Acid Mothers ARE in Glasgow... (part 1)

There’s a crack through the landscape of my late teaching career. At one end, we have Acid Mothers Temple (the last band that I loved to distraction, at least for a few years). At the other, we have Forced Entertainment. They convinced me, through Bloody Mess, that the energy I had chased in music had migrated into theatre.

Acid Mothers Temple are back on Saturday. Last night I saw Forced Entertainment’s latest. I guess this now counts as nostalgia.

I have never really been that enthusiastic about AMT’s recordings. Part of this is age and equipment: I don’t have the high end stereo to blast out their psychedelic jams at a volume that allows the nuances of riff and feedback and distortion to play out in my living room. I also worry about the neighbours – something my teenage self would not have been too concerned about.

In fact, apart from the triple CD compilation, which includes a sixty minute version of the song that played live every time I saw them, was the only AMT release that I have adored: mainly because it compiled their various alliances and side-projects. I tend to find more joy in main-man Kawabata Motoko’s solo exercises. They fit in more with the minimal ambient noise that makes up my bedtime listening action.

But Acid Mothers Temple in concert… it’s a pleasure too Dionysian to resist. Although the basic template is consistent – they are a loud, rambling yet brutally focused outfit who pastiche 1970s’ progressive rock – the subtle line-up changes made each show different enough to make collecting the set crucial. Maybe they’d add a drummer, replace a vocalist: each change was announced with an additional phrase to the band’s name (possibly referring to an obscure Gnostic idea). But the slight tilt in direction was enough. AMT were finding new ground in an apparently featureless landscape.

I guess they satisfy the two extremes of my soul: the paradox at the heart of the band is the paradox of my own emotional confusion. On the one hand, they appear to be revivalists, harking back to a time when rock valued aggression as a tool to expanding the mind. They evoked the late hippy conflagration, when Hawkwind sketched out ceremonies of outer and inner space, just before musical competence soured into self-conscious displays of technical expertise. They drone, they wail, guitars all so masculine and relentless.

Yet they seem so fresh, as if each bludgeoning drama is being conjured accidentally, from a jazz spirit of improvisation.

Part of my soul is enchanted by the subtle interplay of very loud guitars, and the way they rediscover predictable strategies and cast them in passionate, even original, new directions. It is an erudite game of spectatorship, discerning the nuance of the old and refitting it as new.

The other part of me recognises them as the greatest dance band in the history of rock, a supple funkiness driving on the assault of noise. 

TORQUE and LUTES

INNOATIVE NEW PERFORMANCE EXPLORES THE ELUSIVE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEEN ART AND SCIENCE
It is choreographed by the mischievous Caroline Bowditch. It is designed by the mighty Brian Hartley. She revolutionised Scottish Dance Theatre's attitude to inclusive performance: he worked with me at the IETM. Add in Pippa Murphy on composition duties, a scientist and workshops aimed at school children's attitude to energy, and Paragon have made another boundary booting bonanza. 

Torque is about wind power. “The relationship between art and science is often overlooked; they are considered quite separate from one another," says producer Ninian Perry. But wind turbines are changing the landscape, acting like kinetic statues as well as power stations.

PLATFORM THEATRE, EASTERHOUSE, GLASGOW

WEDNESDAY 13 MARCH 7.00PM

THURSDAY 14 MARCH 7.00PM

Moving back in to the city centre, Vile Arts favourites The One Ensemble are going to be at Nice'n' Sleazy on Friday. They are supporting composer and lutenist Jozef van Wissem who will hopefully rescue the lute from that disgrace that Sting inflicted on it a few years back. van Wissem is all about adapted the lute for the modern age - a bit of minimalism, a touch of improvisation - without messing about with the distinctive timbre of the old school instrument.

I am happy to stand up for the lute - John Downland did a few numbers on it back in the pre-classical era that make The Smiths sound like Girls Aloud, in terms of misery. Wissem has thrown down with Keiji Haino - extremely self-indulgent guitarist and startling creative vocalist, well-known to fans of Arika - and James Blackshaw. Less obscurely, he wrote some tunes for a medieval version of that Sims video game.

Besides, if he is rubbish, The One Ensemble are worth the entry alone.

