Tag: Meljoann

Yew hadda bee fare

Posted on by Spirit of Gravity

December 2025
The Rossi Bar

I’ve been kinda putting off reviewing this one. We squeezed in four sets, two of which were performances by Henry Collins and Chase Coley that bookended the night. Both of these were very visual, multi-media and are going to be a bit tricky to describe….

So we started the evening with Hyacinth Bucket and the magical testicle filled with thousands of bumble bees and the essence of creation. There is onstage a huge magical testicle, pink, a film starts with the back story and then Hyacinth Bucket herself appears onscreen and narrates the tale. Chase enacts the part of the shepherd and wanders around the room. And then approaches the magical testicle, and enters, skronking and plonking ensues. The testicle throbs. About ten minutes in The Bumble Bees are summoned. After a little longer angelic voices and a nearly naked Chase covered in magical symbols emerges from the testicle followed by Henry in a red dress coat and they gaze adoringly at the heavens.

Next up, with the tricky task of following that we had Meljoann set up at the side of the stage where she usually VJs. starting with a 4 to the floor kick, and quickly morphing through a variety of beats with a monster boinging kick sound, repetitive vocalisation stabs Meljoann goes for the extreme opposite of HBATMT.. Repetition, minimalism, looping back and forth, then dropping out down to a tiny pinging riff, and then she drops massive explosions onto it before bringing in some kind of truncated D’n’B drum track. Then a fidgeting bassline clambers all over that, before the rhythm track drop back to something possibly a little more techno, thickening up briefly into some kind of gurgly soup before a weird R’n’B drop takes into a pulverising one beat then something that I can only describe as doo-wop – which is a massive misdirection – reminiscent of the heady days when hardcore could go in all directions and often did. A fidgety drum track takes us out under some Prince-like synth drones to end.

Then we had Luuma, a beast of a modular setup, with a laptop and some other devices. It starts with a thick buzzing drone and some feedback whistling. A wind of distortion threads through, there’s a hint of a scraping sound cycling away in the background, the drone starts to blister and bubble. The drone drops away into sustained balloon squeaking, its evil stuff, that starts to burble away until it drops into some kind of square wave LFO thing. That speeds and slows and gets into a bit of squelchy territory before morphing into a different more aeroplane-y drone. This continues for a while before upending in a squall of nasty electronic sounds that skitter about in a radiophonic manner before filtering down to a murky storm. Some giants start arguing over a didgeridoo in a room in the distance. Chris has a big wooden home-made drone instrument, this looks like a didge, but has a single string and some electronics. He rasps at it with a bow (in another life Chris is a talented cellist) setting up layers of harmonics and buzzing before getting into some free improv scratching. It feels like the giants are in torment now. Then he starts some sustained bowing getting thick heavy drones, before thinning it out into streamers of sustained tone based around harmonic standing waves on the string, then thickens this right up into a tasty storm to end.

And to end the night its Chase and Henry again, filling the stage with clutter – old CRT portable TV, tables, home-made bits and pieces, cassette player, cymbal, TV aerial… whatever. This was the dangerous end of the evening.

The set started with a fat drone, sourced by pressing an electric screwdriver chassis into the stage making it resonate. Chase enters the stage barefoot and starts getting white noise out of the radio. I can hear the wind coming from somewhere. Henry comes onstage also barefoot and opens a big pot of drawing pins and slowly sprinkles onto a contact miked piece of metal. Chase needs to move and realises that the stage is now very effectively booby-trapped. He picks up the waterphone and tiptoeing across the stage starts bowing it, wrenching high pitched drones, Henry starts scrumpling a cellophane octopus. Chase gets a reverb-y warbling undertone out of the waterphone. He gongs it as well. Henry seems to dismantle the octopus and gets the active noisy element out and continues with the crumpling as Chase gets back onto the radio. Henry gets into a fight with a Middle Eastern horn. Chase starts bowing a big square sheet of steel, while Henry starts rummaging drumsticks on and then around a large steel bin. This sheets more vigorous drumsticks flying around the stage, until the large steel tape measure comes out – Henry reels out about 5 feet of it and starts whipping it about the stage – it’s a nice white source of static bursts, but a little terrifying as zooms around the stage – especially when reversed and the tape holder starts clobbering the objects littering the stage. And getting further afield, Chase gets the screwdriver back to work. The tape measure holder is by now whirling around above the audience’s heads. Chase starts droning the metal bin building up to gong-like crescendos and Henry winds down into cymballic pings off something. Henry leads the audience into a slow plodding stamp that slowly fades out to end.




Circulatory somnambulism

Posted on by Spirit of Gravity

August 2024
The Rossi Bar

Marienbad
Someone in the audience described them as like being tuned into every radio station in the world at once. It certainly starts with a static-y screechy pulsating loop, dial spinning shortwave blasts of voice and tumbling notes. There’s a constant shift, one second glitching repetition , the next a spool spinning churn through the entire universe. And just as you’re used to that they’ll settle on something, letting it run for a while doing its thing – whatever that is – before disrupting it with squeaks or burbles or a shard of noise, a spurt of tone. It all sounds very tape based but is in fact sourced off a laptop. There’s even a short burst of “The BBC has shut down” sinusoidal tone, which they are far too young to actually know first hand. For a brief period we actually have a rhythm, a pseudo repeating pattern of bass drum, beep and grind. The set ends with a call to revolution.

