Long Division

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

GRAVITATIONAL PULL

Dispatches from the Spirit of Gravity / Edition 104 / June 11

·         Happenings:

Next Spirit of Gravity gig:          Thursday 30th June 2011

Spirit of Gravity presents

FALLOW, GAGARIN, AN INFINITY ROOM, THE GROSS CONSUMER

The Komedia Studio Bar, 44-47 Gardner Street, Brighton, BN1 1UN
Time 8:30 - 11:00 Cost £5 / £4

Fallow: Field recordings of Fallow Deer with the Hoodlum Priest and guests

Gagarin: An electro-percussive celebration of 50 years since the first man in Space

An Infinity Room: Australian Keyboards Installation
The Gross Consumer: A short set from the man in the mac

Fallow
For the past 20 years Dr David Reby has been working in the wild with Fallow Deer, and for nearly as long the Fallow Project has been using his field recordings of these remarkable animals.
Unearthly cries, bellows, growls and grunts undermine the benign reputation of the Fallow Deer, its verbalisations more like a predator than a ruminant. Former SPK member and Hoodlum Priest Derek Thompson melds these sonic inputs to more orthodox sound sources and manipulates the results into a unique sonic landscape.

Gagarin
The always excellent Graham 'Dids' Dowdall (Ludus, Nico, John Cale, Pere Ubu) celebrates the release of his new album and single plus the first 50 years of Humanity arriving in Space. It'll be out of this world.

AN INFINITY ROOM (A.I.R)
IS AN ENSEMBLE AND INSTALLATION PROJECT COMPRISING MULTIPLE SYNTHESIZERS, KEYBOARDS AND ELECTRONIC ORGANS.

LED BY COMPOSER/SOUND ARTIST JULIAN DAY, A.I.R AFFECTS A ZEN-LIKE SENSE OF RESONANCE AND POISE. A.I.R USES GRAPHIC SCORES, SIMPLE PERFORMANCE TECHNIQUES AND SEMI-IMPROVISED STRUCTURES TO CREATE A HAUNTING AURA OF DRONES AND RICH HARMONIC FIELDS. AN EVER-EVOLVING LINEUP ALLOWS A.I.R TO PERFORM IN A WIDE VARIETY OF VENUES INCLUDING GALLERIES, LIVING ROOMS, FOYERS AND CONCERT HALL SPACES.

A.I.R HAS PRESENTED WORK AT GRANTPIRRIE GALLERY, SYDNEY CONSERVATORIUM OF MUSIC, CANBERRA CONTEMPORARY ART SPACE (CCAS), KK GALLERY (PERTH), THE STREET THEATRE (CANBERRA) AND FIRSTDRAFT GALLERY AMONG MANY OTHER SPACES.

The Gross Consumer
has returned to Brighton with his grubby mac chock full of good ideas and bad intentions, the driving force behind the Wrong Music complaints department will play a short but invigorating set on half destroyed equipment left behind by previous tenants, unsatisfied diners and unlikely ne'er-do-wells.

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/.

Video and audio on the Spirit of Gravity mp3 blog at spiritofgravity-brighton.blogspot.com/

Video and audio on the Spirit of Gravity MySpace page at www.myspace.com/thespiritofgravity

Facebook group with shows and information at www.facebook.com/home.php?ref=home#/group.php?gid=75568366205

Downloads of complete Spirit of Gravity sets at www.archive.org/details/the-spirit-of-gravity

_minimalVector films featuring Spirit of Gravity acts and guests at www.vimeo.com/thespiritofgravity

·                     Greetings:

Coming up:

Splitting the Atom III at The Cowley Club London Rd July 30th 6pm - 2:00am FREE

A mini 2 stage Atom with WARRIOR SQUARES+ WHITE TIGER+ DEEPKISS 720+ THE ZERO MAP+ ALLEN STRACHNID+ HAKARL+ DOGEESESEEGOD+ DAN SPICER+ IAN MURPHY&DUNCAN HARRISON+ DANIEL ALEXANDER HIGNELL

www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=118445361570602

Also, this month’s Wire Magazine (#329) has a Nice Picture and a live review of Daniel Jones who appeared at SoG’s March event – something about “tiny surprises”.

·                     Reviewings

Spirit of Gravity at the Komedia Studio Bar, Brighton, Tuesday 24th May 2011

During the festival we always like to try something a little more formal, a little more chaotic, so for this year’s May event we gathered together two teams of keyboardistas into an orchestra of opposites to perform Richard Miles' Mebo”. One group were set up near the elektrocreche area in front of the stage another near the back where the elektrocreche used to be, just by the table near the door. Starting and sonic drum (and acoustic) pulse they played a series of interlocking parts based around short notes that shifted times and incremented slowly before disintegrating and restarting more assuredly, speeding up again slowly before once more falling apart and then more swaggeringly through the cycle at a higher rate and finally starting off with a fuller rhythm that gave reign to more or less constant chaos. It was kind of fun to see a bunch of disparate figures tongues in the corners of mouths playing i-phones, toy keyboards, proper synths, bodhran and syndrum trying to keep everything together.

From that we went about as far to the other extreme as could be done with Hereharehere, two voices improvising alone, without effects or tricks to hide behind. Mel and Robin have been vocalising as a pair for a couple of years and really have built a hydra ability as a dual voiced single organism, breathing as one, poised trills against rumbled breaths or soaring together in uncanny, un-worded unity. It was a real pleasure to see.

Also starting as voice and voice Kay Grant and Geoff Leigh, with Nick Weekes also of Warrior Squares on the bowed pine, it wasn't long before Geoff got onto his flute and we got into some serious interplay on overlapping frequencies with a harsh minimalist limit on the harmonic range being used. All three honed into one claustrophobic zone. Broken eventually with some vocal rewinds by Kay as Nick moved on to the bow from a Beano bow and arrow set thrumming the rubber bands as a sawed bass pattern with Kay growling octave divided and Geoff lifting the flute into breathier Lateef zones of exotica, we were in Baxter/Sumac territory for a while before filters and strange resonances stranged us away for bells and swirls and plucked toast-racks where every note seemed to have a tail that spun up or down or out somewhere primal. It was a set that really pushed at the edges, all three completely absorbed in the moment.

Yours as ever

El Maestro Con Queso

Editor.


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