Live Blog from New Projects Weekend (4)

Mack makes a delicate start - almost Spanish flamenco style on an electric guitar, with added echo and now a drone. Notes emerging from the hum and buzz of the sound system, until the crackle drowns and submerges the melody. The crack of cables echoes the rattle of castanets. He’s very Spanish in his mood, running melancholy scales up and down the fret board and tumbling into clusters of low notes.

It’s gentler than Caries. The sustain and feedback hovers, threatening to destroy the fragile picking. He’s applying an acoustic method to the electric, moody and melancholic again. Or am I slightly sad and applying this to every piece?

The sound of a guitar in the distance: Mack’s playing seems to come from the other end of a tunnel, or through a weak radio signal. The sound system is simply obscuring the clear, firm pizzicato. These are transmissions from another world, another cliché.

Certainly, his actual playing is accomplished and precise. He’s problematising the performance. The electricity has been made audible – thanks to some fiddling with wires. It’s a battle for a thing of beauty to survive.

Eric talked about a message. Old school music journalists weren’t afraid of overdoing it. This musical monologue tells a story about life. Life, represented by the guitar, is delicate yet beautiful. Rich in emotion and evocative of tales that are barely comprehensible in their complexity and detail, life tries to survive against a hostile universe – here represented by the feedback, the nasty crackle of the speakers.

This is an opera for solo guitar that contains the basic narrative of existence. It’s mysterious, frail, frightening. I’m loath to call the universe of noise that tries to subjugate the melody godless (the guitarist might be God, anyway), but it is in some sort of conflict with the guitar’s life.

However, the sources of the sounds that threaten are also the reasons that the guitar is audible. The universe may sound tough, but it is also sustaining. The music is a duet between guitar and PA.

The actual melody has traces of heavy metal exhibitionism and folk refrains. This might well be the most beautiful thing I have ever heard. And I bet I would have called it doodling if I were not trying to write about it.

I was not expecting music to need as music thought as performance.  

Damn. Eric noticed that the style was very blues. He has beaten me. That is what this is: not delta blues, but the blues of the universe, which makes the noise that eventually will destroy it. 

Live Blog From the New Projects Weekend (2)

Over to The Art School for Caries. It sounds like mating elephants down there as we make our way in: inside, it is more delicate. It’s one man and his guitar, toying with feedback and distortion in the time-honoured style. Rudimentary melodies feed over the loudspeakers, moaning and howling at themselves. This is not unpleasant. Obviously, the volume is a feature, and there’s no attempt to develop song structure. Given that it’s an event that is all about the emerging artist, there will be a fair amount of experimentation. Caries is sat on stage, testing what happens if he uses this pedal at that volume…

Sonic Youth were up to this, long before they became Sonic Adults and divided their output between contemporary classical and alternative rock. It’s questionable whether music with a strong lineage can be really experimental – this interrogation of the guitar’s potential is well documented already. The format of the gig is deceptive. Caries is making meditative soundscapes. It’s desolate, lonely but warm: the guitar provides a humanity that laptops can’t, even when they are sampling guitars.

There ought to be enough absurdity in that sentence to inspire someone to deconstruct my assumptions. Perhaps it is the lack of percussion, but Caries is easier on the ear than Princess NRG.

I just remembered that Eric likes jazz, and I have dragged him into a day of noise and provocations. Do I have a moral responsibility to him as a collaborator, or is it okay for me to throw this at him? Equally, what about the artists? Writing live reviews is a bit of a challenge for me, but does it do justice to the art? I am not giving myself time to recollect in peace.

Caries has gone very early 1980s Sonic Youth now. He’s picking his way through a tentative solo, plenty of harmonics, clashing and clanging unfamiliar chords. The feedback follows his lead, like a cloak dragging behind the music.

This is very beautiful. I suppose experimental music is all about imagining other worlds where this is played in a more public arena. Princess NRG was in a science fiction future – we probably live in one of those now – while this is the chamber music of a melancholy court, their hero was sent into battle and died when he saved the city.

Hey Eric: I am going upstairs to get a coffee and a signal for the net…

Live Blog from New Projects Weekend (1)

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Welcome to the VileArts’ Live blogging session for The New Projects Weekend. Co-conspirator Eric Karoulla will be over on his blog, sharing his experiences from a day of wild music and perfomance action.