MelJoann
Plays another intricately arranged AV set, integrating inspirational videos from her Mustics wellness cult into backing video for the songs. She also plays a keytar for part of the set. The songs are a mix from her past centring around “Assfuck the boss” from her first album “HR”, we’ve got a couple from the as yet unreleased new album. The second Mustics break channels the 80s adverts from the Sigue Sigue Sputnick album really nicely (the drum sounds and stabs are amazing). Mel looked confused when I mentioned this. Anyway if you haven’t seen MelJoanns disturbing RnB nightmare of modern life I really can’t describe it – I’ve tried and failed the last two times she played – watch the video.

Simon Pyke – Four Flex
Interesting software, it would have been good to have this displayed on the projector. Not Ableton, that’s for sure. Before his set he has something odd just shifting about in the air for about 15 minutes. Then his set proper starts. Beats, 4/4. Loops as texture, wind whistling witters. An odd take on techno, based on repeating sounds and textures: field recordings, tones, delays. Clatters in vast rooms. Vamps. La Dusseldorf in a new context. Some interesting use of pure sounds being wiped around the ears. The beat is front and centre, but there’s some really odd things going on around that, then you get some “nice” keyboard parts that distract you from the odd choirs, and tortured sea-life. The white noise slurs, and peculiar bass tonalities.



Wiring not Driving

Posted on by Spirit of Gravity

January 2022
The Rossi Bar

As usual all plans are provisional, so our last minute lineup change had Astral Engineering step up at the 11th hour. Excellent news. I’ve been enjoying the CD from 2020 over lockdown. Starting with a nice fat multi-layered drone to settle us down before hoofing off into a nicely spatial arpeggio with odd spinning tones and occasional bass line part. A detuned string synth melodic line wanders in before we segue nicely into the next piece. Slightly more insistent drums, and some piano that gives the impression of a space waltz without actually being one. Another creepy melody stalks this one. The next tune starts with a gated shimmer, joined by a staggered synth line and loping bass drum. It all gives way to an ascending synth line; and a key change that leads us off into the space bassline of the next tune. Occasional small craft whirr past us as space drones, the bass line gets some subtle filter work before some proper acid squelch activity occurs on it; this one could easily be 20 minutes long if I had my way. A white noise snare indicates the arrival of the final track with a clockwork hi-hat. The unfolding synth sounds like a CZ101 and we get a proper rolling bassline. It sounds almost like a played bass guitar at times, the way it seems to stand and then roll back into life.
Hear more from Astral Engineering on his BandCamp site: astralengineering.bandcamp.com/

Its Iplu’s first live show ever. He doesn’t seem nervous. His set starts with some field recordings, some subtle processing, some layering. It’s a little bit crunchy; gritty even in places. Some electronic whirps and understated uneasy drone. It’s not a drone it shifts slightly into discernibility, some tones, resonance. Having heard him speak, unlike most of the audience, I can hear his filtered voice amongst the ducks and tea-making. As the field recordings start to get busier the effects get less prominent, glass bells with a hint of something, and then it’s all tuned delay, hints of feedback loops, clanking. After about 15 minutes a glitched up beat starts, cd stammers and winds. A rhythm brings us out of our reveries. Its again heavily processed, I feel my head being slapped by it. Before it gets overwritten by a slow pad melody, some squelches eventually join and an LFO lifted bassline ebbs and flows. The final piece starts with reverbed bass notes on a piano, an occasional interspersed upper register note, a busy percussion part starts in, working around the high notes. A much busier high synth riff provides some melodic colour before we get a drop for some work on the percussion and it plays out with a slow build-up of parts counterpointing the synth melody before the drums are back for a fairly emotional climax.

Due to the lack of the regular sound engineer Meljoann’s vocals are a little low in the mix due to feedback issues, which robs is of some of that pleasure, but means we can revel in the joy of her backing tracks. She starts with her guitar strapped on. She starts with her customary “I hope everyone likes RnB”, before the backing track kicks in and she starts getting into some fretwork, the vocals are desperate. The bass is super fat and envelopes us, the drums thwack like benny hill swatting that bald bloke. It’s a fully warped sound, Jam & Lewis run amok with a PC producer. The second track eases up on the density for “Assf*ck the boss” an ode to the ways of call centre life. We get straight back into the high density and higher tempo for the next track “Trophy Wife” , this one comes on like a deranged mid 80s BoysTown banger with layers of resignation and an urgency of fidgeting trebly stabbing synths over another monstrous bass. Then we get a break with a word from The Mustics corporation, Meljoanns sponsor. I haven’t mentioned any visuals yet, Meljoann supplies her own, with advert breaks.
She has her own mythology, it’s worth checking out her videos on YouTube, you get a whole stream of life improvement videos from the Mustics Corp as well as well as her own more orthodox, but equally disturbing videos for the songs, anyway back to the set. The next track comes on like Prince wrestling a sea-serpent bass, occasionally the whole thing gets overwhelmed by a circling detuning queasiness inducing synth.
We get the second ad break, the Mustics representative staring malevolently at us while delivering her platitudes. The tempo goes right down for the ballad “I quit”, a two-note bassline, ghost synths, a heartful vocal and a stirring guitar solo. With proper posing. The final track “Business Card” starts with a bassline full of static, Gameboy beeps and really defies description once it starts, nothing sounds quite right, layers build and overwhelm us. It could really do with being VERY LOUD.

