Avant garde internet radio

Just a quick reminder that Jean Herve Peron’s Avantgarde Festival 2007 begins today. If you’re near Hamburg, head on over - and if you’re not, you can listen to it live over the next couple of days by following this link (once you’re there, click the little play button at top right of the page - seems to be running 7-12pm, Friday / Saturday / Sunday).

As Tim Stella once said, ‘nothing beats making strange noises with your friends’.

STRONG TRUTH!!!

<EDIT - Quite a few people have been coming here having searched for ‘Avant garde internet radio’ or similar. Jean Herve’s no longer broadcasting from Shiphorst, so I’d recommend checking out the ever-intriguing Resonance FM - Enjoy! Al>

Smashing the piano

Well, it’s quite the weekend of music coming up.

On Saturday night, Stoke Newington’s legendary Drones Club hosts the awesome testosterone rush that is synth duo Raagnagrok, plus mash up Arabist mayhem from Djinn. More details here, it’s going to be a blast.

On Sunday, as part of Resonance FM’s Month of Sundays sessions, Raagnagrok offshoot Grok is playing with the even-more-legendary M. John Harrison, plus techgnostic Erik Davis, at the Corsice Studios down in Elephant and Castle. Details here, again it’ll be truly mind expanding.

Oh, and there’s also going to be comedy from Simon Munnery, science chat from Little Atoms, Dexter Bentley, Marvin Suicide and more.

I’ll be at both - see you there!

Coal sculptures

Last Friday night’s excursion was a trip to see compellingly strange French SF animation ‘La Planete Sauvage’, plus a pre-film performance of some groovy improvised music from The Stargazer’s Assistant. The film was fantastic; the music was marvellous; but what really made the evening for me were David Smith’s coal sculptures, forming his exhibition ‘The Other Side of the Island’.

No words, for once; I took some pictures on the phone, so I’m going to let the work speak for itself.

Hey, hey, it’s the Mondays!

General astonishment at allumination Central, as I’m currently grooving to the new Happy Mondays album. The sleazy funk! The electro-dub basslines! The surprising new country and western direction! The incomparable lyric flair of Shaun Ryder! All present and correct, astonishing indeed…

First gig I ever saw (back in Paris in ‘90) was the Mondays, first in-store record signing I ever went to (in fact the only one), 17 years later and they’re still going strong. Or at least 3 of them and some other blokes are.

Oh and - Zali, on this one they sound nothing like Can at all! Truly they rock unfeasibly hard.

Zali to rock hard

Zali over at iotacism is playing a solo set at the Klinker in Stoke Newington tomorrow, details (and groovy music downloads) here. Go see him! He will rock unfeasibly hard. Would be there myself, but alas I shall be rowing. A useful skill given current rainfall levels.

Chainsaw bonus

Heather points out an interesting and previously unsuspected zombie-related benefit of attending Faust gigs over at Random Jane. Here’s Jean Herve of Faust in action with chainsaw at Sunday’s gig, to show you what she means…

Digital Mezzotint

Hit the Faust gig on Sunday night with Heather, Dave and Tara, and Rich - met various others there but more importantly grooved to excellent Faustmusik! Room too packed to move, until the smoke bomb cleared it. We had of course been softened up by Jean Herve Peron’s chainsaw and angle grinder, and Zappi’s power drill on sheet metal. Pictures here.

Here’s my favourite photo - Dave emerging from the smoke. Look at the top right of the picture… I’ve found that you see a little more of him every day. It’s like ‘The Mezzotint’ gone digital..

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