric guitars sweep up all the loose ends in the looping stations and Ashtoreth gets back to the acoustic guitar for the finale.