this is the voice of re:mote induction.Sunday, October 19, 2003
KYTN - Saturday - i left about the same saturday as i did friday, but without the friday night work traffic i made much better time. i even found my way all the way to the DCA again without the aid of the satellite navigation. this left me more time to get fed properly, rather than stuffing a carryout down my throat in the 15 minutes before bands started on friday.
philip jeck was the first performer of the evening, jeck being another of the artists performing here who i have caught before - he played the first of the now annual one day events in glasgow called instal. jeck can be considered on some level to be involved with plunderphonics, turntabilism and recontextualisation - using ten old turntables to play vinyl which he picks up second hand and scratches loops into them. live jeck is surrounded by the turntables, and is more sedate in his approach to changing and discarding records than he was the last time we saw him. he also seems to be more discordant and almost with noise influences in this set. playing the scratched and crackling vinyl provides a dense and agitated sound, through which there are elements of the original records filtering through. at times clear enough to be melodies, while at others just filtered suggestions combining into an atmostpheric whole. it seems almost as though part of his selection tonight is from 80's hard metal, just the tone of some the harder parts mixed into his set. overall his set is enjoyable, though i perhaps appreciated what he last time more.
[the user] have done a number of releases to date. the two which i have heard are both coming from the same idea - the symphony for dot matrix printer. where they have connected together a network of printers through a server and sequenced the jobs into a rhythmic composition. i had expected this is what they would do, and was looking forward to how it would work to have all these printers on stage. but it appears [the user] have got over this phase, though their ideas are no less elaborate. the performance here reflects the new album "abandon", which is based on what they are calling a silophone. in some ways it might be suggested that the set up for the performance is over board and excessive, but it is curious anyway. the silophone involves an empty grain silo in montreal - a huge acoustic space which has been hooked up to recieve sound via isdn then transmit the sound affected by the space by isdn. so filling glasses with water, or rubbing them is transmitted from dundee to montreal - us hearing the slight original sound, followed by deep echoing results a few seconds later. the bulk of the set revolves around this kind of atmospheric material, which seems too understated at first, but quickly starts to reflect the nature of the spaces involved. with the dot matrix performances there was a definite rhythmic influence, and one of the most interesting sections of tonight's performance was when the pair started drumming. as before we could hear the light sound - wooden sticks tapping against the surface where the contact mics are hooked up - a barely noticeable sound. one which was transformed into a more considerable rhythm by the process. with the before and after interacting with each other, an idea which is taken further by the visual elements. on the four walls the four screens show before and after sequences of sound - on two walls the clean and minimal sound which is being used as source and generated in dundee and sent off, on the other two the smearing images of layered colours and shapes being sent back. overall the set perhaps didn't have enough variation, and there could have been more rhythmic influence, but regardless of that the results were quite striking.
mirror were next up, collaborating to produce an improvised sound track with the phantom engineer. the film being shown on four screens being a black and white silent piece from the 1920's covering the history of witch craft; apaprently updated in the 70's with this print narrated by william burroughs, though that sound wasn't heard. the 5 people on stage played a number of instruments - percussion, drums, droning tibetan bowl, accordion, guitar, etc. the result was a very free form and organic improvised piece, intended to be a one off. this came across as being shambling and free form, and for the most part not something i found very interesting. to be fair there were a couple of moments that were pretty impressive - where they built up to a point where the bass was shaking the room or where they achieved a certain chaotic harmony together. the set was also longer than previous sets, being designed to go with a set film, this meant it started to drag. so as it went on people started to leave, including myself. the film had a certain curiosity value, and was one of the reasons i stuck with it as long as i did. but for me, despite being described as being a film about the history of witch craft it came across more as being about christian paranoia, how that related to satanism/witch craft and the blame and superstition that went with that.
sun burned band of man were the last band to go on, apparently the first concert outside the USA, for this apparently impressive live band who are gaining a cult following. so far they are the first band to perform who i have never heard of, and from the description in the booklet they don't really sound likely to be of interest. at this stage it is after 11, i'm feeling a little worn down after mirror and what i really want to do is go home, especially with the two hour drive to achieve that. however i persevere long enough to catch the start of their set. the nine piece had a certain percussive mania, with a couple of drummers and people taking turns at adding percussion to those two drummers. with that there were a couple of guitarists/bassists as well as a saxophonist or two. the sound tended towards the free jazz, with suggestion of more psychedlic influences. pretty much they went straight for it, rocking out. i kind of wanted to like them, the energy and enthusiasm, but to be honest they were doing nothing for me really. so that was me for the night.
