East Van Strings at 1313
I was fortunate enough to catch the East Van Strings the other night in Halifax. Settling in at Halifax’s great new space 1313 – a space whose name has been immortalized by a recent Jerry Granelli album title, I knew I was going to be witness to some superb musicianship: the East Van Strings is a sort of reinvented string quartet featuring some of the Pacific Northwest’s finest players. Peggy Lee holds down the bottom end on cello, to her left Eyvind Kang on viola, with Jesse Zubot on violin, and Gordon Grdina on guitar and oud. Lee, Zubot and Grdina are all leading lights of the Vancouver free-improv scene, while Kang is a Seattle violist known for his work with Bill Frisell and Sunn O))), among others. The group is led by Gord Grdina and is said to take it’s inspiration from early twentieth century German composers, as well as Arabic and Indian music, and minimalism.
The group played two stunning sets of music. Switching between guitar and oud, Grdina’s playing was all over the map, and always masterful, whether he was playing riff-driven lines, avant-jazz solos, or beautifully ornate oud improvisations; Jesse Zubot and Peggy Lee’s well advanced extended techniques were relentlessly inventive; Eyving Kang laid down on the most compelling solos of the night towards the end of the concert, an Arabic inspired bit of music that was truly dazzling.
It was great to hear the group shift from sound to sound, it kept things interesting and amply showcased different facets of the individual players abilities. Things ended with a very beautiful “pretty” composition that was a bit of a departure for the already varied-sounding group. Any project that any of these players is involved with is pretty much guaranteed to be well worth checking out, and East Van Strings is no exception.
Six Organs Of Admittance, Bush Hall, London, 04-12-09
With two diminutive Christmas trees illuminating either side of the stage of the vaudevillian interior Bush Hall, it wouldn’t be wrong to say that the music and style of Ben Chasny seemed a little out of place, the yuletide consumerist madness that floats like a conspicuous mist throughout London through Christmas at odds with Chasny’s free style and overtly un-consumerist psychedelic folk/ drone hybrid: A behemoth of creation that rules under the moniker of Six Organs of Admittance.
Staying mostly within his ‘Shelter from the Ash’ material, Chasny and co brought a full band sound to the otherwise soloists performance, adding a textured element of guitar drone that, at times, made their sound not too far from the hallowed drone band Earth, undoubtedly producing a similar hazy Americana sound at times.
While a marvel to listen to however, Six Organs of Admittance took to the stage like a shoegaze group who’d just been told of their respective terminal illnesses, having little interaction with the crowd but for the mandatory murmurs of thanks and an unheard remark about the aforementioned Christmas trees. And while it would be foolhardy to turn up to a SO of A gig expecting fireworks and table top dancers, when confronted with technically, lengthy and hypnotic music, more needs to be done in order to get people off their hookah pipes at home and go see the band proper.
Take Sunn0))) for example; minimal audience interaction but through reusing their L.A.R.P clothes and a little bit of lighting trickery the atmosphere becomes one that compliments the audible experience that their music summons.
Earnestly it wasn’t Chasny and band that were at fault as their show was spot on, yet lacking in the abovementioned ambience within the venue made for a stripped down and bland environment with some people choosing to leave before the performance ended: hell even a few more chairs would have been ideal so that those wanting to get lost within the music’s talented and free flowing rhythms could do so without the irritation of spatial awareness.
All in all a mixed bag, but one mixed outside of the band’s control who, despite putting on a technically powerful and psychedelic performance was let down by the venue’s lack of a certain ‘je ne sais quoi.’
Six Organs of Admittance at Stone Henge at sunrise of the summer solstice; hell yeah!
But in a mock deco hall with two adjacent plastic Christmas trees; it just doesn’t quite measure up.
Photo: Creative Commons photo by IntangibleArts - http://www.flickr.com/photos/intangible/2218982226/John Darnielle Interview
The Mountain Goats new album is about God, in a raw and unsettling way. The narratives are about the interaction of the divine with human hands, in a round about way, or about how culture interacts with the texts that found us. Each verse is based on a bible verse, but they are poetic responses and narrative constructions. This is not personal reflections or strict exegesis, but contain all of these things. It is always a bit dangerous to assume biography, but the album, and the songs seem profoundly personal, a struggle about how to reintegrate faith and culture in a polyvalent, secular world. How to make the words mean something again, when the words used to be about bad things. It is a free and liberating work, with a full recognition of the weight of melancholy, of oppression and even exhaustion that comes from the logophillia of Christianity.
