Glitchnight, 5th April
This is my first Glitch
Night although it is their third, and so I arrive at the Arc Bar
somewhat prematurely. I might think that 9pm on a school night is early,
but the glitchy electronica types apparently do and so I try to read my
book (Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell ) in the dark while old
keyboards and laptops are plugged in and wires are untangled.
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First up is
href="http://www.myspace.com/loxodonta">Loxodonta, who sets
up some sort of keyboard loop using his moog synth. There is an
echoing dungeon feel in the dark room as the layers build up. He sings
and screams. When he screams the air stands up on the back of my neck
and it sounds like distant monsters howling for blood or tortured souls
in forgotten dungeons. There are breaks for knob-twiddling and more
layer building before the next bout of scariness, but the performance is
ended prematurely by a feedback disaster. Sorry, are you
finished? The soundguy asks. Yeah, why not?, says Lox.
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height="180" alt="Glow 02" />
href="http://www.myspace.com/fablesofglow">Glow are bass,
guitar, vocals and a mad looking drum-creating box. They play rousing
guitar-based songs, with fast electronic weird dance music beats. I say
weird, because they're not your usual pounding bass drum / hi hat dance
beats, oh no. They use all sorts of strange percussion
sounds/instruments to build the rhythms. The bass lines are great, all
their heads are moving and the band are really into what they're doing.
But it leaves me a bit cold, probably because it all seemed a bit too
like club-music-with-guitars and the singing doesn't seem to fit. Might
be better on record.
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It's been about two years since I last saw
href="http://www.myspace.com/gusset">Gusset and it is good
to note that while the inherent anarchy in the beats remains, the set as
a whole is tighter and more flowing. The jungle/grindcore based rhythms
are better pulled together making for some really interesting and head
shaking syncopation. There are chunks of well-known songs that have had
their very soul ripped out and given a new lease of life with broken
beats and effect sweeps. People are smiling, chatting and even dancing,
which is a first for a Gusset gig as far as I'm aware. Favourites
include a messed up Hazy Shade of Winter, bits of War of
the Worlds and John Peel saying 'Gusset'.
Conclusions? Fear, pain, resentment, laughter, noise, bass, beats,
mashup, alcohol, late night, bed.