As Christmas approaches I find myself in a tearing hurry; so don’t be too surprised if the remaining gig posts for the year rely even more on text ripped straight off Facebook or other gig notifications. I’m just here to boost the signals and blend the options for the month, though I’ll also patch in any missing information as I go.
Now – December news on various Essex sonic artists coming together out on the Thames estuary, and on a Homerton gathering of atmosphere-guitar, homemade instruments and film…
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Courier Sound presents:
Alien + Adrian Lane + Stuart Bowditch
Phuse Media, Polar House, 103 Rectory Grove, Leigh-on-Sea, Essex, SS9 2HW, England
Thursday 14th December 2017, 8.00pm – information
“Courier Sound invite you to a launch party celebrating the release of Alien‘s ‘Perimeter’. Al Johnson’s long form piece, made with a bass guitar and a variety of electronics, is presented on a super-limited edition (30) mini CD in a bespoke arigato pack (designed by Machindo, cut by Damien Robinson), with two inserts, a sticker and a decal on the CD. In the small and intimate setting of his own office, Al will be playing a live improvised set, alongside live sets from Adrian Lane and Stuart Bowditch. Entry is free and early arrival is advised. Bring some booze.”
An intermittent surfacer, Alien has previously released work on labels including Southend’s Hottwerk; but here’s some very recent material (uploaded to Soundcloud yesterday!) plus a video swiped from Facebook…
https://soundcloud.com/alien9x/kaive-300
And here’s some more I dug up on the guest acts…
Adrian Lane – who’s also recorded as Calicoade and (in collaboration with Guido Lusetti), as That Faint Light – is a man of mutually superimposed talents. He’s a visual artist as well as a musician, or perhaps he’s better described as a simultaneously visual and musical artist: his music integrating acoustic and electronic elements, struggling in a dreamy web of neoclassical/mediaeval folk inspirations and textural ambient foggings. Adrian’s newest album, ‘Playing With Ghosts’, uses cut-up and re-ordered samples of hundred-year-old wax cylinder recordings as its main sound source (something Adrian goes into in greater depth in this interview with his record company Preserved Sounds.
The work of Stuart Bowditch (who also records under the names of Hybernation, USRNM and Furrows) is primarily based in sound design and field recordings. As his biog puts it, he’s mostly “inspired by location and the people and experiences he encounters there. He is interested primarily in the sounds of everyday life and those who create them, making work that is inclusive and accessible.His music, sound tracks and art installations are often site-responsive and developed with community groups, the public or people who would not consider themselves interested in ‘art’. In this way of working he tries to make sense of the world he lives in and his place within it. Simultaneously, the creations and experiences of others end up intrinsically embedded in his work, creating a rich texture of layers, representing his life and those he has encountered along the way.”
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The Old Dentist presents:
Dean McPhee + Sam McLoughlin & David Chatton Barker + Amy Cutler & Sylvia Hallett
The Old Dentist, 33 Chatsworth Road, Homerton, London, E5 0LH, England
Saturday 16th December 2017, 7.30pm – information here and here
“A night of deep audio-visual sorcery in three acts to mark the release of solo electric guitarist Dean McPhee’s much anticipated third album ‘Four Stones’ – featuring Dean’s hypnotic drone-folk guitar work and the visual feedback footage of Barry Hale, the homemade instrument/OHP séance shadow-puppetry of Folklore Tapes duo Sam McLoughlin & David Chatton Baker and the films and musical improvisations of Amy Cutler and Sylvia Hallett.
“Dean McPhee is a solo electric guitarist who combines fluid, chiming melodic lines with shimmering drones and deep layers of decaying delay and echo. He has a unique style of playing which draws together influences from British folk, dub, kosmische, post-rock and Mali blues, and his music has a hypnotic and dreamlike quality. His latest album ‘Four Stones’ is due to be released on Hood Faire (a label run collectively by Dean, Sam McLoughlin and David Chatton-Barker) in January 2018… For this gig Dean will be playing to footage of video artist Barry Hale‘s Intraference visual feedback films.
“Sam McLoughlin plays homemade instruments and contraptions along with guitar, analog synths, harmonium and pump organ. Sometimes he sings songs; at other times he combines handmade Moondog-like percussion with microphone feedback, synth drones and unpredictable bowed textures to produce improvised music with magical and shamanic overtones. Sam recently released the album ‘Flaming Liar’ on Them There Records and has previously released music on Andy Votel’s Twisted Nerve as well as Folklore Tapes, Pre Cert Entertainment and Hood Faire.
“David Chatton-Barker is the co-founder and captain of the highly regarded Folklore Tapes label which was recently described by Brainwashed.com as “possibly the most unique and fascinating label around”. As well as being a visual artist and film-maker, David also specialises in playful and atmospheric collages of sound, dictaphone recordings and live improvisation. Like Sam, he also builds his own very inventive and visually striking homemade instruments and sound-making devices, which he uses to perform live (along with projections and ritualistic interventions).
“As a new duo, geographer-poet Amy Cutler and multi-instrumentalist Sylvia Hallett draw on the dark sides of nature: from sea parasites to forensic botany to elegies based on Arctic bird migrations. They perform live improvisatory settings of pieces drawing on natural history, such as ‘you, the stingbearers’, based on Jean-Henri Fabre’s nineteenth-century chronicle of human desolation, ‘The Life of the Fly’. Instruments include the viola, the musical saw, and Sylvia’s Russian garden vines. Amy’s projections include kaleidoscopes of tree rot and insect forms in nature documentaries, and she will also screen some of her short music videos inspired by drone music and experimental landscape cinema.” (See below for Sylvia at work on a bicycle wheel, plus Amy’s short film ‘Incantations From Yin Valley’ – made this year with experimental drone musician Bridget Hayden, previously of Vibracathedral Orchestra).
Misfit City 
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