In the following questions. John Darnielle pushes back against the assumptions of faith, about the narratives of conversion and, about how we interact with the gospels, and about how we rescue that which is valuable from the “childish things” from his (and for many of us, our) Christianities.
Why these bible verses?
It’s back and forth, case by case - there isn’t one “why these taken together”; each one has its own relation to the song it appears in. Rom 10:9 pretty obvious, Hebrews 11:40 too I’d think; some of the others (Deuteronomy 2:10, referring to a time when something great & now gone roamed the earth freely & abundantly) only take a little work, and some of the the others are “elliptical” as I like to say. The verses are kinds of keys into the songs - not the only keys, I’d think, but the ones I use.
Which ones do you think you are missing?
Oh, who knows - this isn’t, like, “JD’s compleat look at the Bible” - it’s songs and the verses that go with them. I didn’t get to Job or Jonah, and the song from Daniel got left out of the album, and those are three of my favorites, Jonah especially. But Jonah itself (to say nothing of Job) is so spectacular that it’s hard to imagine doing anything with it that couldn’t be better done by just pointing at the text, whereas these other verses, I’m trying to do something with them.
Why was Enoch the only Deutrocannoical text you used?
Because I am less generally interested in non-canonical books. I know that for a lot of people, there’s this instant interest in anything that didn’t make the canon - this urge to say “such-and-such a song, had it been on the album, would have been the best one on it,” or “the unedited version of the film is clearly superior to the edit.” I tend to go the other way. I can dig these mystical books like Enoch for sure, but, y’know…they’re no Genesis.
I am using the NRSV, do you have a preferred translation?
Used to be a big New Jerusalem Bible fan. These days I like Young’s Literal Translation and the Darby Translation for reading - I haven’t seen the NRSV but I grew up on the Revised Standard.
How does this view of Jesus relate to yr interest(is interest to small a word, faith, belief, practice of?) in Hinduism
You know, for all the Biblical focus of the album, I feel like Jesus is more present by His absence - there aren’t any actual-stories-about-Jesus; if He’s addressed, it’s only in the speaker-addressing-God-as-“Lord” sense, i.e., the speaker could be talking to God the Father or the Son or really anyone he’d call “Lord.” I am a little surprised by this, since I love the stories of Jesus so much, but here He sort of paces the empty halls between the song lines like a spirit in a drafty castle. Which, now that I think of it, is sort of how I think of God generally - any God: a presence that comes sometime to possess a person in moments of extreme heat or cold.
Can you talk about the intersection b/w fictional construction and autobiography in the creation of the characters here?
Well, I mean, the old line about all writing being autobiography is incredibly liberating, right - every story you tell, you’re the hero whether you admit it or not, and the villain too, and the scenery. You and all your friends and foes, they’re all there is in the stories you tell. So I don’t really worry about this sort of thing. It all blends together before I finish even the first line, with or without my consent.
There is an American tendency, and I think it is uniquely American, to assume that their pyscho-geography is Edenic, from Edward Hicks paintings, to the Oneida Community, to Joseph Smith sanctifying Jefferson county to the Joni Mitchell line about going back to the garden. There are some songs that you have written that suggest that the suburbs are not a place of control and ennui but of punishment for ambition. There is something Edenic no matter how dark, in songs like This Year or The Best Ever Death Metal Band in Denton, that seems to extend or connect to this American sensibility. In this album you reference it explicitly. Can you talk a bit about that, about how you use the suburbs, about the spiritual contexts of them?
