Photos [L-R]: Exchanged Tides, The Bleak
Industrialists, the closer we are to dying
Terry Lane
was introduced as the closer we
are to dying and the title of his dark and somewhat
disturbing melancholy was the marriage of heaven and hell.
He confirmed in conversation that the title of the track and its
subject matter were inspired by William Blake and the brilliant
John Higgs book, William Blake vs the World. Fittingly, this
dronescape session started with Stephen Fry talking about the
existence (or otherwise) of God, and ended with a terrifyingly
loud scream. His everyone
will live in their own cathedral EP is a good starting
point.
I'm
pleased to say, I was drug-free when the next act, Proctobysmasaurian
Episode, appeared from a dark room. They started with
squealing piggy samples and wore porcine face masks to hide
their true identity. These noodling swine lay somewhere on an
unbeaten path between the three little pigs and Slipknot.
Electricity flowed through synthesizers and guitar
reverberating waves through effect pedals & some welcome
feedback, with the meditative and relaxing ringing sounds of
Buddhist music bowls.
Swilly
is the pseudonym of Simon Williams. His use of effect pedals,
live performance loops and misuse of a guitar that spent much of
his set lying flat on what could be best described as an
operating table, while he abusively wedged metal cutlery into
its aching body before creating and looping the noise of a
handheld fan across the strings. This was like an exorcism of a
bad spirit that had possessed the guitar. Once exorcised, Swilly
was able to don the guitar and finger-pick less abrasive loops.
Photos
[L-R]: Proctobysmasaurian Episode, the Spur Battery amphitheatre, Forst Amherst, Swilly
A pigeon
loudly flapping his wings as he flew overhead was a fleeting but
surprisingly effective improv addition to the range of noises
emanating from the stage. Swilly has the pure genius of a Swell
Maps home recording that is as far removed from rock n roll as
one man and his guitar can be. Both ingenious and captivating.
His debut
album is well worth a listen too.
sourmilk is a vehicle for
Andrew Kesbey. Rhythms, audio samples and some splendid,
electrified pads and waves all emanated effortlessly from the
one piece of kit, packed in its own groovy ARP2600 style grey
suitcase. Multi-coloured patch leads appeared to cover the
face of the synthesizer that was masterly managed by sourmilk
and provided an orderly queue of electronic music buffs at the
end of the set to gawp with eyes wide open. It was a modular
synthesiser - a case full of synth components that he had
assembled and patched together. This was the winner of the
Best Kit prize.
Sourmilk's
set included several inter-changeable rhythms and tunes that
were locked together with a certain mellow restraint, much
less extreme but equally as enjoyable as his debut album, Theory
Of Regret.