Tag: Pawnsphinx

There’s got to be an easier way to get your Five-a-day

Posted on by Spirit of Gravity

August 2014
Back to the Green Door Store in August, and a hat-trick of fine visuals to accompany the usual high quality music this month.

Andrew Greaves

Andrew GreavesAndrew Greaves began with a premiere of his piece for organ, ‘Octabeast’. A rare foray into composition for SoG, this was a massively physical performance, with his swift fingers producing relentless arpeggios, the effort becoming increasingly visible as the piece developed. The overlaying echo, and rhythmic pulse which began to introduce itself, produced a kosmische feel. The accompanying visuals were provided by street photographer Simon Peacock, presented in Andrew’s patent flowing slideshow format, and grounded the experience in a way that more spacey images would have failed to do. Watch out for a photographic exhibition from Simon, with the possibility of further collaborations in store, and you can also find a CD of ‘Octabeast’ at our Bandcamp page at http://spiritofgravity.bandcamp.com/album/octabeast.

[soundcloud url=”https://api.soundcloud.com/tracks/171318887″ params=”color=ff5500″ width=”100%” height=”166″ iframe=”true” /]

Gagarin

GagarinSet to his trademark film of Soviet space footage, Gagarin’s set eased in with ambient washes and picked out keyboard notes, but soon his mode of more delicate physical performance was introduced. Moving as lightly as Fred Astaire, his hands and feet danced across his pads and keys, always a pleasure to witness. Glitch funk recognisable from his Biophilia CD, nicely pulled apart and played around with live, was interspersed with less rhythmic interludes creating a subtle and nuanced set. The visuals developed into a more abstract, washed out style as things continued, closing with a more robust beat-driven sequence.

[soundcloud url=”https://api.soundcloud.com/tracks/171319040″ params=”color=ff5500″ width=”100%” height=”166″ iframe=”true” /]

Pawnsphinx

PawnsphinxThe professionalism of Pawnsphinx’ musical presentation apparently caused some confusion, with some mistaking his set of original pieces for a DJ set. Muscular beats emerged from his laptop, bouncing well-developed drum and synth pads around the venue. He also shared with a bemused audience the bizarre video art of Matthew Barney, from his Cremaster cycle (www.cremaster.net/). This involved two identical women stealing grapes through a tablecloth from a load of air stewardesses in two blimps, with the stolen fruit defining the choreography of a Busby Berkeley-style dance troupe on an American football pitch below – no, I wouldn’t believe me either. Possibly a bit too distracting to make the most of the sounds developing, but Ben was given leave to continue past our normal curfew time to provide something of an SoG rave-up to finish the evening.

[soundcloud url=”https://api.soundcloud.com/tracks/173462819″ params=”color=ff5500″ width=”100%” height=”166″ iframe=”true” /]

Either he’s bigger than he looks, or that’s not quite a trombone

Posted on by admin

Full marks for dedication on two counts this month.

Birds of Death Valley

Some whistles on the recorder, shortwave radio bursts and abstract block sounds, give way to sustained chords swelling over a gentle reverse hi-hat and plucked strings. It evolves gently, chiming and ringing, odd whistles Wasp buzzes synthetic drones layering away, until a slide trumpet player heaves swelling onto the stage to duet with echoed recorder for “The Cruel Landlady”… things continue to shimmer under the sustained trumpet notes, with a round of the songs chorus slowly rotating under the final gentle squalls of songs fade until a rather harsh stomp of four to the floor comes thumping martially in with some bass oomph and sonic wibble pays a little visit.

Pawnsphinx

Carrying on with the ringing resonant tones, Pawnsphinx, on the first stage of his honeymoon, gave a more formed and focussed set, less whimsical as befits something based on Dostoevsky but strangely sympathetic in the way it followed on till disrupted by a heavy bell-ish thump that seemed to emerge from some devilish rave memory initiating a freefall beat that really seemed to disrupt the dynamics more that drive them. It all got very ominous with creaking doors and unpleasant chords before some unlikely wobbling bass reminded us it is the 21st Century after all. Some Detroit beats led us on via throat singing and some cockney swearing on to the finale with some excellent detailed snare and rhythm patterns that took me right back to the heady days of Instrumentality.

Karl M. Waugh

In the absence of Chloe, who was laid up with a cold that had been conspiring with the unseasonal snow to rob us of as much of our regular audience as possible, the Zero Map gave way to a solo set by Karl M V Waugh. On guitar. For a full half hour. Which was really exceptional and may be one of the best things I’ve seen Karl do. Starting off with a cascade of scrapes before some clean endless echoing picked chords came through. He managed to avoid being too close sound-wise to The Durutti Column, my default mental state for clean guitar, due to some interesting eastern intervals. Something more like Dick Dale’s more thoughtful homages to his ethnicity. Having kept it clean for the majority of the set Karl eventually gave in and let rip with some max noise over-strumming, which still managed to maintain the context of what he’d been doing up to that point. Very tasty.