I disagree with your initial conception - I think Americans are particularly aggressive about asserting some personal Eden to their psycho-geography, but I think that’s universal - it’s just that Americans are a little less gung-ho (only a little, and it depends on the American in question) about equating Eden with childhood. So, when, say, you see a hockey montage of blurry home footage of kids playing hockey on a local lake & there’s some Edenic conception of “the game when it was pure for us” - that’s a type of Canadian Edenic self-conception, only it’s tethered to childhood or youth, which Americans tend to want to extend forever - so American Edenism sort of tethers itself to the especially rabid American worship of youth, thus amplifying the Edenic strain. I don’t know anything about suburbs. I guess technically where I grew up is a “suburb” but I don’t know - I think as far as discussion bigger cities vs. outlying areas goes, the water’s too polluted to swim in at this point. Too many calcified ideas about either the worthlessless/bankruptcy of such areas or, conversely, championing them as a sort of aesthetically daring stance. Anyplace where people live together is great!
Much of the metaphors, references, and language in this album are corporeal, and often dying or failing bodies. You grew up Catholic, whose bodily influence is unique in Christianity. Those two do not seem to unrelated, but I do not want to assume autobiography, how do you react to the mystical corpus?
Well, yeah, I mean, you kind of say it all when you ref the Church there, the Catholic Church - that’s the place where the rubber hits the road, as far as bodies & spirits go, blood & gore & powers & principalities, all that business. The Catholic tradition is the Augustinian heritage, for better and worse. When I conceive of the infinite I despite the foulness of the flesh and imagine its pleasures the way that we remember delight in things that we grow out of; I feel like, if spirit exists, then the body is a sad child’s toy that, once outgrown, will seem as insufficient as it is, its joys the joys of a person who loves hard tack best because he hasn’t yet tasted cake. But, you know, this is all supposition for me - I’m not sure I believe in a spirit outside of the body at all. Which complicates thing, given my Catholic inheritance. You know?
A Storm Of Light
02 Academy Islington, London28/10/09
October, normally the refrigerated precursor to a harsh winter ahead has instead been unusually mild in the capital this year.
Oddly fitting then were A Storm of Light into this arid 20 degree environment, providing desert scorched drone doom to the 02 Academy in Islington.
Alas the Islington Academy has always suffered from a dire timing policy, usually having gigs finish by 10pm, so it was with some disappointment but no real surprise that I arrived, not thirty minutes after the start of the show, to find the first warm up act already in mid performance.
Latitudes are a London made five piece that make music that is simultaneously doom and post rock, similar in vein to the likes of Isis or Pelican. Layering each track with complex yet unpretentious compositions, Latitudes shoegaze performance didn’t stop their music being a deafening and thus pleasing experience.
Next up was Minsk, four dudes from Chicago/ Peoria, Illinois, whose psychedelic doom was both traditionalist and contemporary in equal measure, making use of two vocalists, orchestrating over trippy and extensive guitar riffs. Epic and shamanistic, Minsk, like some musical cabal, managed to conjure a hallucinatory atmosphere despite having no help from the venue’s bland attempt at lighting.
Close to the Academy’s witching hour I feared for just how long A Storm of Light would get to play (sadly only around 45 minutes or so) but none the less the crowd were blown away by Josh Graham and the band’s ambitious and apocalyptic doom onslaught.
With sepia footage of the American west in the background and crow caws bridging the gap between tracks, A Storm of Light most definitely brought a slice of organic and rural Americana with them to the stage, a theme and feeling that helped each track resonate in the mind for some time after their performance.
Of course the night was also about promotion as A Storm of Light’s new album has recently been released in the UK (with the vinyl version out soon) and so for tracks from ‘Forgive Us Our Trespasses’ not to be prominent tonight would have been unusual to say the least.
Either way A Storm of Light put on an all out performance, bassist Domenic Seita engrossed completely in the music and looking somewhat threatening at times too, pounding his bass or dragging it across the stage in order to obtain every last drop of reverb.
As this is their second gig in the UK the venue should have been packed, but other people’s loss was the congregation’s gain as A Storm of Light played as if the Academy was full to maximum capacity, making a somewhat intimate gig a very satisfying and resounding one too.
Darsombra with Bleeding Heart Narrative
Jamboree London 09-10-09
While the avant garde metal brigade flocked to the Thames side Queen Elizabeth Hall to witness Ulver’s first ever UK gig, across to the East of the city a smaller, more intimate gig was underway, packed considerably despite the stiff competition.
