I saw these people at the second 'Sonic Boom live' event last night, at
the queen elizabeth hall on the south bank, London. It's part of the
Sonic Boom exhibition curated by David Toop at the Hayward gallery. This
exhibition is _fantastic_, all people who like diverse sounds should go
there.
On to the live event.. It was a sit-down event in a theatre. No-one
danced.. But then that isn't all that unusual for idm events in London :/
Project Dark were engrossing, with extremely hard edged techno. Their
trademark seems to be making 7" records out of strange materials such as
biscuit, hair and burnt matches. My friend saw this as shallow but it
added to the impact of the music for me.. Industrial sounds have a strong
physical feel for me, and so it's good to see the physical sources of the
sounds. The retro 3d glasses and visuals were appreciated too.
Pan Sonic were pretty heavy going, a couple of people behind (home-made?)
synths, someone hitting metal items and a fourth playing guitar. They
produced extremely intense, distorted, grating noises. A lot of people
left half way through, and there was heckling. I didn't enjoy them, but I
don't think they intended their music to be enjoyed. It was an
experience.
Scanner played some diverse music, starting with some calming
nonsense-poetry that seemed to be looping back, creating growing
intensity. We were entertained by the subtle use of a theramin, too.
Unfortunately the music was accompanied by some uninspired graphics by
tonne.. Dodgy director graphics that had no relationship to the music
apart from trying to be a cheesy oscilloscope. This was made much worse
by the animations _constantly_ jerking throughout the performance. A
mac-owning friend suggested that they forgot to plug their powerbook in,
creating this unpleasant effect. This detracted from the music quite a
lot.
Still, by closing my eyes I got drawn in by a gorgeous, circular finale,
beautiful stringy sounds. We were then given an encore, which was rock n
roll..
Have fun,
Alex
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