These Plumes have Feathers/Guy from Bo Ningen - Catch 22 26/03/10

I went to see these acts after having a bit of a weird experience with an osteopath and I could hardly walk, stand still or sit down which made it a little tricky to relax as you can imagine. These Feathers Have Plumes, quietly battling a dastardly wobbling table, created a dreamy collage of bowed bass and humming wine glasses which soothed my ailing spine a little, before the guy from Bo Ningen whose name I can't remember played some laptop noise and shouted a bit and I think he might have even (sort of) played guitar. It was alright. I don't remember really, I'm writing this months after the event and I was doped up on ibuleve at the time.

Fun.

Florian Hecker Sound Installation - Chisenhale Gallery

Well this was totally pleasant. I enjoyed walking around it for sure, just a big white room with some speakers set up playing some noises which I'm sure Hecker put a lot of effort into creating and which probably represent some precise concept involving the science of sound and space and all sorts of fascinating mathematical ideas I don't know about because I couldn't be bothered picking through all the sesquipedalian guff on the accompanying info sheet.

One of the pieces bounced off some tiles stuck on the wall, another came from overhead, another came from a row of speakers at undulating heights... I mean, I have no idea what he's saying, unless all he's saying is check out these interesting sounds, but I had a thoroughly pleasant time until a couple of 2.4 nuclear families who apparently hadn't seen each other for a while happened to meet by chance in there and decided it would be an appropriate place to catch up on their life stories. It wasn't.

Here's a video where you can experience what Hecker's carefully sculpted pieces sound like when recorded on the shitty little mic on a flip HD mini camcorder. It's perhaps more effective as a document of how people move about in a big room when guided by their ears. It stars Horacio Pollard, both members of Kayaking and Joel from Wet Sounds/Trash Club. Enjoy!

Oneohtrixpointnever/No Fun Acid - The Grosvenor 18/3/10

Well everyone has been all ONeohtrixpointnever is the best thing to happen for ages, he's so awesome and he's the best so I thought hey I'll go along then and besides I got old Konxy to wing me in so I di9nt aff ta pay nowt. It was at The Grosvenor which has been a bit too regular as of late, seeing as it's a bit of a 'mish' to get too but hey ho ey. Carlos Giffoni also known as No Fun Acid played a decent enough acid set on hardware made for exactly that and people seemed to like it well enough and I seemed to like it well enough so that was that, nothing spectacular but certainly solid and it was nice to see it being kept 'real', a popular yardstick by which to judge any genre of music over five years old (probably less nowadays, with kids failing to keep new genres of music real for even a couple of weeks before being accused of ruining the scene/selling out/fakin it or whatever kids do these days. I don't know, I'm not one, I didn't understand them when I was one and I doubt that'll change anytime soon. Maybe when I reach old age and start to shrink and rely more on others and just regress generally, maybe then with that combination of
pseudo child like state and the benefit of hindsight will I be able to understand kids. Of course I will be very old and the knowledge useless. Anyway, who cares, Carlos Giffoni is about forty and none of this stuff applies to him.

Oneatickspooneva was up next and he played a nice enough set of ambient keyboards and seagull sounds. It was alright, I thought that kind of thing had been done in spades over thirty years ago but
apparently it's new and exciting. Or maybe he's just keeping it real too. Who knows eh. All I know is that it was fairly pleasant music in fairly unsuitable surroundings done ok.

Jazz Poetry Night - Pangaea Project 10/2/10

Ok everybody thanks for coming I'm gonna do the ice cream song.
La la la la ice cream song
La la la la ice cream song
La la la la ice cream song
La la la la ice cream song

What a shitty night.

Brotzman/Edwards/Noble - Cafe Oto 29/1/10

Brotzman fucking ripped it, Edwards was his usual awesome-on-the-bass self and Steve Noble looks like he carries a knife. They also had a dude on piano who I didn't know but who was excellent and the best bit of the whole night was when Brotzman wasn't even playing and the other three were all freaking out, just fully freaking out and all stopped suddenly all three of them without looking at each other or anything, just stopped perfectly together. It was fucking magic. Jazz magic. Jazz fucking magic. No lie.