Hidden away near by Limehouse DLR station the Jamboree nestles in an old warehouse space and former squat. Decorated with abstract paintings and illuminated subtly with low key lamps and fairy lights, the atmosphere was a perfectly underground yet sophisticated one in which to witness the sonic power of Brian Daniloski’s (aka Darsombra) guitar focused doom drone.
First up on stage were post rock/ jazz outfit Braindead Collective, whose thirty minute or so set of continuous music kicked and punched against the established routine of free form music, flowing from a schizophrenic opening (with the instruments building up a wall of sound around the mumbled words of one of the band members reading from a book) and ending with an enticing and brawny rhythm that showed off the timing and ability of all members of the group.
Slotted between two bands comprised of large numbers of musicians it took ample courage to get up there as a one man outfit but Darsombra, far from shying away from the challenge, blasted into his set with a vigour and enthusiasm that captivated the discerning audience members while hitting the more talkative patrons with a tank of layered noise that would have been folly to compete against.
With fervour written across his face, Daniloski worked technical magic that saw each guitar composition become part of a larger, more complex stratum of noise, expertly engineering sound equipment for the desired effect while simultaneously playing the guitar like it was some spiritualistic catharsis, as if it were fused to his very being.
Another group that have no shortage of passion are Bleeding Heart Narrative, a London ensemble under the orchestration of music composer Oliver Barrett. Having seen them share the stage with the likes of Arcana and Sol Invictus in Camden’s well-known Underworld club as well as having been a fan of the group since the release of their first album ‘All That Was Missing We Never Had in the World’, Barrett’s brooding experimental post rock was a perfect companion to Daniloski’s own output. This ideal combination did not go unnoticed by the audience either, whose enthralment was guaranteed by the beguiling orchestration from the London group. Their zeal for playing was characterised perfectly by the group’s euphoric crescendo ending, seeing Darsombra back on stage to add to the multifaceted music while Barrett and company got close to convulsion with their fervent performance.
A brilliant night all round then, with the subtlety of the venue juxtaposed by the epic sounds and talents of the musicians on stage; Ulver fans really don’t know what they missed tonight.
Pop Montreal 2009: Friday, Saturday, Sunday
The third night of Pop Montreal I first stopped by the Eglise St Jean De Baptiste to see Buffy Ste-Marie. Opening for the folk music legend in this beautiful church was a local band Ladies of The Canyon, four lovely and talented young ladies, one or two on acoustic guitars and one on standup bass, all four of them singing in sweet harmony. They had a really nice sound - a little bit country, a little bit folk.
Buffy was incredible – she had a fully backing band, all native americans of various tribes, which was cool. With the band, she did some really hard-rocking songs like Cho Cho Fire, and some quieter songs too. She also did some wonderful solo songs including a great version of the bluegrass classic Cripple Creep on vocals and bowharp, that recalled her classic recording of Groundhog, also on bowharp. I left early to see the solo Destroyer show, but stayed long enough to catch quite a few of her classic songs – Universal Soldier, Big Wheel Spin and Spin, Up Where We Belong, as well as some great new songs, like the aforementioned Cho Cho Fire and one about corporate greed called No No Keshagesh. She also did some great covers including a song by Floyd Westerman who’s perhaps most readily recognized as the guy in the Lakota commercial, which Buffy pointed out quite humorously, although many also remember him as Albert Hosteen in X-Files. Buffy did a very heartfelt song of his in tribute (he passed away in 2007). Clearly a seasoned performer second to none, she came across as full of life and personal warmth, and charmed the crowd with humour and a mix of songs that alternated between truly touching and truly rocking.
I split early – not knowing how much longer Buffy was going to play and hoping I wasn’t missing too much – in an attempt to try and catch most of the Destroyer show, which I had learned from the man himself was going to be a solo acoustic show. Pretty stoked to check that out, as I don’t think I’ve seen Destroyer solo since something like 1998 at the fabled Sugar Refinery in Vancouver. He played a good set with a mix of songs old and new, although I was kind of hoping he might play Bay Of Pigs… Being a solo show, I think there was a fair bit more stage banter than usual, which was fairly amusing.
