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GRAVITATIONAL
PULL
Dispatches
from the Spirit of Gravity / Edition 90 / March 10
·
Happenings:
Next Spirit of Gravity gig: Thursday 11th March 2010
BROKEN
STAR / HELLBOY / GRASSCUT
The
Komedia Studio Bar, 44-47 Gardner Street,
Brighton, BN1 1UN
Time
8:30 - 11:00 Cost £5 / £4
Broken
Star
"NOCTURNAL
WE, DIURNAL YOU."
Hellboy
"Tickling
our ear drums."
Grasscut
"Cathedral
of 'Muppet'."
Broken Star
www.myspace.com/brokenstardust
Broken
Star perform “NOCTURNAL WE, DIURNAL YOU” a one-off combination of
urban twilight images and improvised sound.
The
opposite is of Nocturnal is (Diurnal) 'meaning happening by day, coming
out during the day, occurring every day'.
This
crepuscular* adventure of the Broken Star Duo takes place within the
confines of London between October and January. Eyes avert from the
sight of other human beings (whenever possible!). The moon, sun and sky
are seen through the branches of trees as time passes... and when not...
streetlamps, car headlamps cut through the twilight (and on occasion
fog) to guide us through our journey. Sit back and enjoy this sometimes
bumpy Broken Star ride.
*
Crepuscular: meaning animals that come out at twilight
Broken
Star is the duo formed in 2006 by Tom Del Rio, (Guitar and visuals) and
Andrew Greaves (keyboards) to improvise sounds to accompany film, video
and as on this occasion, their own visual images.
Tom’s guitar work combines richly textured washes, bleeps, scratches
and resonant lead lines. Andrew supplies a mix of haunting melodies and
seductively glitchy grooves..The
influences are wide ranging, from Electronica,
Jazz, Gospel & Rock to Middle-Eastern,
Classical and Minimalism.
Andrew
Greaves, keys/ beat programming, ivory tinkler.
Beekeeper in Broken Star’s buzzy universe
and master of analog/digital synthesis .
Andrew combines warm tones/textures, glitchy
organ, dark Rhodes and deep sub bass. Andrew’s references range from
the BBC electronic workshop, Terry Riley, Can, Eno,
Ethiopian funk, through to electric Miles (Davis) and beyond. The
soul/premeditator to Tom's sometimes ASBO guitar lines.
Tom
Del Rio: Ebowed/bowed/banged &
strummed/picked guitars, loose cables: Tom combines buzzsaw/jackhammer
noise with cello/viola melodic tones through various lo-fi
and hit-tech filters, phasers and time/pitch
delay devices. Tom’s references include Belew,
Hendrix, Marr, Greenwood, Miles Davis, Japan, Joy Division, Radiohead,
Eno, Bernard
Hermann.
Hellboy
Hellboy
aka Michael McDowell has been active on the
rave circuit for a good few years now, after spells playing out in
Europe he decided to move to Brighton and since 2008 has been tickling
our ear drums regularly with his experimental live shows across various
venues in town. One of the UK’s most versatile producers this year
sees Mr McDowell delving even deeper into the unknown with his live dub
act and music concrete experiments.
Grasscut
Grasscut
is Andrew Phillips and Marcus O'Dair.
Phillips is an award-winning film and television composer with over 100
screen credits (to be viewed at www.unitedagents.co.uk/film/andrew-phillips/
). His soundtrack album, Home, is out now on Burning Shed and he has
recently contributed tracks to Lo Recordings. O'Dair
contributes double bass, keyboards and miscellaneous noise.
Their forthcoming debut album is a journey from the Sussex South Downs
of 'High Down', through the collapsing Nintendo Cathedral of 'Muppet',
to the transcendence of 'In Her Pride'. Weaving in between the lead
vocal are voices from the past and the present, snatched from mobile
phones & gramophones - a 1920s tenor, gossiping mums, a Victorian
singing poet, a woman reminiscing about post-war rationing...
As well as opening the main stage at The Big Chill 2009, grasscut
have performed at Tate Britain, the ICA, Koko,
Cargo and Brighton's Duke of York's arthouse
cinema, as well as in France and Belgium. Among those with whom they
have shared stages are Plaid, Clark, Luke Vibert,
Tim Exile, Nathan Fake, Daedelus, Speech Debelle,
Anti-Pop Consortium, Fujiya & Miyagi, Mark Pritchard, Acoustic Ladyland,
The Invisible and Wildbirds & Peacedrums.
As well as live sessions for Tom Robinson's BBC 6 Music show and Xfm,
they have had airplay from BBC Radio 1, 2 and 3, as well as in Belgium
and Japan. They have remixed Bonobo, Jaga
Jazzist and Voluntary Butler Scheme, while
the glorious Nathan Fake in turn re-worked Grasscut's
second single, “Muppet”.
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:
Looking
forward to next month when we have Leafcutter John down and then beyond
that to the festival when we'll be doing a roots and culture show with
(if things go according to plan) “I am sitting in a room”, “In
C”, and “Pimmel” featuring some next
generation collaborations. It’s on the 18th May so make a
note in your diaries and get down early.
·
Reviewings
Spirit
of Gravity
at the Komedia Studio Bar, Brighton,
Thursday 11th February 2010
Plurals
Drones
rooted firmly in the Froesian waterworld
of the other Krautrock, the Krautrock
of majesty and sacred awe rather than motorik.
The 5 piece Plurals augmented by will from radioviv
on flute and guitar start with a stately passion reminiscent of
“Malaysia prime” or “Affenstunde”
era Popol Vuh.
Analogue sources and hums wash with abstract noise: strings and voices raised
in a slow moving dream that took me back to teenage stone rooms and
afternoons of frozen time.
Beatabet
were naturally harder to pin down starting with an accordion led
introduction, that fed through bells and a typewriter and some other
things I've forgotten that in the stormy weather we've had made me feel
all at sea, before getting into a high volume dialogue of gibberish
punctuated with long periods of silence between Poppy and Cassie and
resolved into abstract electronic nightmares and finishing in a stately
off centre
Bolide
Clangourous even without Dan Spicer (snowbound in New York),
starting with bass and rattling drums before the yelping and skronk
gives way to daft noises and some channelling of Ligeti
then giving way moodier electronics and rumbling out in a much darker
jazz.
Yours
as ever
El
Maestro Con Queso
Editor.
Gravitational
Pull is the
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