June 2026
The Rossi Bar
Marçal Xirau is set up in near darkness, no visuals, no stage lights, just the leaks from upstairs and emergency exit signs. He has a laptop and controller and is wearing headphones…. His set starts with heavily reverbed tuned percussive sounds playing a melodic part surrounded by swirls of feedbacking delay and the sea. It comes in surges, with hesitations between each wave. A sweeping electronic tone levels out the tidal attack, and we dip into a maelstrom of bass-y noise. This fades to reverb-y scrapes and voices, distant grinding slowly rolls up and we have gentle guitar strumming. A Theremin sound accompanies it. Marçal plays with delay on the voices abstracting them to chugging flurries. Ominous bass tones loom underneath and fade away. Then suddenly a blast of bass, a white noise snare rattles, and we get a syncopated squelchy bassline and mid-tempo half speed beat. Another flurry of snare, then a whirlpool of delay sucks everything in and we’re left with a chiming melody and shivering backing. It all gets a bit ‘disturbing fairground’ for a while and then it’s a subtle 4 to the floor kick and the general ambience is slightly spooky 60s library music. A sine bass, breaks this mood immediately followed by a slow pitch shifting rave bass. Then it’s back to the kick, and wordless vocals. It all gets a bit glitch-y to end that piece and we get a backwards something that builds into the next section. Zither continues the 60s feel, then we get into blissed out ambience, circling shiny drones, skittering pulses, full melodic string sounds, we get a bit of this before the bass drops, well into the subs. Tasty. It lumbers through the lower registers, head nodding. There’s some distant reverb machine drums working with the bass before it drops out again. The next segment starts with heartbeat bass drum, rattling hi hats alternating with snares, over this a nice layer of drones that modulate in and out of just raw enough sounds to keep it interesting. Occasional pulsations of bass. It thickens up; buzzes, whirls, bass whooshes then it’s down to a rumble for the final section. Percussive piano notes feed into delay shimmers, synth tones enhance. It’s the soundtrack to a beautiful, slow and slightly bewildering Science Fiction film, probably Russian.
Lekemo is second off the mark, his only kit a teenage engineering synth on a music stand in front of him. “Die Pig Die”, large bass, dubbed ticking drums, stabbing hits of tonal snare. Head-nodding tempo, a constantly shifting mix. Ah, this stab has turned into a sub, there’s a warble, the drums have gone. It’s all gone a bit ominous. 3 minutes, new track, buzzing relentless bass, dustbin drums, vocal jabber offbeat. A breakdown like someone’s broken into your set and tipped everything over. And then back to the pounding, and now just the bass and back to the pounding. There’s too much movement here and short tracks, the next has a sonar pinging top line and bassline like someone ripping your eardrums with a sharpened cardboard box. The breakdowns partially resurrect Mark Stewart before hurriedly burying him away again. The next track has a digitally corrupt voice and some super sub bass, a two note buzz and slightly slower tempo. This one has a slurred bass line tracked by a distant container lorry and a melody line from a whistling jet fighter screaming overhead. This one comes in at gabber tempos , but the kick seems melodic, over it a chuntering metal guitar riff. Another is layers of “I will be president for many, many years to come” an anvil hit, “ya sexist shit”, buzzing and throbbing. Tasty. Generally it’s fast moving short blasts of electronic filth irrupting from mild mannered Lee and his tiny, shiny synth. High energy bass murk with lots of rasping and buzzing.
The last act of the evening is Leifert, originally from somewhere mysteriously European, now resident in the north of England. They are set up on stage with vocals, a laptop, a Theremin and a rather lovely old chrome plated synthesiser I’ve never seen anyone else use. Lots of pots. Lots. Enough fetishising old kit, I hear you say – especially if you’re not going to supply any details, get on with the description. Their set starts with a shimmer and spooky piano, the shimmer goes outwards into phased drones and strobed jitters and then evaporates into multi-pitched distant voice and walking synth bass. The next goes into detuned falling burbles and lop-sided fat bass with syncopating drums. The vocals mention Monte Carlo, but this isn’t space age pop. There’s some nice naturalistic programming to the drum track – is that a pressed roll? They roll into the next track, that synth bass again, and nice pinging metallic sounds for the melody line. Some nice pitch bending beeps reinforce the vocal line; deadpan and wry. Some shimmer and the Theremin gets some action as we go into another track that starts with a big On/Off bass with a sequence that bounces around it in a variety of voices and a cat growl gnarling away in the background. The Theremin overlaps into the next track that starts with a bouncy bass, and swerving synth whirrs. The old synth gets a workout, with some nice filter work, bouncing off a 4 beat kick drum. The wordless vocals providing a drone like presence, the drums drop away for a lengthy breakdown on a pinging sound that filters through every kind of weird noise that the multi knobbed synth can give us – from bell-like clarity to slurred zushes, and grating pings. The next track starts with an alarming pitch bending bassline and gargling male voice. Switching back to Mia’s vocal it carries on alternating throughout There’s an insistent synth riff working away and a bee buzz fizzing around. There is some frenzied rhythm in the next track before we get into creeper mode with a stalking bass and drums, detuning drones and distant vocals and a key change for the chorus. It all nicely ends in fizzing.
