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| 0 | LONDON: Cafe Oto |
|---|---|
| P | Saturday 24th September, 2011 |
| N | 8:00pm |
Critical Heights presents an evening of pastoral psychedelia, ancient synth drone and waves of fuzz with improvising duo Delphic Vapours and the shadowy group Savaging Spires.
DEAD RAT ORCHESTRA
Since forming in 2002, The Dead Rat Orchestra have played regularly throughout the UK and Internationally, always attempting to react or interact with their surroundings and the people and ideas that they come across - often crafting each performance for the particular space in which they find themselves (from former abattoirs to churches, concert halls to coppice woods).
"Acutely haunting and occasionally brutal", their music is always focused on the freedom to play. It would not be fair to say that the music is totally improvised, yet neither would it be correct to class it composed. A framework of ideas or sounds is created, but the exact form of a piece is never derived from these.
A focus on performances rather than recording and the constant desire to experiment, expand and play has driven the music on - musical magpies to the last, any means of ringing some resonance out of sounds found either in trembling strings, stretched skins, cracked metal, scratched vinyl, blood, sweat and snow is allowable. Through this no limits approach a music of sometimes quiet beauty, dark brutality and even ecstatic joy has been carved. Often precarious, dancing on the edges of falling apart, their music has shuffled into existence.
Dead Rat Orchestra are Daniel Merrill, Robin Alderton and Nathaniel Mann. They have played in all duo permutations where required by circumstance, although the missing member's presence is always felt, be it in recordings or ideas sent across the sea or in the quiet corners of the music they play. However, they feel strongest as a trio - three friends who have shared adventures and look forward to more.
Dead Rat Orchestra have had the pleasure to share bills and stages with some amazing artists, including: ERIC CHENAUX, GODSPEED YOU! BLACK EMPEROR, SILVER MT ZION, GOODIEPAL, CHRIS CORSANO, HANGED UP, COCOROSIE, JAMES BLACKSHAW, ALASTAIR ROBERTS, C JOYNES, SHARRON KRAUS, DOOMED BIRD OF PROVIDENCE, SUNBURNED HAND OF THE MAN, FUZZY LIGHTS, THINGUMA*JIGSAW, HAWK & A HACKSAW, THREE BEARDS and many more...
DELPHIC VAPOURS
Delphic Vapours have been spinning their web of improvised intrigue for several years now. The duo meld their guitars into a miasma of drone and melody where the six strings are just as likely to spew forth ancient synth gurgle or catastrophic waves of fuzz as divinely clipped arpeggios.
Rarely discussing the musicks before they are produced allows for a truly organic process. But this isn't a health drink. There is plenty of spike in the brew, as "Get Off Their Knees" proves.
"Singing, Ringing Tree" envelops the listener in a liquid atmosphere heavy with foreboding, as cyclopean tusks of noise leer up through the foggy drone. When melody enters it is forlorn and broken. A sailor's song from some unknown depth.
"Pythian Cleft" is a different beast entirely. Recorded at a live show in Winchester, it builds through a desert wasteland of clean, echoed guitars to a heat haze of hum and rumble. Finally the piece levitates from the sands like some forgotten starcraft as boosted tremolos kick forth toward the stratosphere.
"Another Sunset" is so long we couldn't get it on the CD. So you, dear listeners, get a download bonus. A defiantly lo-fi exercise in tone manipulation; we'll leave you to imagine Les Rallizes and Cluster in a lift shaft.
Delphic Vapours - Singing, Ringing Tree by criticalheights
SAVAGING SPIRES
Saving Spires on Bandcamp
"This English group are drawing a veil over their identities for now but their work song for the dead with its ragged chorus, penny whistles and strings invokes the glory days of pastoral psychedlia" THE WIRE
This music belongs somewhere. Late summer afternoons, English pre-twilight and the old house that could do with some work. You walk along the edge of the lake and catch the scent of jasmine. The voices are still out there, all these years later, singing something you remember.
Savaging Spires (and their true identity is still somewhat shadowy) have created a world of sound where old ghosts can walk freely through these sunny grounds and impart equal doses of dread and joy. Take opener 'Bending the Rules of Time' which immediately transports us with whistles, strings and those soon-to-be-familiar choral vocals. A kind of work song for the dead, it is a brief and wonderfully melodic songdream. In fact none of these pieces outstay their welcome, allowing us to feel as though we just happened to grasp them for a moment: music at once spontaneous and eternal.
In a break from the acoustics, 'Trust' employs stuttering feedback worthy of Washing Machine-era Sonic Youth before collapsing into hazy music box melancholy. 'Crows' allows the mood to darken further with a repeated entreaty for the subject to "wake up". It sounds like a wake outside the caravan and beneath the stars. It is left to 'Seconds In Motion' to close the record with a gentle reverie of harmonica and slide guitar. Another, until now hidden, continent creeps into view for a moment and we sense possibilities beyond these gentle haunted lawns. But that's for another time, insofar as Savaging Spires pay attention to such constraints. For now we have one of the most evocative records you're likely to hear this year.
Savaging Spires - Bending The Rules Of Time by savagingspires
Join the Critical Heights label at 12pm on Saturday 24th September live on Resonance FM:
www.criticalheights.com / www.resonancefm.com
Savaging Spires are also on the August edition of the WIRE TAPPER CD
www.thewire.co.uk