Apart from Meljoann whose visuals are an integral part of her set, the excellent visuals are from Chris midi_error, as we’ve quickly become accustomed to.

Ghosts

Posted on by Spirit of Gravity

March 2020
The Rossi Bar

We’re posting this now, a review of the last Show before Lockdown. It all seems strange now, being in the same room as friends and strangers. Enjoying people making music in the room, playing from their hearts into ours without the mediation of the internet. Writing this is partly a reminder to myself of what life was like a few weeks ago…

 

Ascsoms

So first up was Ascsoms, Adam, and a small table of kit. A bouncing word in a swirl of space delay starts the set, followed up by fatly quiet drone. He says something that’s distorted to hell into a munging delay, as space crickets and odd burbles get in on the act. A distant pair of notes as if played on a Mississippi bridge loop ominously, as we get odd foregrounded sounds like creatures of the river bank scurrying about their business. We get into a more industrial soundspace, like finding a vast working quarry in the middle of the downs. Giant Gerry Anderson machines slowly grinding their way round its circumference. We’re past, we can still hear the bridges in the distance, cyclists and door chimes, uncanny wildlife. This idyllic landscape becomes subtly more intense until it’s overwhelming. We go under a bridge where some pretty serious welding is occurring before getting into new, more tonal, country. A 3 tone beeping riff starts up, tape spooling, slowly denuded by a scouring wind bringing swarms. Finally we find some piece in some kind of saturnine lagoon. This was definitely a journey.

Meljoann

Second up was Meljoann. Mel, office ready, with laptop and recorder. I don’t have a recording of this set so my review will be light on details, sadly as it deserves them. Mel lured us in with her deceptive pop like charm, modern beats and shiny electro surface sheen but as with all our song based artists, she takes the songs off to strange places, amping up the energy levels with some rattling drums and extraordinary bass. I also get tricked by the brevity of her set and only get one song videoed. Its brilliant stuff, and we ask her back, but she’s done. You should have a look at her office life themed videos and feel nostalgic… www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLhUrDac40s-VNUDMVVJYucqcqPKHchme2

Bela Emerson and Hervé Perez

And to round off the evening we had the return of Bela Emerson in a duo with Hervé Perez.  Bela on electric cello and electronics, and Hervé on laptop, electronics and occasional sax.  They start with Bela looping up a scouring edge of the bow on the cello strings and a nice edge of feedback drone, Hervé providing field recordings of birds in an electronic murmuration that swings in and out of sonic sight. He then brings in his first saxophone intervention. Flurries of notes, that Bela responds to, the birds swirl about too, before everything levels out in drawn out tones against an itching cello loop that drops away leaving the saxophone taking on electronic tones against a drone. Bela brings up a cello line and the sax drops away completely leaving her to slowly layer up an evolving that imperceptibly transforms into Hervé taking it on. I think this is the point at which Bela sat back with that smile of “this is why I love improvising” she takes back the line and passes it on again it a slow back on forth of stunning spontaneous composition. We move on, with Bela taking a slow bass line against bird song and smoky midnight sax. There is a hint of electronic manipulation from Hervé as he plays. After sitting back for a while Bela brings in a disarming cello loop of high frequency tremulous drone. Hervé octaves his sax against that to build the unnerving atmosphere some more. Bela contributes a bassline. And after an exchange of flurries from Hervé and an electronically mutated version of himself, Bela worries away at a bass string and the birds quietly return.  Hervé playing quiet high pitched bursts of notes, it rains, an odd 3 note trebly cello riff loops, Bela plays a slow line almost a drone it moves so slowly, Hervé’s electronics moving slowly round it, an accidental squeak gets into the looper and fades slowly away to smiles, an almost crystalline thin feedback line takes us slowly and beautifully to the end.

I think it was quite a show to take us into the current situation. It was our first night with visuals by midi-error, we were projecting onto the black curtain, which gave things a nicely subtle effect, but means you can’t fully appreciate them in the photographs and video.

https://www.youtube.com/embed/QmvOPExkf-M https://www.youtube.com/embed/_iMR7VMsna0 https://www.youtube.com/embed/eepHx1tZM74 https://www.youtube.com/embed/5kIIy7UvLrk https://www.youtube.com/embed/tAobyK-DH3o https://www.youtube.com/embed/OzcY-W3Y3d0