After Destoyer I headed down to the Glass Candy show at Studio Juste Pour Rire. I can’t comprehend what the hell happened to this band: I first saw them at the über-scummmy Astoria in Vancouver when they were called Glass Candy and The Shattered Theatre - they were sort of glam-punk-noise-performance art, they have slowly morphed further and further into an electronic act with no heart and soul, and they seem to be catering to an entirely different audience. Every time I’ve seen them I’ve enjoyed it a little bit less, think I’m ready to call it quits on this group.
Saturday night I headed down to see Os Mutantes. I felt hesitant because I’ve been a fan for 10-12 years, and you never know with reunions… Could be awesome, could be terrible. They were bloody incredible. They crowd went nuts. All the big hits were touched on including a Portugese version of Baby, A Minha Menina and a rousing encore of Bat Macumba. Of course that sweet, sweet production was not possible in a live context, but they came across brilliantly anyway. I was shocked at what a kickass guitar player Sérgio Dias was. Really incredible. Rita Lee isn’t in the band these days, but fiesty young beauty Bia Mendes more than held her own as the band’s current vocalist – she has a great, luscious, yet powerful voice and a really vivacious, fun stage presence. The band was wonderful, I would go see them again at the drop of a hat.
Sunday night I caught Katie Moore and Iris Dement. Katie Moore and her band have a sound that you might compare to the Topanga Canyon sound. Mellow country rock with some seventies funky bass lines, steel guitar courtesy of Joe Grass who I thought was under-utilized in favor of Mike O’Brien on electric guitar. Moore was a nice voice, would like to hear her do a solo show some time, not sure if she always plays with the band. Iris Dement was great, alternating between piano and acoustic guitar, great songs, killer playing, funny. Really good show.
Photo:Pop Montreal 2009 night two
Another day of Pop Montreal…. Yesterday I checked out Loudon Wainwright III with Carolyn Mark and Mike O’Brien.
Mike O’Brien is a local fingerstyle guitar player and songwriter. His guitar playing was incredible, songs not too bad, although it was hard to tell about the songwriting: the mix was poor, at least from where I was sitting, which was front row slightly left of centre. His vocals and lyrics were somewhat indiscernible, as a result.
Carolyn Mark is a Victoria country singer, formerly of the Vinaigrettes. I’ve known the name for years and years and never really checked her out. She put on an excellent show, with a guitar player and a fiddle accompaniment, really won the crowd over with humorous songs of heartache.
Loudon Wainwright was absolutely incredible – he had the crowd rolling in the aisles a number of times. After what felt like a brilliant full-set of sometimes funny, sometimes sad and introspective songs, he surprised the crowd with a procession of guests: first the banjo player Chaim Tannenbaum, who recently guested on his Charlie Poole project; then Kate McGarrigle – the three had busked together in London some 40-odd years ago; and finally his daughter, singer Martha Wainwright. Wainwright jokingly commented that Leonard Cohen was next up on stage, and hinted that son Rupert would probably have been on stage with him too if he wasn’t on tour in Oregon that night… Extraordinary show.
I drifted from there over to Sala Rossa where I chanced upon the last few songs of an awesome AIDS Wolf performance. At first I wasn’t 100% sure it was AIDS Wolf because both guitars players seem new to the band, and Chloe Lum was singing down in the crowd, and initially I wasn’t sure it was her, because I don’t think I have ever seen her without those funny checkered glasses on. Anyway, they kicked ass I was bummed I didn’t get to see their full set.
They were followed by Red Mass, this is Roy Vucchino’s new band, formerly of CPC Gangbangs, Honey and Lies, etc. He started the set in a stylish red hat and short cape/shawl with red face paint and pentagram medallion. I think the mix was shit, I couldn’t make heads or tails of it, aside from thinking I could hear a Misfits influence in the vocals. I remember them sounding great on record – they have an album coming soon on Semprini. Might have helped if Roy’s guitar was bumped up in the mix, since it sounds like his barely audible riffs would have been the driving force behind the songs. Anyway, I kind of psyched to hear their album….
