I woke up this morning with a blank note simply entitled "NEW DROSS HATE" on my phone. As my little grey cells thawed out one by one I remembered that this was how autocorrect helpfully butchered New Cross Gate in a text to my wife on the way home last night.
That's right, n0teeth went south again ("this blog has been going south for ages" I hear the overfed country dunces in pudding-spattered britches at the back chortling to themselves). The impetus: two separate gigs, which I shall do my best to make sense of below:
1900 hours: Paraorchestra, Royal Festival Hall, South Bank
Having the attention span of a poorly-trained flea makes it
somewhat difficult to sit through seated gigs no matter how
much I like the music being performed.
Paraorchestra's setup, then, seemed precision-engineered to my needs:
groups of orchestra members were scattered around one of the
RFH's smaller (but still vast compared to most other venues)
rooms and the audience was encouraged to walk around during
the performance to enjoy the sound from different angles.
n0teeth didn't need telling twice, and had a delightful stroll
(eventually clocking half a mile on Strava) through the dry ice and UV
lights while Paraorchestra played three pieces by John Cage,
Arvo Pärt and one more whose name escapes me.
The lighting and the layout of the room made it feel somewhat like being in a decent sized rave, a vibe that wasn't helped by the fact that n0teeth, stealthily moving around people to avoid tears over spilt drinks, happened to be wearing a bomber jacket and baseball cap combo reminiscent of a resident club supplier prowling the floor muttering a mantra of "pills, coke, ket, coke, pills, mandy, ket, pills??". Given free reign to move around and enjoy the performance at our own pace, the orchestras could have played on a little longer without becoming boring, but n0teeth appreciates an act that acknowledges that the musically greedy among us might wish to attend more than one show of an evening.
2100 hours: Until We Catch Fire, Endeavour, Deptford
A hop, skip & jump across the northernmost portion of South
London and n0teeth was back in a recently discovered and
already firm favourite venue for another instalment of
Until We Catch Fire, a semi-regular experimental noise night organised and
curated by people who create and perform a bit of the ol'
noisy stuff themselves. The first time I attended, the venue,
Endeavour, won my heart within seconds of walking through the
door by having £3 cans of Schöfferhofer, that divine
grapefruit elixir, chilling in a fridge alongside a range of
beers so well thought out that even n0teeth's bland "pint of
literally any lager" palette was tempted.
Down in the basement - the spiritual home of a DIY noise gig - n0teeth bumps into a few friendly scene faces, including that of our pal in Degradation. More on them later: for now it was just about time for opening act Faye T to take to the stage. n0teeth must admit that the alto sax was a red flag at first; a key weapon in some of the most criminal exploitations of a captive audience we have witnessed at Cafe Oto, more often than not used for the execution of precisely one note that drones on, barely changing, ad infinitum. Or worse yet, simply used as a "comedy" instrument by the worst people in experimental music.
Fortunately, this was not the case with Faye. A highly skilled saxophonist with a strong melodic sensibility, her improvised riffing ran up and down scales and arpeggios, in and out of multi layered harmonies, setting haunting scenes through sound alone. The notes were fed through some kind of unit or device that a luddite like n0teeth could not possibly name, much less identify the exact purpose of, other than sampling and looping the sound to pleasingly psychedelic effect.
n0teeth's boorish, drunken request of "PLAY BAKER STREET!" was - mystifyingly - ignored, but aside from that, a fabulous set.
Next up were friends of the blog Degradation. Anyone who hasn't had the deafening pleasure of catching these chaps live might already suspect something exciting is going to happen by the assortment of objects and instruments being set up - a cymbal, a key chain, a violin bow - and those of us that have will still find a curious new implement on the table to get excited about, in this case a hairbrush.
All hands were on deck as Degradation took charge of the good ship Endeavour, steering an engagingly unpredictable course through a thorough wash cycle of physical, grab-you-and-shake-you electronics, churning and frothing with ribcage-bothering frequencies and guttural vocalisations. With Chekovian discipline George and Dom put every tool at their disposal to powerful and interesting use, disarming n0teeth's favourite critique of "car boot sale" noise musicians who litter their table with gizmos and trinkets that are entirely surplus to their set's musical or technical requirements. Even our good friend the hairbrush had its moment, but rather than spoil the magic we would urge readers to check out Degradation the next time they descend upon your ends.
In contrast to Degradation's functionally weaponised bric-a-brac, headliners Xal rocked up with a relatively "traditional" electronic noise arsenal consisting of some big silver metal boxes and a mic. The sound they produced from these was massive, thick, enveloping, filling every cubic inch of air in the room with static and bass. While his bandmate thrashed away on a sort of boxed synth with protruding aerial, vocalist Tamon gargled like an enraged aquaphibian discovering Marina had run off with Troy Tempest.
Earlier in the evening, Paraorchestra's conductor waxed a little on the topic of "drone" in a musical context and how music doesn't always have to go anywhere, it can merely be a continuous sound looping in on itself in one place. Having spent that gig doing literally anything but staying in one place, I feel Xal did a better job of exploring the power of the drone with their audience rooted to the spot, unable to dodge the crashing waves of sound that swirled and smothered and surrounded.
As a grand finale, Xal's aerial-box-synth-player finally lost control of the instrument, which crashed to the floor but, as it turns out, survived to fight another gig. Unintentional, but not unlike a guitarist throwing down his axe after a good shred session.
Although we had to leave the basement immediately post-Xal due to it becoming uncomfortably warm, n0teeth stuck around to chat to band members and fellow punters alike, including a pal who runs a different noise event north of the river. In our younger days n0teeth was often reluctant to go to gigs due to our (not entirely incorrect) preconception that they attracted the worst kind of snobs, gatekeepers and scene police from all twenty-three corners of the industrial sphere. It turns out the noise scene has a number of nice friendly folk that is completely disproportionate to its size. Perhaps the scene has changed, or perhaps I am more confident in myself and my decisions (such as wearing a "WRIGGLE LIKE A FUCKING EEL" t-shirt to signal my undying allegiance to noise music's answer to Derek & Clive).
Support your local noise scene. If you're there for it, it'll always be there for you!