Club Silencio nov 2010

Adam Lygo presents the fourth installment of his Club Silencio events at Brighton's Coachwerks venue on the 4th of November 2010.

Participants this time around include Lygo himself, HRT, Anthony Murphy trio, Euphonious Murmur Blend, Slow Listener, Duncan Harrison, Buick Lygo, Louise Baker...

Simon Whetham & Paul Khimasia Morgan

SIMON WHETHAM & PAUL KHIMASIA MORGAN - THE GREY AREA (CDR by Con-V)

Before Con-V already released a MP3 by Simon Whetham (who is these days a lot in these pages) in collaboration with one Paul Khimasia Morgan. That was a live recording, which they liked very much, so they decided to return to the Grey Area Gallery when Whetham was back in Brighton. I am not sure what Paul brought to the table, but Whetham uses field recordings, radio transmissions and electro magnetic signals. The music is all quite softly recorded, so I had to put the volume quite a bit. I am not sure if its really necessary to do such thing this soft. But once you put the level up a bit, then you'll find some interesting improvised bits and pieces of indeed a grey area where improvised electronics, microsound buzz and humm and processed (?) field recordings meet up.

- Frans de Waard, Vital Weekly

Club Silencio (3) june 10th 2010 review

A feast for the senses this one.
Buried in an unlikely residential area of Brighton, Coachwerks is a visually exciting venue. A converted bus depot / workshop, now a warren of small studios housing artists, printmakers, photographers, musicians and other varied creatives. The main performance space is vast and apart from having a proper dance floor fitted and a coat of gallery white on the walls, it looks pretty much the same as when it was used for mending coaches I imagine. I particularly like the way the light changes over the course of this evening due to the transparent roof of the main performance space. Cosy too, when the large clay oven is lit, heats up and the smell of freshly made pizza fills the space.
Let’s not dally; here’s what was served this evening:

Starters

Anthony Murphy Trio

A trio of a poet (Anthony Murphy), a noise guitarist (Adam Lygo) and improvisor (Euphonious Murmur Blend). Noises plus poetry/spoken word is not something Lygo/EMB have tried before, although they have tried many permutations of Noise guitar combined with noise(s) guitar over the last few years (releases on SOK and Hive Music and The Sound Projector)... This performance is their first as a trio, ahead of an album slated for release toward the end of 2010 I gather. From the evidence presented here; a restrained yet clouded backing of electronic murmurings, scrapes, hums, crackles and a smattering of zither, under the unprocessed clarity of Murphy’s stark, alliterative prose, the album should intrigue. Murphy’s stories involve pub settings, psychological flailing, parental responsibilities confronted, nature, fist fights, love, loss.....the usual literary collection of human curiosities, and even a bit of English civil war history. Will be interesting to see how this unit develops.

Hereharehere

Benefitting from the extra space afforded them by this good size venue, vocalists hhh stretch themselves somewhat tonight. The boy hare descends into primalism while girl hare soars, croaks and squeals to the point where, eyes shut, she backs away from her mic sending her amplified shadow slowly away. Boy hare seems unaware of this aspect of their performance, although he becomes bassier and more distraught in sympathy. A characteristically short set ends with girl hare away from us and herself in reveries completely unamped with boy hare clutching every oxygen particulate he can get his head to swallow. Completely engrossing.

Adam Lygo

Shadows on the wall side lit mask tics and fidgets birdlike
Guitar sounded with small fan alone was regularly repositioned about the prone guitar body
Tendons bubble around tan brow vein beaded brittle chord
Bedlam hum stopped short of fabric collapse caught weightless
Gilded sun bloom hydrogen flame

Mains

EMB

Only the second performance (version) of Euphonious Murmur Blend’s new composition For Uma Devi, a pseudo-psychotropic glittering tour de force manipulating sounds from a 1989 solo guitar piece into unrecognisable fragments of crystal lysergy. One moment shining; bell-like the next - worming away in a dark jetstream of lower mids. A trifle short at 13 or 14 minutes perhaps, but enjoyable nonetheless.

Duncan Harrison

Best use of a looping device in live performance i’ve yet seen i think. That’s a bold claim but seriously, this boy is good. Voice, drumstick, tubular metal cutlery holder from Ikea, perhaps the ubiquitous lime green Line 6 looping pedal plus some kind of distortion device. God alone knows what other electronic shicanery he had perched on that table; not a lot perhaps only one or 2 more unrecognisable devices but then its not the fx we’re interested in, by god, its what the hell’s he doing with it??? The big question for tonight. Whatever it is, its dark, physical, weird and scary. Scary in so many different ways; in a schlock horror way, a how come he’s so good way, a jesus i think he’s actually summoning something up here way, a do you think he’s okay way... And possibly the biggest potential. Watch him like a hawk.

Dessert

HRT

Heavy, striking drone-ambient 3 piece. Two immobile; seated, seemingly placid participants and the bass wielding clown-masked one muttering half-heard utterances, performing against a professional looking kaleidoscopic dvd backdrop wrought, it turns out, from Russia’s first commercial horror movie. Faces obscured; a subtle air of foreboding or menace? Or an attempt to introduce faintly comic reassurance? As the set progresses, the various electronic chitterings and evil samples get pinned down by a monotone bass part, the video backdrop becomes ever more lysergic and from time to time even, perhaps worryingly, vaguely erotic. The climax of HRT’s set involved the mystery men wandering off to James Joyce (i think) grinding out from a portable cassette deck. Highly recommended.


