Hi, heres my review of the Scratch night in London on Wednesday:
Ok, so the message on the net says arrive on time. I don't, but it doesn't
matter cos they didnt start on time anyway. When we finally get upstairs
Ian Penman is on (I presume) and the dub is flowing. Cool. We sit
down and relax. Hmm, its a very gig like atmosphere, no one dancing,
everyone is waiting for SP and TS to come one. Which they finally
do even after Penman has run out of dub and started on the hip hop and
jungle records. And criminey what a lovely racket they make. Tom is
playing the bass guitar, the DAT machine, the FX pedal and the little
mixing desk. Talvin is on Tablas, echo device and assorted random electrics.
Tom and Talvin appear to take it in turns to play songs, and Talvin
tabla's up Tom's tunes, Tom basses up Talvin's tunes. And what playing, eh?
You've never seen a mans fingers move so quickly as Mr Singh's treble tabla
hand goes. It is truly awesome. Especially when he's playing along with
SQPSHR's light speed drum and bass. They even do a couple of tunes without
electronic backing just bass and tabla, and its well groovy. Cool!
However as good as all that was the hilight of the evening for me came
just as we were about to leave. Suddenly they start showing the film. Hmm,
I think, can I be bothered to stay and watch. It appears to be a 2 second
loop of John Squire playing guitar. Not very interesting. But then a two
second loop of someone singing appears next to it on the screen, and its
all in tune. Cool, I think, he's making a song and film in sync super sample
movie device. We set down and watch open mouthed as little loops of
film and sound come in and out of the mix and build up to incredible cool
songs. The best one involves a cheesy guy in a pink dressing gown playing
a funky drum loop, a man on xylophone, and a girl singing. What an excellent
idea. Make your song of samples, but show the bit of film the sample came from
at the same time! Its fab. A whole new way of listening (and watching)
sampler music. Nice one, Mark Van Hoen.
Cheers
Andrew C.