Posts Tagged ‘TSR2’

Various artists: EMOM York XIII, The Fulford Arms, York, 30th November 2022

Posted: 3 December 2022 in Live
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Christopher Nosnibor

I absolutely love the EMOM nights: regardless of where they are, they’re eclectic, and above all, accommodating: there’s a real sense of community around them. But if there’s one criticism to be made, it’s around the demographic: guys. Always guys. White, and mostly 50+. This was particularly apparent at the Leeds EMOM at Wharf Chambers a couple of months ago, and admittedly, this is inching towards being my demographic, but… well. What to do about it? It’s an open mic. How can you make something that’s inclusive feel like a place for everyone?

While many guys take up tinkering with synths once their kids have left the nest, it’s clear that this is not representative of the electronic scene, by any means. So why do EMOM nights draw wall-to-wall guys, middle-aged or older, pissing about with expensive midlife-crisis kit, but next to no women or, well, anyone who’s not a middle-aged white bloke?

Tonight does not conform to this emerging form, and it’s genuinely warming to see that the room is not only quite full, but rather more diverse in its populace.

The diversity applies to the music on offer, too: within the first four acts, we’d witnessed modular minimal krautrock, angular bleeping and live chess, as well as an abundance of laptop action, yielding a full spectrum of styles and frequencies. And the evening swiftly evolves from here, because then there’s some absolutely everything going off all at once choral samples, synths and bouncing grooves what the fuckness from Hull’s PariahX, noodly and surprisingly atmospheric, vintage sci fi stuff from regulars TSR2, the trio again reduced to a duo, making innovative use of a mobile phone. They’re reliably good, but this is possibly the best I’ve heard from them yet.

Host Simon Higginbotham, who operates as How Buildings Fail, brings a heap of kit and five miles of cable to conjure squelchy experimental electronica in the vein of Cabaret Voltaire, as fronted by Mark E Smith, thanks to his sprechgesang vocals. He looks like he’s having a ball, and he does a great job, with the sound emanating from the PA landing in the region of Dr Mix: it’s of proper late 70s vintage in style, with pulsating retro drum machine sounds and endless reverb proving integral to the experience.

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How Buildings Fail

Dots brought guitar, keytar, and his ‘n’ hers silver spangled outfits, and the human glitterballs provided one of the night’s more unexpected turns. They were good fun, too, even if I was mostly plunging headlong into the zone where everything goes quiet and fades into a blur as I fumble with cables and fret about the seconds ticking down. I am aware that appear significantly more composed than I really am. My head is swimming and everything is a fog.

Dots

Dots

The question of whether or not it’s acceptable to review gigs where you’re also performing is one I’ve touched on more than once, and tonight my focus on the acts has been pulled a little by the prospect of my first collaboration with Debz Fialkiewicz. Having been impressed by Hull Duo Spore’s performance at WonkyStuff in October, I wrote ‘I feel I should collaborate with these guys – because they’re ace, and Nosnispore has a definite ring to it’. And this, I have to say is the beauty of this little scene: the people are open-minded and interested. Debz got in touch, and so with no rehearsal and only minimal discussion – simply an agreement on ‘dark ambient noise with dystopian spoken word narrative’ the day before – it happened. A few people said the vocals were too low in the mix and barely audible beneath all the echo, but that was exactly the idea. There’s going to be more where that came from.

Noisenispor EMOM

Noisenispore

Still buzzing, I slump, drained, into my seat to watch the rest of the night.

Ian J Cole brought some avant-oddity, while Jamie brought some thumping uptempo rhythms to build a harsh beat-driven techno attack before Tom Ray – Home Taper – brought some bulbous, buzzing laptop distortion-driven heavy drone by way of a finale. He brought some really nice, dirty, dark tones and difficult frequencies that rattled the bones and sent vibrations through the intestines, and it felt good. Maybe there’s another collaboration there.

Jamie EMOM

Jamie

Tom

Home Taper

In all, it was another cracking night, and a first-class showcase of the thriving electronic scene in Yorkshire.

Wonkystuff #21 – The Fulford Arms, York, 23rd February 2022

Posted: 27 February 2022 in Live
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Christopher Nosnibor

I may have mentioned this before, the reason I like going down to The Fulford Arms, and in particular, why I enjoy checking out the Wonkystuff nights. Yes, the music – John Tuffen’s curated events guarantee a nice and eclectic but complimentary selection of leftfield sonic explorations – bit it’s more than that. The venue, and these nights especially, cultivate a sense of community. I feel at home here. I don’t always feel sociable, but knowing there will be people I know, and people who won’t judge if the interaction is only a ‘hello’ because we’re all here to see the acts is a big deal.

And as ever, the acts are diverse, but of a solid quality.

I’m always happy to watch Namke Communications: John Tuffen never disappoints with his experimental improvisations, which usually see a single longform work fill the allocated time. On this outing, elongated drones and plops and plinks of electronic extranea blend and juxtapose against one another, melting into a slow swirl. A wind whispers through, and an organ swells slowly and falls away again a crackle of static. Some of the glitchy intrusions are ugly, others more subtle. Beatless, abstract but certainly not ambient during the first half of the set, it’s dark and ominous, but not unpleasant. Beats build in the second half of the set, arrhythmic, stuttering, pops and thuds bouncing in all directions at once. I lose myself in it, and it’s joyous.