Adam Lygo’s Club Silencio (4) next due November 2010 at Coachwerks, Brighton.

next releases info

next up:

sok033 Ortolan Bloody Fragments cd-r

sok034 Adam Lygo & EMB live at latest 3" cd-r SOLD OUT

sok035 Best left Alone Wurst / Frosty Lee ep 3"cd-r

more info soon

EMB video footage

EMB live at The Gluerooms link:
http://www.youtube.com/user/TheGluerooms#p/a/A7A9A35D9FF53A84/2/-OohZXogKfs

Club Silencio

Adam Lygo presented his third Club Silencio event, this time at Coachwerks in Brighton last week.

Music from Adam, HRT, Duncan Harrison, Hereharehere, EMB and Anthony Murphy trio.

Sculpture by Buick Lygo.

Here's a handful of photos taken by Graeme at Coachwerks.

I'll sort some proper reviews of the music to follow soon.

Splitting The Atom review

Club Zygotic presented an all day event of “eclectronica”, as they describe it, over two stages at The Hydrant in Brighton, providing off-kilter music fans of all stripes a viable destination on a Bank Holiday Sunday otherwise haunted by the spectre of the England-Japan game.

Ian Murphy & Duncan Harrison
I saw Ian Murphy in duo with Dylan Nyoukis at Active Crossover II earlier this year, but Duncan Harrison’s name is new to me. Playing through the main PA with their backs to the audience, they quickly set up a dense, high volume set of electronic modulations from seemingly very little equipment. Ominous for the most part. Mr Harrison wrestling with a microphone searching for feedback. Glass smashing sounds appeared through the mug of filtered repeats in a satisfying way. Moving drones at work; darkly psychedelic possibly. A great start to the proceedings and certainly set the tone well.

Adam Lygo & EMB
Formerly an improv/noise guitar duo approaching ten years vintage, Adam Lygo & EMB now resort to using the guitar as a starting point only. Adam Lygo uses his guitar flat on a table, sounding its strings with a small fan and modulating the resulting drone with a series of processors while EMB forsakes his guitar completely to rely on effecting a number of samples taken from a 1989 recording of his solo guitar.

Remedial Queen Of England
Girls beating the boys at their own game. Craven guitar-bashing resulting in spectacular, full spectrum drone.

Slow Listener
Slow Listener seems to me at least, to be about maintaining the equilibrium of pure tone relationships. He needs strength and stamina to keep physical control of multiple devices constantly on the brink of collapse. Like a juggler, he keeps his eyes on many things at once; skilfully adept at manipulation.

Noteherder & McCloud
Annoyingly, I missed these guys’ set somehow but my last experience of their electronics / sax improv attack left a good impression.

Crayola Lectern
Proggy, Robert Wyatty. A flautist. “Proper” music played on “proper” instruments and not experimental in any perceivable way. Well, that’s how it seemed to me. Sorry, not my cup of tea.

Earth Creature
Boy/girl noise duo it seems. Boy on electronic devices; girl on theremin, vocals and pink boilersuit. Fantasy songtitles could be: “I Am Looping My Theremin”, “I Am Producing An Unholy Racket”, “I Am Lying On The Floor...”, “I Am Screaming Pointlessly”, “I Have Removed All My Clothing And I Am Now Running Around The Venue Scaring The Audience”. Brilliant.

The A Band
Empty flailing. Fantastic. If you like the idea of watching a random group of freaks trying to make as much noise as possible, that is. A megaphone seemed to be the focus instrument as several group members had a go on it. You’ll probably have read about them in the wire recently so you’ll know what hype is all about; and no, the fella from ASC did not attend.

Bolide
In terms of seaside town analogies, if the A band are Sidmouth, Bolide are St Tropez. There’s an unlikely yet appealing aura of Beefheartian rigour mixed with electric-era Miles Davis’ cigarette butts. Sure enough its free, but its not empty flailing. They’re much more sophisticated, and presumably like to lean more towards louche jazz histories than freedom for freedom’s sake. I was also charmed by the variety of wind instruments used which leant the proceedings a vaguely North African flavour one moment and an Asian or Indonesian one the next. Plus there was nonsensical shouting off mic which was great. Exuberant. That’s a key word here.

Ian Helliwell
This film-maker and perhaps more specifically Artist certainly presented himself as such tonight. Perched mid stage with a self-built example of his “Hellitronics”, dubbed The Hellisizer, (a large item visually resembling a cross between something made by Don Buchla and a sideboard), resplendent in garish vintage polyester and 1960’s NHS specs, Helliwell cut a figure that could have been straight out of a Frans Haals painting if a time machine were handy, that is. His self-built knobular, analogue instrument, presumably the latest in Helliwell’s individual approach to the development of dc circuitry, disgorged a stream of multi-phonic moving tones; cracked sines and sawtooth waves, modulated arpeggiation; its synthesis, (and I won’t bore you with technical terms any longer), although simply produced, very otherworldly and somehow disconcerting.

Will of ViV
Vocalese, a bit of flute and what i would describe as an “homage” to Derek Bailey on acoustic guitar.

John Wall & Clive Graham
Shame they had to wait all night to play, it was around midnight as they took to the stage and by then the audience had diminished somewhat to a raggletaggle collection of drunken revellers all chatting, drinking and/or playing pool rather than giving their full attention to what should have been the focus of the event. Still, John and Clive took this Bank Holiday attitude in their stride and proceeded to give us a great experience of contemporary electronic composition.

Overall, a nicely varied bill which maintained momentum over the whole day. Plaudits to the boys from Club Zygotic for having the balls to manoeuvre the difficult logistics of events of this type. Same time next year?