Megasoid were playing at Studio JPR but I woke up with a bit of a cold that morning and didn’t want to tempt fate, so I headed home to gather energy for the next night: think I may to try to start out at Buffy Ste-Marie and then head over to see Destroyer, who, I’ve learned, is playing a solo show, which will undoubtedly be incredible. A harsh decision. It’s a shame they are playing in such temporal proximity, because I know there would be a substantial percentage of the Destroyer audience, and Dan Bejar hismelf, who would love to see Buffy play.
Pop Montreal 2009: Allan Holdsworth, Sean Nicholas Savage
Pop Montreal kicked off another year of brilliant programming last night. This year’s festival, which lasts until Sunday, October 4, 2009, features a typically impressive lineup: Os Mutantes, Destroyer, Teenage Jesus and The Jerks, Joel Plaskett, Faust, Butthole Surgers, Loudon Wainwright III, Buffy Ste-Marie, Glass Candy, Iris Dement, and countless others.
I caught Allan Holdsworth and his band at a new venue called L’Astral. This was a joint show with the jazz festival, and felt more like one of those way left of centre shows that occasionally get randomly tagged on the Pop Montreal lineup for whatever reason, cross-promotion or just “why not” – Waitain’s awesome show last year comes to mind as an example. I’d previously seen Holdsworth at the Baked Potato in LA and was happy to see him again. Needless to say there was much headless guitar shredding and truly insane drum solos from Gary Husband.
I attempted to head up to see Evan Parker, which was actually a Suoni Per Il Popolo festival show but by the time I got there he was 20-minutes into his first set and Casa Del Popolo was jam packed and would have been hellishly uncomfortable – which may be fine for a sweaty rock show, but I like my free jazz with a seat and maybe even a table, thank you very much. So I tried to get into the Box Elders/Jay Reatard show but it was thoroughly sold out and my press pass wasn’t worth spit.
As a last gasp effort I wandered into Ballatou and caught a lacklustre Brazilian rock band (to be generous, their bass player had visa troubles and was arriving in town the following day, so maybe that would have made all the difference). They were followed up by a brilliant Canadian artist that I hadn’t heard of: Sean Nicholas Savage. He and his band had both an odd look and sound. Masterfully crafted classic pop songs that tinged with vintage British pop and American underground sounds across the generations, sung by a warbly, delicate crooner. The lyrics carefully walked the line between emotional and funny/weird. Savage was backed up by a an acoustic guitar player and a drummer with a very toned-down kit, also a few girls with racoon-face makeup and even more peculiar voices that weaved impossibly between impossibly out-of-tune and dead on, which was both charming and confusing.
After Sean Nicolas Savage, Charlotte Cornfield played, for the first few songs, solo then with drums and percussion, I was thinking “Wow! Oh, Wow!” but then when she got her full band up there, I very, very quickly lost interest and left four songs in. I find it sad that musicians always feel that they need, and considering most shows take place in bars these days, maybe actually do need, backing bands. So, so, often, they would sound way more expressive and dynamic solo.
I highly recommend checking out Sean Nicholas Savage. He’s doing a second show during Pop Montreal at Urban Outfitters on St-Denis. Really, really great music.
Dark Mills Festival
To look at, Merton Abbey Mills seems an unlikely place to host London’s first free goth & industrial festival. Situated in a picturesque alcove just off the bank of the river Wandle, regular craft shop retailers and consumers alike bore witness to a small but formidable legion of corset taut, eyeliner-thick goths and rivet-heads as they descended upon the small venue to take in the bands, theatre and art exhibitions that had been put on display for their enjoyment.
Indeed it was quite a sight to witness a seemingly bemused percentage of curious Middle England types fascinated more with the garish garbs of the audience than the acts on stage, a heaving testament to Vice Magazine’s now infamous ‘Do’s & Don’ts’ column.
The mise-en-scene aside, the festival (the first of what could become a regular event on London’s alternative calendar) had much to offer and for a small fee one could pick and choose which audio or visual entertainment appealed to them at the time. My day began on a high thanks to the SixToes, a freak folk group from London whose early slot on the bill did not deter them from an enjoyable and passionate performance, equal in terms of craft and composition to the headliners and, what with being of a different genre to the other collated acts, made for a refreshing variation on a theme.
