jiltedbarfly

Why do noise performers never introduce themselves? It's as if they're embarrassed to be there. Family Battle Snake moves to the front of the audience. He waves at someone to turn the lights down, then gives all his attention to the array of gear on the table in front of him.

His base is a thick, strong, tone-drone. Other textures are bled in. A descending, repetitive, droop is introduced, then oscilliated up. A few notes break through like a primitive form of artificial intelligence attempting to create music. The drone backing drops out revealing a melody like a malfunctioning Simon Says game. It morphs into sonar pings played on a submerged piano. A scrabble like a needle left in a run-out groove drifts in, before melting into transporter shimmer. A few declamatory blasts like someone slumped on a church organ ends the performance. Family Battle Snake gives a half wave to the audience and hastily seeks a return to anonymity. 

At first I it seems Axolotl is sound-checking. Actually he's begun. He begins with a cheap casio beat, a Nintendo kind of sound. Metallic drumming is added. A violin is produced and bowed. You can't hear it so much as sense it on the fringes of your hearing. A fog horn clears out the casio beats. There's some vicious bowing. And then, suddenly, the end.

Skaters are another solo performer. It starts like a Chinese orchestra tuning up. There's no hurry to add anything else into the mix. Fragments of a recorder are eventually dropped in. The sound doesn't change much. Skaters seem to focus on almost imperceptible points of detail within the open spaced white noise. We get circular breathing murk, then a high pitched whine like a finger being circled round the rim of a wine glass. Dry sax runs follow, like someone practicing off-stage, and a sound like a guitar howling into a void. Having spent the whole gig bent over with his back to the audience, Skaters briefly faces us at the end of his set, then slips away.