philip jeck was the first performer of the evening, jeck being another of the artists performing here who i have caught before - he played the first of the now annual one day events in glasgow called instal. jeck can be considered on some level to be involved with plunderphonics, turntabilism and recontextualisation - using ten old turntables to play vinyl which he picks up second hand and scratches loops into them. live jeck is surrounded by the turntables, and is more sedate in his approach to changing and discarding records than he was the last time we saw him. he also seems to be more discordant and almost with noise influences in this set. playing the scratched and crackling vinyl provides a dense and agitated sound, through which there are elements of the original records filtering through. at times clear enough to be melodies, while at others just filtered suggestions combining into an atmostpheric whole. it seems almost as though part of his selection tonight is from 80's hard metal, just the tone of some the harder parts mixed into his set. overall his set is enjoyable, though i perhaps appreciated what he last time more.
[the user] have done a number of releases to date. the two which i have heard are both coming from the same idea - the symphony for dot matrix printer. where they have connected together a network of printers through a server and sequenced the jobs into a rhythmic composition. i had expected this is what they would do, and was looking forward to how it would work to have all these printers on stage. but it appears [the user] have got over this phase, though their ideas are no less elaborate. the performance here reflects the new album "abandon", which is based on what they are calling a silophone. in some ways it might be suggested that the set up for the performance is over board and excessive, but it is curious anyway. the silophone involves an empty grain silo in montreal - a huge acoustic space which has been hooked up to recieve sound via isdn then transmit the sound affected by the space by isdn. so filling glasses with water, or rubbing them is transmitted from dundee to montreal - us hearing the slight original sound, followed by deep echoing results a few seconds later. the bulk of the set revolves around this kind of atmospheric material, which seems too understated at first, but quickly starts to reflect the nature of the spaces involved. with the dot matrix performances there was a definite rhythmic influence, and one of the most interesting sections of tonight's performance was when the pair started drumming. as before we could hear the light sound - wooden sticks tapping against the surface where the contact mics are hooked up - a barely noticeable sound. one which was transformed into a more considerable rhythm by the process. with the before and after interacting with each other, an idea which is taken further by the visual elements. on the four walls the four screens show before and after sequences of sound - on two walls the clean and minimal sound which is being used as source and generated in dundee and sent off, on the other two the smearing images of layered colours and shapes being sent back. overall the set perhaps didn't have enough variation, and there could have been more rhythmic influence, but regardless of that the results were quite striking.
mirror were next up, collaborating to produce an improvised sound track with the phantom engineer. the film being shown on four screens being a black and white silent piece from the 1920's covering the history of witch craft; apaprently updated in the 70's with this print narrated by william burroughs, though that sound wasn't heard. the 5 people on stage played a number of instruments - percussion, drums, droning tibetan bowl, accordion, guitar, etc. the result was a very free form and organic improvised piece, intended to be a one off. this came across as being shambling and free form, and for the most part not something i found very interesting. to be fair there were a couple of moments that were pretty impressive - where they built up to a point where the bass was shaking the room or where they achieved a certain chaotic harmony together. the set was also longer than previous sets, being designed to go with a set film, this meant it started to drag. so as it went on people started to leave, including myself. the film had a certain curiosity value, and was one of the reasons i stuck with it as long as i did. but for me, despite being described as being a film about the history of witch craft it came across more as being about christian paranoia, how that related to satanism/witch craft and the blame and superstition that went with that.
sun burned band of man were the last band to go on, apparently the first concert outside the USA, for this apparently impressive live band who are gaining a cult following. so far they are the first band to perform who i have never heard of, and from the description in the booklet they don't really sound likely to be of interest. at this stage it is after 11, i'm feeling a little worn down after mirror and what i really want to do is go home, especially with the two hour drive to achieve that. however i persevere long enough to catch the start of their set. the nine piece had a certain percussive mania, with a couple of drummers and people taking turns at adding percussion to those two drummers. with that there were a couple of guitarists/bassists as well as a saxophonist or two. the sound tended towards the free jazz, with suggestion of more psychedlic influences. pretty much they went straight for it, rocking out. i kind of wanted to like them, the energy and enthusiasm, but to be honest they were doing nothing for me really. so that was me for the night.
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