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Namke Comunications

Wonkystuff regulars TSR2 – all 3 of them – make for interesting viewing. Yes, they’re typical middle aged white guys with gadgets, including lap steel, but they actually create some fascinating soundscapes, rising to reverberating cathedrals of sound. Immense surges of synth sweep cinematic across the stage. Elsewhere, they swing between Krautrock and funk-hued space-age prog. It’s considerably better than it sounds on paper, trust me. They’re clearly enjoying themselves up there, too, and that enjoyment is infectious.

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TSR2

Next is, Leeds maker of noise, 13x. Is it supposed to sound like that or is your cable fucked, mate? Yes, it’s supposed to sound like that. Mangled to fuck overloading stuttering, glitching electronics, the sound of circuits malfunctioning, melting give way to a fucked up samples-riven S&M collision between Suicide and Donna Summer. Darkwave disco with punishing beats, static fizz and Portishead crackle block up against slow, grinding industrial grooves and fleeting flickers of woozy trance weave in and out of a varied, but ultimately abrasive instrumental set. And yes, it’s mint.

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              13x                                                                                       Sam Mitchell

Wrapping up the night is another Leeds artist, Sam Mitchell. Sporting straggly grey hair and beard, he emanates the vibe of ‘scene veteran’, and he clearly knows his way around his (comparatively minimal) kit. Technical issues briefly delay the start of his microtonal glitchtronic set, but once going, it’s all wow and flutter, flickering bleeps and bibbling bubbles. It’s spacious, expansive, layered, textured and easy to get lost in. By easy, I mean perfect, and it’s a perfect finale that makes for another Wonkystuff win.

Wonkystuff #19: The Fulford Arms, York, 15th January 2020

Posted: 19 January 2020 in Live
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Christopher Nosnibor

The Wonkystuff nights to date may have been a shade sporadic, but that’s what happens when the organisers have day-jobs and families, and more importantly, what they’ve lacked in regularity, they’ve more than compensated in quality, and that’s a major reason why there’s such a respectable turnout to a gig midweek, mid-January, in York. There’s also the warm, welcoming vibe: these nights may be musical showcases, but they’re also a coming together of an oddball community, where we’re all misfits together and it feels good and feels like home. Tonight’s lineup – as usual – demonstrates John Tuffen’s skill for bringing together acts who provide a satisfying balance of contrasting and complimentary.

It’s the Wonkystuff House Band – a collective rather than a fixed entity, tonight comprising Tuffen alongside Ash Sagar and Simon Higginbotham – who warm things up with a set consisting of permutational repetitions delivered by multiple vocals, delivered in a drab monotone over repetitive beats. Comparisons to Can, Cabaret Voltaire circa ‘Nag Nag Nag’, The Fall, Flying Lizards, Girls vs Boys, Young Marble Giants, and the more contemporary Moderate Rebels all make their way into my notes as I watch them crank out vintage synth and drum machine sounds. Cyclical bass motifs and whizzing diodes fill the air as they sit and twiddle knobs and read lyrics from clipboards and the historical leaps into the present for a while.

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Wonkystuff House Band

The start of TSR2’s set crackles and pops fireworks. The trio hunch over customised kit with wires all over to create warped undulations and machine gun fire beats that batter the speaker cones. The set builds into a dense, murky trudge. The second track, ‘What will be’ is more co-ordinated than the opener, and is solidly rhythmic, mechanoid and spacious, and metamorphosises into some kind of glam reimagining of Kraftwerk via DAF. Heavy echoes and tribal beats dominate the third track, and they very much find their groove at this point, at least for a spell, before the construction grows shaky despite solid foundations. Perhaps it’s the sheer ambition of layering up so much at once that’s difficult to keep together. Despite this, the discord and dissonance are part and parcel of an intriguing set.

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TSR2

Rovellasca takes the stage, quietly and understated and stands behind a bank of kit. So far, so standard. The set begins with deep, dark, rumblings, and very soon builds into something shatteringly immense. It’s dense. It’s loud, and fills the room like a thick, suffocating smog. The sound is thick, immersive. Time passes. Unexpectedly, elongated mid-range notes sound out and the underlying dense noise builds. I’m no longer listening: my entire body is enveloped. This is the effect of sonic force. Noise wall without the harsh. Burrs of static, pink and brown noise lurk in the immense billowing noise. The shifts are subtle, and gradual, but present over the course of the single, continuous half-hour piece. People start to become visibly uncomfortable after a time others vaguely bored. I’m loving it, and could listen all night. A slow fade to finish. The hush is deafening.

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Rovellasca

It’s a hard act to follow, but See Monstd – the new musical vehicle of radiofreemidwich’s Rob Hayler is an inspired choice, in that it represents something completely different that thus prevents any risk of comparison. There’s a lot going on here: the set starts with a sample, then breaks into what my notes describe as ‘wtf noise’. It subsequently settles into heavy harsh ambience, with dense, grating drones providing the body of sound, with swerves off trajectory for spells of audience participation, with a phone being passed around for members of the crowd to repeat lines from the sheets circulated prior to the set. This is one of those performances where you never know quite where it’s going to go, and is all the better for the element of unpredictability.

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See Monstd

And this, in a nutshell, is everything that’s great about the Wonkystuff nights.