We are side-by-side in the basement of Nice’n’Sleazy and there’s the first act: plenty of strobe action from Princess NRG. It might be one man and his laptop, but I am heading to epilepsy through the light show.

Nice used of washes here – not too heavy and not too melodic, but certainly emotive and forceful. It has that sweet isolationist quality: music not too fussed whether it explains itself. But now he’s breaking up into a drum versus sampled vocal battle.

He’s got a microphone and the voice is rattling right through me. The drum sample is very metal, the voice is almost jazzy, maybe r’n’b. Maybe Eric’s got something on it – he’s the one with the knowledge of languages.

Princess NRG has got what appears to be a massive fluorescent bong next to his laptop. The impact of the strobe is starting to wear off now. The sound of scraping metal he’s just unleashed takes us into darker, raw territory. “It’s just a loud of bloody noise,” and considerably less interesting than the previous mash-up.

Ah. The computer just shut down, and he’s had to start again. It’s difficult to tell, but I think that he’s just realigning the samples…

Bulgarian voice choir: very topical. And now a more jittering beat arrives with orchestral wash. Princess NRG is picking up on the eclectic potential of the sample, showing little respect for sources but emphasising the juxtaposition of different geographies. That’s a fairly eastern groove he’s dropping now.

For first up on a Saturday afternoon, the boy is doing well. There is a consistency to his sound: the volume makes it aggressive despite the pop sensibility and the judicious use of samples. He’s letting the bit play itself out, rotating the variations of the melody over a rhythm that wouldn’t shame a bhangra banger. I’d argue that this isn’t the perfect time and place: it’s disco music from a scene in Bladerunner. Harsh, almost militaristic and diverse: he holds the beat long enough to make this dance music, but rough enough to be evocative.

The fact that Eric and I sitting in the corner typing is probably as much of a show as the performance isn’t wasted on me.

Let’s see how Eric is getting on…

  

New Projects @ Sauchiehall Street

It's not as if I haven't done one top five for January already, but as soon as I finish it, another event announces itself. It's the New Projects Weekend at The Art School and Nice N Sleazy, and it not only threatens to devour the whole of the 19th January, it is spread across the two venues in Sauchiehall Street, which means walking past the happy clubbers on their way to Yates. Cheers.

The day is divided into music, spoken word, performance, installation and moving image. Within each section there is further variety - music spans from analogue synths through rap to improvised solo guitar.  My highlight will probably be The Mathletics Team, who not only have a funny name but sing about comics. Beyond that, I can't take it all in - like the best festivals, it needs to be experienced.

Here's the webpage...

Here's the line up...

Music

Analogue Anonymous: A group of like-minded musicians who have a passion for analogue equipment. For this performance they will be utilizing series of synths, drum machines and sequencers.

Caries: Guitars and loops with a humble Tape.

Female Band: An experimental gothic pop performance consisting of collected sounds recorded sounds - edited and performed in a live context.

Graham Mack: Live improvised experimental guitar work with recently recorded field recordings.

Hausfrau: Synth cabaret versions of 60s and 70s rock/pop sounds, featuring members of Aggi Doom and Organs of Love.

Howie Reeve: DIY punk, folk and world music influenced songs with bass guitar and voice, brought to you by Howie from Tattie Toes, and old friend of the Vile Arts Radio Hour.

Leafwrist : Ambient folk-influenced experimental electronics by newly re-located Australian. Featuring visual projections.

Louie (Hector Bizerk): Razor-sharp and witty rap on Glasgow-life and politics from Hector Bizerk's frontman.

The Mathletics Team: An 8-piece band who play under superhero pseudonyms and play pop rock songs about comic books, fantasy and general geeky subculture.

Mount Analogue: A performance of Sonic Deprivation,  a loud, immersive piece of ambient music in complete darkness.

Saint Max and the Fanatics: Offbeat, poetic and energetic 'ADHD-pop' outfit, fresh from a recording their debut EP at Green Door Studios.


Star Voyage: Quasi-improvised Intergalatic space-funk, featuring a real-life midi guitar. Plus live visuals by James William Farlam.

