Revolution! A bloody coup in the world of live electronica...

GRAVITATIONAL PULL Dispatches from the Spirit of Gravity / Edition 30 / April 05

NEXT SPIRIT OF GRAVITY GIG: Wednesday 20th April
NEXT SPIRIT OF GRAVITY RADIO SHOW on www.totallyradio.com/spiritofgravity Friday 15TH April

· Greetings
· Happenings
· Reviewings
· Radiothings

· Greetings: So it's done.

After months of careful planning, we've finally done away with the old regime. We managed to lure him onto a favoured piece of waste ground with the promise of a participation in a great piece of performance. The empty camera rolled as he dug the hole with a long handled shovel while reading aloud from the legendary Stolen Joke Books of Bob Monkhouse. A quick blow with the shovel, some scraping of soil, and, after covering up the fresh earth with one of the many mattresses discarded there, we were done. As we left we wept and talked of the shade he had become, how the jokes had faded, and the ripe retorts had paled to whimsy. It was time to move on, and sometimes only revolution will suffice. Welcome to the new Gravitational Pull. The same as the old Gravitational Pull....

. · Happenings: Gigs;

Wednesday 20th April Spirit of Gravity presents CALIKA, SOLD, kapzlock The Prince Albert, Trafalgar Street, Brighton 8.30-11pm, £3/£2 concs

Calika Whatever is at hand, and a healthy disdain for stagnation. Calika has an album coming out on audiobulb Sold C-effective laptop blues from Spirit of Gravity Collective member Howard kapzloq kapzloq will be exploring the meanings of religion and the uses of music to achieve transcendence. They will also be achieving the realisation of the presence of God using simple harmonic structures and very large chords. Note kapzloq is all lower case. Note too God is capitalised.

· Reviewings: Gigs;

During the recent enforced hiatus (ooh, painful) I’m afraid no reviews were included in Gravitational Pull. All of the gigs that have happened during 2005 are reviewed at www.spiritofgravity.com (here), but here’s the last one for you..

Spirit of Gravity@ The Prince Albert, Brighton, Wednesday 31st March

This was our first night at the new regular home, The Albert. Having had the honour of being the only person to ever catch two MINIMAL IMPACT sets in one week, I was looking forward to a nice compare and contrast between the attempt to sonically destroy the Volks Tavern on Tuesday with what I'd been assured would be a "very quiet" set. Hah! Liar! Although I suppose relatively speaking it may have been. It may have been lacking in sheer destructive power but the set at Passive Aggressive was certainly loud enough to vibrate every movable thing in the room and had Henry Shitmat Collinz weeping in a foetal ball. Tonight's set was certainly not as loud as that, although when he finished he came over and said, "See I told you it would be quiet" and on seeing me shake my head "No? Really?" So probably a restrained and sensitive set of distorted waveforms and bass swoops from Minimal impact, lacking also the piercing trebles that can sometimes leave your senses reeling. But still a satisfyingly substantial starter.

THEE MOTHS (surely it should be singular for one man and a laptop?) started with a wonderfully self effacing introduction to the video he was showing of a younger version of himself as "an indie guitar god" while the now legendary loops of the Dundee yacht club cables clanking ticked away in the background. Then he knelt down over the laptop he had on the floor of the stage and got to work bringing up the volume of these clanks and distorting them, adding elements of other sounds whirling up into a pretty heady, noisy mix, at one point the video had him with guitar unslung, its head on the floor while he thrashed the strings meanwhile a curious digital analogy blasting out of the laptop, a synchronicity he seemed to engrossed to notice. He also had a bit of a mashup of a wonderful wah-wah guitar version of "America" that he tortured for a while, then we watched as cigarette butts danced in the ashtrays as he wound down to finish. Will the manager of the Albert came in told us that the upstairs bar was closing up as the staff were refusing to deal with the noise.

Well, I thought based on previous showings LRS should really mellow things out, their last appearance here, as a two-piece, being an exquisite web of subtle quietude. Oh, well. Wrong again. I assumed adding a third guitar would fill the sound a little, but this was a very different approach to a different evening. Sat at a table covered in small devices where the two as before, one with his guitar on his lap, the other just with an array of small objects. To one side of the stage sat the third of the three, guitar again on lap and in front of him some small table with his sandwiches open in a Tupperware box on top. Starting with a bassy thrumming sound from one of the boxes, the clicks and scratches of before were replaced with wails and screeches. The man to the left got a big black olive out his sandwich box and applied it to the strings of the guitar. Perhaps it wasn't food, I really couldn't see. He did have a violin bow, I know, and one of those endless sustain devices. So another surprisingly cohesive evening up at the Albert. Noisy and textured without being apocalyptic. Saving that for April, natch.

· Radiothings: Totallyradio;

Spirit of Gravity radio is still on air, but with the dynamic new team of Chris and Lee. For those of you who are elderly, infirm, downright lazy, students, slackers, mentalists, dead or forgetful; well you can just log on to www.totallyradio.com/spiritofgravity and get all your electronica needs delivered right to your computer. On the next show, on-line from 15th April, six people in the studio this time, which is a record. Chris and Lee cautiously welcome in the Wrong Music Complaints Dept in the form of Henry (Shitmat), Shige (Scotch Egg), James (The Gross Consumer) and Sean (nwodtleM). James does a neat little live mix and then there's some Scotch Egg action. New loud music from Electric Lifeform and Ladyscraper. And drop us a line for requests contact us at spiritofgravity@totallyradio.com. And if you want to contribute by sending us demos and dj mixes we’d be most happy to hear from you.

Y’know, this could be the start of a most abundant relationship. Thank you for your rapt attention

El Maestro Con Queso Editor.

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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: spiritofgravity@freeola.com