The Hope, Brighton, Sat 24th Feb
Carlton Melton hail from a geodesic dome out in the wilds of Northern California, from where they create “meditative soundtracks freed from the constraints of traditional song composition”. An all-instrumental trio, they commence with slow, intricate, lines built up by threading together two lead guitars which become thoroughly transformative to listen to. (Slightly reminiscent of the recent Thurston Moore show.) The second guitarist shortly takes to the drums, and things kick off into a full-on noise-fest. It was music which first pulled you in, then sent you right out there.
Though this was a pattern they’d repeat throughout the set, it remained involving and unpredictable. The only drawback being, while the twin-guitar parts were very much ensemble playing, the rockier sections did lend themselves to guitar solo heroics. However, in this context they do appear as more of an organic growth. Guitar solos in the midst of songs always feel like when the adverts break into a film you’re watching.
Psychic Lemon are a psychedelic band hailing from Cambridge. (Though they prefer the label “krautfunk.”) Prior to psychedelia there’d been garage rock, music hard and regular in shape. There’s a reason after all why the most celebrated compilation of that era was called ’Nuggets’. And part of the joy of psychedelia is the collision of that solid object with it’s morphing, shapeless forms. That classic movie staple of the cop, or some other straight and rational thinker, succumbing to a trip is essentially what happened to the music.
But with the greater use of effects available to music today, even in a live setting, Psychic Lemon can effectively make the two things happen at once. They were more song-based than most of the other acts, yet that structure never seemed to constrain them. The guitar and drums could stretch out in all sorts of strange directions, leaving the bass to keep the sound grounded.
The upside of such a crowded night, courtesy of the good folks at Drone Rock records, was the plethora of acts. Which came with a perhaps inveitable downside, this Saturday night gig effectively started sometime during Thursday. So, alas I missed half the set of opening act Sleeping Creatures. Again with twin guitars, though this time without bass, they managed to combine the seemingly contradictory virtues of the sonic assualt of heavy riffing with post-rock’s freedom to move around. It seems they’re a local outfit, so hopefully I’ll catch a full set soon.
I was, if I’m honest, less taken by the other three acts. Melt Dunes were the best of them, particularly when they let their swirling keyboards take to the fore – like a fairground carousel which had discovered Surrealism. Stereolicia involved guitar improvisations over a near-drone loop, which was somewhat New Agey. And while the beauty of psychedelia is in it’s unhinged abandon, Gnob were most definitely hinged. Their far out stage costumes were nifty, but mere fancy dress.
Yer real actual gig footage of Carlton Melton...
...and not so from Psychic Lemon (well, you can’t have everything)...
TALLIS FESTIVAL
Attenborough Centre for the Creative Arts, Falmer, Brighton, Sun 11th Feb
While I might listen to a variety of styles in music, ask me about eras and I can be quite rigid. In art in general, I’m only really interested in the primitive and the modern, regarding the rest as mere in-filling. My interest usually shades in somewhere around Romanticism. The Renaissance was just a whole load of hype.
So it was pretty much by chance I first heard Renaissance composer, Thomas Tallis, via an art installation at a previous Brighton Festival. And, finding every rule comes with exceptions, I went along to the Sunday night of this Tallis festival.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, I did feel like something of a no-nothing novice. If I had a seat within the venue, it was still like being an outsider with my nose pressed up against the glass. And so, while I enjoyed the event, I’ve only two observations. Tallis’ compositions are choral and hearing music composed only of multiple human voices has a strangely unearthly quality. The human voice, the first ever instrument, should surely be a natural sound for us. Yet when you hear this many voices at work it’s anything but.
It’s also music that’s virtually impossible to listen to in terms of individual lines. There are just so many voices you need to just take in the combination, the same way you’d watch a murmuration of starlings.
NIK TURNER’S SPACE RITUAL
The Brunswick, Hove, Sat 10th Feb
Space Ritual are Nik Turner’s variant of the band which must absolutely not be called Hawkwind while on British shores. A few years ago, I was telling you that in the great Hawkwind schism I aligned more with the heretical Turnerite sect than the Brock orthodoxy.
Alas, things have turned. Now seventy-seven, you would no longer be expecting Turner to roller-skate around the stage. But perhaps inevitably through time he’s pretty much lost his singing voice. Through some quirk of the human larynx he can still honk his horn as ever, meaning there was some effectiveness to the instrumental sections. I am really not sure I want to point this out, Turner being so strongly associated with music I’ve loved since by early teens. I still have vivid memories of my first Inner City Unit gig, shortly after leaving home. But facts, I suppose, are facts.
And as Brock long ago made the decision to be the director of music rather than the frontman, that makes his Hawkwind – the Hawkwind who are called Hawkwind – the live version to go for.
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