Thomas Burmby: Found sound files scoured from laptops; cut, moved around and re-assembled into the skeleton of a piece of music.

Yoko Ono's Coma: Groovey no-wave, Indie-pop, noise and found sounds, featuring members of Charles of the Ritz, Asian Babes and The Cosmic Dead (among others).

Vox Gradus: Loose, droney tracks from a waterlogged basement, skittering rhythms and broken pieces all furious with the future / lack of. With visuals!

Spoken Word

Emerge 'n' See : A two part performance between both venues involving a disjunction between audio and visual gestures. We will look at the aesthetics/ontology of emerging and the possibility of producing the 'new'.


Performance

Pester and Rossi (Nadia Rossi and Ruby Pester): A performance taking place in the street between The Art School and Nice N Sleazy, followed by a finale performance inside one of the venues.

Amy Pickles, Ailsa MacKenzie and Justyna Ataman, Easy as 1-2-3: Three performers run back and forth between two venues carrying props and costumes, attempting to create a stage in each of the windows.


Michelle Hannah: A performance based around the dystopian lounge singer with use of fragmentation and repetitive appropriation of a chosen pop song. Designed to engage, entice and repulse equally in artifice.


Installation

Ioanna Faga: Interactive collage on how we are destroyed without democracy. Put traits on the face and change it completely.


Bradley Davies and Nick Thomas: 2013 is the 82nd anniversary of the invention of the radio-telescope. Their installed radio-telescope will being a dash of the cosmos to Sauchiehall Street through audio and visualisations.


Marianne Wilson: Video installation using projection mapping techniques incorporating 3D reflective and transparent surfaces. The piece will aim to merge contemporary media with older, more scientific forms of technology. A push pull relationship with intrusive and immersive technology.

Susannah Stark and Katy Shambles: A cryptic light installation and interactive DJ set. The audience will be able to decode and record words and messages from the bulbs using printed charts - these words will then influence the DJ.


Kim Walker: A piece exploring language, the responses of two people to one another, and the associations their words have to each others words. The two have come together for a period of time knowing that they must part again.

Moving Image

Jack Saunders: A new video work addressing the hierarchy of perishable produce. Ideas of consumption are explored alongside those of consumer hypocrisy.

Mario Soustiel and Thomai Pnevmonidou: Moving image Collage on an infinite loop of a dancing couple dancing on the edge of a cliff


Alice Bradshaw : Projections investigating the processes involving the manipulation of everyday objects and materials. Mass-produced, anonymous objects are often rendered dysfunctional caricatures of themselves, addressing concepts of purpose and futility.

My Producer Harry Loves Holy Mountain

I've changed my mind about rock, mainly because I have been listening to Holy Mountain. It is not a moribund culture, stuck in the past, but a vital, playful force in a constant state of reinvention.

There's this wonderful short story by Borges, that explains how a man decided to rewrite Don Quixote. Although Pierre Menard's version ends up being exactly the same as the original - word for word -  Borges concludes that this Quixote, because of its context, has a completely different meaning. Holy Mountain are a bit like that, only in place of delusional old men and murderous windmills, they have Big Riffs and Heavy Metal Thunder.

It's a bit unfair to peg Holy Mountain as Black Sabbath imitators: what they understood about 1970s blues-inspired heavy rock is that all the fripperies - pretend Satanism, pompous stage shows, meaningful lyrics - only get in the way of the power and the glory. They do have a habit of turning up for gigs around Halloween, but they substitute all the nonsense for a vicious, tops-off ferocity.

So far, they've only released a mini-album on Chemikal Underground which captures something of their live excitement - they recorded it in under a day, so it has the rough, punky energy - but is missing the sight of three men rocking out, hair and sweat flying and the bludgeoning riffs. It's difficult to talk about Holy Mountain without getting into clichés: the joy of their gigs is how close they get to self-parody without ever losing the power. It's like enjoying two gigs at the same time: an unselfconscious metal marathon, and a clever post-modern deconstruction of macho absurdity.

Plus they do an incredibly sweet version of Starry Starry Night, but only if the crowd asks for it.

Live gigs for Holy Mountain...

25 October @ Nice'n'Sleazy (Free)
3 November @ Spaced in the City