Nocturnal emissions

For Email Members: www.spiritofgravity.com email: info@spiritofgravity.com

GRAVITATIONAL PULL

Dispatches from the Spirit of Gravity / Edition 74 / November 08

·         Happenings:

Next Spirit of Gravity gig:        Saturday 8th November

Spirit of Gravity presents

WAXED APPLE / PASSIONDALE / CONCRETE BELLY

The Komedia Studio Bar, 44-47 Gardner Street, Brighton, BN1 1UN
Time 8:30 - 11:00 Cost £5/£3

Waxed Apple
Returning from self imposed exile in east Berlin (I thought it was Southampton?) to perform a new set of feedback drenched motorik synth punk.

Passiondale
Relentless rising groovescapes, uncomfortable samples, bleeping toms, shimmering guitar work and distorted howling.

Concrete Belly
Industrial, ambient, noise rock: Concrete Belly wears a furry suit, and uses circuit bent toys, drum machines, guitars.

Hosted by our very own 'Laptop' Lee Hume
live interactive visuals by _minimalVector

For details of future Spirit of Gravity events, go to www.spiritofgravity.com/.
We have video and audio on the Spirit of Gravity mp3 blog from all our recent shows at spiritofgravity-brighton.blogspot.com/
There are other videos on the Spirit of Gravity MySpace page at www.myspace.com/thespiritofgravity
There are also downloads available of some complete Spirit of Gravity sets at www.archive.org/details/the-spirit-of-gravity
There are now also some of _minimalVector’s films featuring Spirit of Gravity acts and guests at the Vimeo HDTV page
www.vimeo.com/thespiritofgravity

Also this month…..

Mon. 17th November 8.30pm doors / 9pm start

CMN TOUR: MURCOF with group instrumental bcn216 & visuals + OREN MARSHALL
Duke of York’s Picturehouse, Preston Circus, Brighton
Tickets: £9adv. / £10 on the door: Available from Duke of York's Box Office: 0871 704 2056 / Rounder Records: 01273 325440 / Resident: 01273 606312 / TicketWeb: www.ticketweb.co.uk

Tijuana’s Fernando Corona, aka Murcof, is still willing to take techno to new frontiers. Using orchestral instruments and sparse micro-beats, avant-garde composition and sub-bass drones, church organ tones with Orbital-style blips his sound ranges from barely audible to furniture-shakingly loud.
This is a dream opportunity to hear Murcof's distinctive hybrid of carefully measured electronics, accompanied for the first time by live string and brass players in a synchronised visual environment. The Flicker project evokes elemental forces, and the visuals for Océano will be created live each night using smoke, water and dust along with infrared cameras and digital alchemy.
"At the Greenwich Planetarium last October, leaning back in my seat and gawping at the extraordinary morphing graphics on the concave ceiling, I felt more like Bowman speeding through the Star Gate in 2001: A Space Odyssey” The Guardian (on Murcof at Greenwich Planetarium, 2007)
"The most thrillingly out-there, transcendentally bewitching and metaphysically mind-warping trip" Time Out
www.murcof.com
www.myspace.com/slowfootrecords

·                     Reviewings:

Spirit of Gravity at Night-time Fixations, the Phoenix Gallery, Brighton Saturday 25 October

Night-time Fixations, part of the cross-Brighton “White nights” all night festival, was amazing, being in a building with so much going on in a town awake all night with people going from strange event to strange event was brilliant.

We had a room in The Phoenix Gallery with 3 projectors set up and a small PA with members of the collective plus a few others.

Briefly: ElMaes (with a guest appearance from Chris Cook before his featured set at the Unitarian Church), Steve’s Boutique (2 performances from), Nyx, I’m Dr Buoyant, Noteherder & McCloud, HRT, Slash’s Wormhole, Stu “Dizzy Tiger” Huggett, Henry Collins and Lizzie, Chris Cook and Camilo (a tabla player), and wrapping it all up, The WrongSog Safesnyx (an open session with anyone that was still around from about 4:30 until the end, and no requests were performed).

There will be a longer piece on this at the SogBlog with video, pictures, and if I can get the editing, done some audio.

Spirit of Gravity at the Komedia Theatre Bar, Brighton, Wednesday 29 October

What a night this was, it was nice to able to play at a reasonable volume, plus such a great show.

Starting off with a Bass Off improv session from Slash’s Wormhole (Henry Collins new bass hoover project) and DJScotchEgg on SH101, a subsonic rumbling of slowly rotating synthesiser with clangorous bass notes from the hoover. The hoover itself deserves describing, but I think its beyond me, suffice to say its worn round the neck bass guitar style and has 2 strings. The slow climax came with the hoover switched on and making the string scream and scrape. Incredible.

Somewhere along the line between Hasil Adkins and Foetus rockabilly had a baby and it was The Meat Sweats. A man in a pig mask plays bent toys while his companion in a lab coat has a laptop. Out on the floor we have a front man (yes I know, its all go isn’t it?) screaming and running around. The songs are short sweaty and noisy, ripping up jagged 12 bars and busting them against your head: very funny. And a little disturbing.

For once we didn’t really need the _minimalVector visuals, but they were rather good pastel blocks morphing about.

DJScotchEgg held the pivotal point of the night and returned us to the sonic texture side of things in front of a backdrop that put me in mind of Miles Davis’ “Sketches of Spain”. As well as the traditional Japanese GameBoy, Shige also had the SH101 and a number of small boxes. Building up a somewhat less assaulting performance than we may be used to, this was sonically rich and deep with odd flourishes of beats and distortion. A special and quite marvellous set. I’ll be getting some of this onto the SogBlog as soon as I can.

Then continuing our zigzag of an evening we had the return of Shitmat to the home that bred him. Against a TV interference pattern of candy stripes Henry loomed and looned, battering through some breakcore classics, refusing a rewind, but with plenty of fastforwards he was on top form crowning his set with a foreshortened “Ellesse Warrior”.

It was also great to revisit the Electro-creche where people bring in toys and keyboards to provide impromptu entertainment between acts. So much better than playing CD’s.

Yours as ever

El Maestro Con Queso

Editor.


Gravitational Pull is the official newsletter of The Spirit of Gravity Collective, though the opinions expressed herein are not necessarily those of the Collective. Your email address will not be passed on to any organisation outside of The Spirit of Gravity Collective. If you wish to unsubscribe to this mailing service please contact: info@spiritofgravity.co.uk