womb at ear whacks, the continental, preston

Womb's latest gig was in Preston.

They played Ear Whacks at The Continental - an experimental music night in a curious venue that looks more suited to wedding receptions, in the shadow of a tall rail viaduct at the entrance to Miller Park next to the river Ribble.

The night opened with two short films from Twigs and Apples collective. The films were monochrome, running slightly slow and apparently with a reduced frame rate. The amount of tonal detail was reduced.

The first had the camera drifting around city parks with a soundtrack by Tom Woolsgrove that consisted of a mixture of natural and unnatural sounds - including apparently a cat purring. The combination of images and sounds was slightly disquieting - hypnotic and eerie.

The second film saw the camera wander through underpasses, down stairwells, and past a coach station. I'm not certain who produced the second soundtrack which was louder and more abrasive. In combination with the images it was reminiscent of moments in Eraserhead or Pi - yet somehow very relaxing.

Tom Woolsgrove was next up. He's a manifestly accomplished multi-instrumentalist who has relatively recently moved into experimental noise making. Here he was using effects pedals, mic, and contact mic-ed viola.

Apparently only the last of the three pieces was improvised although I'd assumed the first two pieces were improvised. That's not to say they were bad - far from it - but that they didn't have an obviously composed feel about them.

Not knowing what to expect there was a sudden perking up of interest around the Womb and friends table when he started to play. Certainly Helen and myself were stunned by how good he was. With the volume turned up Woolsgrove produced a stunning array of sounds by striking the strings with the back of the bow, tapping the body of the viola, plucking and striking the strings and more.

As with Dominic Lash with his much larger Double Bass at Counting Backwards several months ago the simple act of making sound with the instrument became a compelling performance in itself.

The second piece used a mic and feedback as well as the viola - used here more for resonating and reflecting sounds.

The third and final piece was more straightforward. An improvisation in which Woolsgrove played viola through a wah-wah pedal. At times the effects almost got in the way of the piece and the playing which had a wide range of textures - from the sparse and seemingly hesitant to the much denser and faster.

Really jawdropping stuff - check out the soundcloud and look for any future performances near you.

And so it was time for Womb. A slightly smaller line-up of six than they've had recently.

Rather than the more usual slow build through percussion the set started with a simple melodic rhythm on an electronic toy Barbie piano. Percussion and a contrasting figure on the simpler mechanical toy piano were added in before drums and the rest of the instruments thickened the sound, raised the volume, and set a beat.

If Popol Vuh hadn't been such a bunch of fucking hippies this first half is the soundtrack Werner Herzog's seventies films would have had. Fuck it, it's the soundtrack his films should have. Spacious, droney, dancey, psych-ey - even proggy (and it's rare for me to use that as praise). Superficially a good fit but a necessary counterpart to the Romantic man-against nature self-mythologising machismo that infects the films.

If it had carried on for an hour or more slowly changing but circling round the mutating groove I would have been happy. The entire pub would have been dancing and off their fucking gourds with a natural high and the band would've had no sense of time. One day. One day...

At these moments the band have a restless, relentless vigour. It feels not so much like music as reaching for a transcendent collective experience through sound and rhythm. This is why it suits improvisaton so well - the excitement is in the attempt to reach and express something rather than in formally resolved structures. The music isn't boxed-in but trying to crawl out of itself.

Around halfway through the set which was only 20-25 minutes long there was a triple changeover. Fiona moved from drums to bass, Lou from bass to guitar, and Jen from guitar to drums.

The change was immediate - more uncertain rhythms and a doomier sound. Bass, guitar and keyboard provided structure in place of the drums and percussion previously. The sound now was closer to contemporary noise and drone. If the first half was Popol Vuh gone punk the second half was Sunn 0))) gone pop.

It was a much more expressive piece in some ways - or at least more unresolved. Musically it would also have benefitted from a longer time-span. Not to find any conclusion but to explore the various ideas a little more fully.

Jittery but grounded the music was full of contrasts, textures, and a depth of field perhaps greater than the previous half.

Once again a hugely impressive performance with a greater variety than some other recent shows. The atmosphere on stage seemed more relaxed - the atmosphere is always positive but with only six musicians there was more of a sense that they could operate as a single unit rather than having to divide into smaller interlocking groups.

The sound was good. The singing bowls, Barbie piano, toy piano, and tambourine - the stamps on stage and voices - were more audible than usual. Perhaps because there were slightly fewer musicians.

The band are beginning to evolve into something really rather special. Their sound is still changing and they have the potential to produce something far better than anything we've seen to date. You've been told, alright?

I think it was Left Hand Cuts off the Right next up. One man with electronics and noisemakers providing a live soundtrack to an animation - apparently Mieczyslaw Waskowski's Somnambulists from 1958 - I hadn't seen before.

The sounds were good - layered and sometimes deceptively quiet seeming. They were also rhythmical and looping. I'd like to hear them again to catch what I missed first time round.

Unfortunately my attention was rather more on the animation. It was a series of optical effects where it wasn't always clear what scale of things you were looking at, and consequently whether they had been speeded-up, slowed down, or left as they were. You couldn't tell the true colours or do anything more than infer what materials were being used.

Apologies to Left Hand... for the feeble review. I'll try and pay more attention next time. Apologies also to Jon Aveyard with his 'found sounds, broken toys, loops and sonic disturbances' who was up last. I missed the majority of his set and consequently had to come in cold when it had been unfolding for some time. That meant that I didn't really connect with what he was doing. I won't attempt an uninformed review based on that.

There'll be a little more on this evening over at matt dalby journal when I post the journal entry for yesterday - probably on Monday next week.

Comments

The Two Hats said…
Nice review, check out The Two Hats review -we managed to catch Jons performance. I think between us we've provided a balanced review - you like d womb http://thetwohats.co.uk/?p=627#more-627
Matt Dalby said…
Cheers.

A good review and nice to have an alternate perspective. I'll throw up a link in the main post when I have a chance.

Matt

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