Hi Folks,
Well, despite redefining the term 'technical difficulties', this
event was pretty cool. It started late 'cos of all the technology
that needed setting up but once it got going there was a lot to do,
see and dance to. I made through from 1.30pm to 1.30am!
On the main floor there were talks and discussion groups, none of
which was brilliant but some stuff about the future of music
composition technology was quite interesting. One talk given was
unintentionally hilarious. Two women from the art/dance/research
group Shinkansen talked about how we all dance by worshipping machines
and mimicing their movements. They exhorted us to be more free and
improvisational in our movements. They run their own club at which
they have, get this, MJs (*Movement* Jockeys!) who facilitate more
wacky dancing. I was biting my lip trying not to laugh at this
point, what do you lot think?
I wandered off from the discussion and ended up chatting to Talvin
Singh, superb tabla player and programmer. I asked him about the
night he did with Squarepusher and he said it was cool but chaotic
'cos the organisers were useless. When I asked him what was in the
pipeline he said that he had a Bjork remix and a (time to start
frothing at the mouth) collaboration with Squarepusher due for
release soon. He went off to DJ and played a big chunk of the
Squarepusher LP.
Unfortunately, Autechre *didn't* play live but just DJed. The set
was really good including a lot of different stuff from muscular
industrial techno, through swooshing noodling stuff, to old skool
hip-hop. They seemed pissed off though 'cos the only people paying
attention to much of their set was their mate, a gaggle of
teenage trainspotters who were sitting in a semi circle around them
on the floor, and me.
The Locust audio-visual performance, 'Icons of the 20th Century', was
one of the highlights of the day. The music was composed entirely of
samples which were mirrored by a projection of the person sampled
performing that snatch of music. At one point there were four
Mansons chanting 'I don't know what sorrow means' with Karen
Carpenter singing 'Ticket To Ride' over the top. Absolutely
hypnotic.
Other highlights were a typically percussive performance from
si/(cut).db during which they fucked up Oval's already pretty fucked
up 'Do While' and a spellbinding performance by Kaffe Williams of
distorted realtime sampling from her violin and the club
surroundings.
My day ended with a furious hour's dancing to a blistering set from
Cristian Vogel down in the basement. Totally unrelenting pure
techno.
Let's hope there are more events like this one.
love,
Rob ;-)