The SixToes set done, I ventured forth into the Colour House Theatre to watch exploitation gore flick, ‘Living Dead Girl’, hosted by Redemption Films, an offshoot of Salvation films which specialises in distributing lost and forgotten titles. Perhaps it’s my inability not to analyse every film I watch, or perhaps it was the minute screen positioned some distance from the seating but either way ‘Living Dead Girl’ in which the eponymous character battles to stay alive through an insatiable need for blood, left me jaded. My only enjoyment came from the over-dramatic and bloody murders, this being an incidental delight aided by the laughter of the only other audience members in the theatre. Alas, even such classic requirements as full frontal female nudity and an axe to someone’s head couldn’t save this shoddily constructed mess. Argento it most certainly was not!
Moving back to the music stage with impetus I was rewarded with the dark cabaret music and antics of CalatrilloZ, a London based act with a strongly continental sound infused through their mixture of opera, prog and even jazz on occasion. Apparently Luciano created the group after first writing a story about the characters which he sings and performs about and while their style of music was a little ostentatious for my liking, none the less CalatrilloZ managed to bring in the crowd and hold them ready for the other acts to follow.
More to my liking were the subtle and evocative compositions of Imprint, two people and a synth that combined powerful vocals with a brooding, almost dark ambient sound sprinkled lightly with a little experimentation just for added dimension, making comparisons to veteran industrial act Attrition easy indeed. Although their set felt as short as SixToes’ had previously, I was happy all the same to have seen the second most proficient act of the day.
Following Imprint came another crowd pleaser, ‘The Veil’, though despite the cheers of the now swelling crowd I was not nearly drunk enough to stomach the commercial gothic metal sounds the group had to offer and so while others enjoyed the show I immersed myself in nostalgic bliss inside the exhibition of the work of Chris Achilleos, fantasy artist and illustrator behind both Conan comics and Heavy Metal respectively.
No gothic festival would be without a histrionic shock rock group and to take this mantle were four stick thin musicians that played on their good looks via sleazy & macabre theatrics while their industrial rock sound flowed in tandem with the proceedings. The vocalists of the group, Maleficent Martini & Mortimer Cain, are regular performance artists at metal festivals across the UK as well as being involved with London’s infamous S&M club Torture Garden and the talents needed therein were applied lavishly for all and sundry to bear witness, creating a maelstrom of baying cameramen that I, shamelessly, may have been a part of.
Later, needing a slight variation on the proceedings, I re-entered the minute venue of the Colour House for a mixture of independent theatre and burlesque. ‘Burn’ was a novel tale about three very different people trapped on an island flanked by piranha infested waters while suffering under a blistering heat. Based on Sartre’s vision of hell, it’s no surprise that these characters discover they’ve died and despite the performance space, Second Skin Theatre put on an entertaining routine.
So too did the girls of the goth burlesque guild named…ahem, Satanic Sluts, albeit of a more gaudy nature with kitsch titillation making up for the ninety minute borefest of ‘Living Dead Girl’ that I’d sat through previously. My curiosity satiated I ventured forth back to the music stage in order to catch the last performance of the night.
Billed as a goth rock super group The Eden House provided ethereal vocals (from a singer who looked remarkably like Beth Gibbons) mixed with characteristic goth rock guitar play, comparable to groups like Faith & Disease, The Cure or Switchblade Symphony. With engaging song after engaging song, The Eden House earned their position at the top of the bill after nearly ten hours of free music, ending the event with a cover of Bjork’s ‘Play Dead’ which more than made up for Maleficent’s ill advised and self serving cover of Cave’s ‘Where The Wild Roses Grow’.
With only minor hiccups for a first time event, Dark Mills offered the audience not just a free music festival but also offered the bands (all of whom commendably played for free) an outlet to reach their intended clientele. I for one am happy to have discovered Imprint, SixToes and The Eden House as well as enjoyed the performances of Maleficent & CalatrilloZ to boot and while a venue change may be in order to help out the cinema and theatre side of things it would be a shame not to see Dark Mills Festival come back next year, its edges smoothed, ready to help promote local unsigned acts in an altogether neglected subgenre in the music scene.