For
Email Members: www.spiritofgravity.com
email: info@spiritofgravity.com
GRAVITATIONAL
PULL
Dispatches
from the Spirit of Gravity / Edition 89 / February 10
·
Happenings:
Next Spirit of Gravity gig: Thursday 11th February 2010
BOLIDE
/ PLURALS / BEATABET
The
Komedia Studio Bar, 44-47 Gardner Street,
Brighton, BN1 1UN
Time
8:30 - 11:00 Cost £5 / £4
Bolide
"The
sound of six drunk tramps wrestling in the instrument storage room"
Plurals
"Muted
Howl and Babble."
Beatabet
"Brighton
based Francophone freakout”
Bolide
Bolide
is an electro-acoustic improvising sextet, formed in Brighton, UK, in
2007.
"Gonzo free music and guerrilla jazz from this drug and ale gorged
Brighton sextet. A lot of reeds, tapes, percussion, vocal hollerin'
and the likes all captured in mysterious
crud-fidelity. Come and enjoy this unseasoned brew."
Dylan Nyoukis of
Chocolate Monk on 'The Authority of Omar.'
"Bolide Awkwardstra
are either an acquired taste or a psilocybin victims' self-help group
with a penchant for Free Jazz and novelty ethnic instruments ... or
possibly both. They deliver ... flow-of-consciousness musical blather
that sounds like six drunk tramps wrestling
in the instrument storage room of a folk all-dayer."
www.rock-metal-music-reviews.com.
"As a launching pad to tomorrow, free jazz remains one of the most
potent, if hermetic, of conceptual formulas due to its foregrounding of
the spontaneous, its focus on exploration as opposed to mere tourism. In
recent years players from the more traditionally omnivorous disciplines
of drone, psychedelia and noise music have
combined to broker a rapprochement with the form, mostly focussed on its
harnessing of energy as a structural solvent - groups like Michigan's
Graveyards, New York's Owl Xounds, Brighton's
Bolide Awkwardstra."
David Keenan, The Wire, November 2008.
Plurals
is a collection of artists from various bands and solo projects (The
Psyche Out Musikland
Big Band, Duncan Harrison, Ekca Liena,
Me With Others...) who together form an expansive ambient drone / noise
group. Multi-layered keyboards, guitars, vocals and more come together
in pieces that cover lush ambience, dark and sinister noise and tripped
out psychedelics.
Plurals self-release music, but also feature / will feature on such
labels as Dead Sea Liner, Under The Spire and
Dead Pilot Records.
From a review of 'Half Reality':
"Mining similar subterranean, subconscious territory as Double
Leopards, Plurals delivers somewhat uniquely muted howl and babble on
this very limited release from the UK's Dead Sea Liner imprint. These
are two nocturnal drones, evocative of foggy nautical disasters full of
protracted drownings, conjuring tragic and
gory nightmares. Apparitional voices fade in and out of the psychedelic
feedback miasma (electronics? guitar?) lending the bedrock of distant
crashes, the foundation of the more ephemeral tones, a mortifying feel
to these primarily simple but drenched and saturated gurgles and moans. Alternatingly
blissful and morose, Plurals is not exactly singular, but they do
satisfy the urge to slowly sink into a blissful wave of underwater white
light and disappear forever."
7/10 - P. Somniferum (30 June, 2009)
Beatabet
Beatabet
are a Brighton based collective of musicians and artists with strong
ties to France, they encompass human beatboxers,
ARP drivers, guitarists and video artists and will be drawing on the
full breadth of their membership for this special occasion. We've been
waiting a long time to put these people on.
Hosted
by our very own 'Laptop' Lee Hume
Visuals by _minimalVector
There
will be the elektrocreche available
for any unaccompanied toys who will be looked
after during the intervals by our professionally trained team of
volunteers. And anybody else that wants to bring along a sound toy to
play with.
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
We
now have a Facebook group where you can be
kept up to date with shows and information:
www.facebook.com/home.php?ref=home#/group.php?gid=75568366205
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
·
Greetings:
The
Spirit of Gravity is sending a quartet out to join up with Amazon label debutees
4 thirtythree for one of their series of
shows at The Open House. We'll be playing on the 17th
February, along with 4thirty three and Gus Garside and Dan Powell, also
some joint venture between members of all three acts will be playing
together. The SoG Q4 line-up at the time of
going to press is Tony Rimbaud, Nick Rilke,
McCloud, Derek (Komuso) Thompson and Steve
minimal impact. Admission is very cheap (£3/£2) and on the door.
I'm
pleased to say we've updated the MySpace
page for once and put up some recordings of last months top quality Elektrocreche.
Also
this month:
Random
Fridays at the De La Warr Pavilion
Friday, 12
February 2010
Time 19:00 - 23:00 Cost FREE
Don't expect four to the floor kick drums.
This is more electro... well, actually more like amplified electro
magnetic radiation...
House Music, inspired by the 1970's electro-acoustic work of David Tudor
and John Cage, is a new installation by Matt Watkins (www.beat13.co.uk
) and Caleb Madden (www.spiritofgravity.co.uk
).
The unheard noise is captured using magnetic pickup coils and tiny
homemade microphones.
These hums, blips and squeals are processed and played back through
household items such as bedsprings and strip lights. Using transducers
to shake the objects as if they were actually speaker cones, 'House
Music' reveals the surprising and un-nerving sonic footprint of everyday
furniture.
The piece also features, amongst other equally intriguing audio ephemera
of the modern dwelling: obsolete games consoles creating video feedback,
broken LCD screens pushed into slide projectors, embroidery, and mobile
phone resonance stations...
·
Reviewings
Spirit
of Gravity
at the Komedia Studio Bar, Brighton,
Wednesday 14th January
2010
Nathaniel
Virgo
stepped up first, a firm stance with a firm grip on two (rather than
twin) joysticks controlling a SuperCollidor
session running on a laptop off to the side of the stage. Nathaniel is
wearing a velvet greatcoat and bow tie. The sound is unrefined werbles
and beeps - a flick of the wrist giving shape - a twist of the other
hand transforming it. A
shudder of delayed noise mutates into a clanger moon and filtering out
of the fizz comes a booming break, the hand action letting it slip and
reining it back under perfect control while morse
communications stutter overhead.
Thomas
Hiltz
returned for their second show at the Spirit of Gravity (third if you
count their half of MSG nearly a year ago). Dave Tribe on bass, FX and
rhythms (something new since last time) and Richard Miles on guitar and fx.
The rhythms beep as well as beat in manner reminiscent of the Virgin
Prunes locked in by the Tackhead soundsystem
(Dave’s the first bass player I've seen use his thumb since Doug Wimbish's
heyday) and the guitar is sustained and soars thereminically
through the pulses from the Music Man bass, there is structure but it
feels free ranging and earns us our first encore of the year.
Finally
we have AKDK, Gee and Ed on
drums and synthesisers (both). We start with an sirens crying and piping
drones before SH101 sequence bass bounce, and with washes all Cluster-ish
and space born before one set of drums start and then both, and we get
into a groove, which breaks down, AK laughs at DK, things get harsher
and mellower we have a drum solo (that’s definitely a first) and some
hardcore buzzes, and clean radiophonic
sounds reminding me of John Baker, before it grinds to a halt.
“We'd
like to do a tribute to electronic music pioneer Raymond Scott”.
Now
them’s words to warm the cockles of my
heart. They did him proud too, a drumless
mid-range pulser with proper tunefulness
echo and quirk. After that what could we do but bring them back with an
excellent Casio bass driven final number.
Marvellous.
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