Playing a single song two-guitar drone set, the opening act Jazzfinger kneeled in front of their instruments slowly coaxing a smoking passenger jet out of the skies. One of their more overtly dark performances they set loose clicking uncoiling lines of smoke and nearly liberated a single almost complete guitar line. Manipulating their Marshall speakers throughout the track, the drones were continuously active refusing to coagulate.
Before his set Prurient (alias Dominik Fernow) resembled a mild mannered record store as he minded the merchandise table eating noodles. Arriving at his bank of gear, dressed all in black with a pair of shiny OJ gloves and having removed his spectacles, he looked like a puppy abuser.
On record Prurient has never really come together for me yet. I’ve always thought that he was pushing for a combination of vicious fucked up sound with loose black metal roots, but it never seemed to hit the target. The two tracks of his set were a combination of crimson throated screaming and a barrage of fleshy digital sounds twisted by numerous pedals, dials and FX units. His ‘performance noise’ stage presence didn’t appeal but the music was much more alive and evilly focused. Bursting with crushing single blocks of percussion, lung bursting invocation and intermittent plummeting reverb, Prurient’s sound came alive. I’ll definitely be checking any future releases (and backtracking on the last few) to see if any of them live up to this set.
On record Prurient has never really come together for me yet. I’ve always thought that he was pushing for a combination of vicious fucked up sound with loose black metal roots, but it never seemed to hit the target. The two tracks of his set were a combination of crimson throated screaming and a barrage of fleshy digital sounds twisted by numerous pedals, dials and FX units. His ‘performance noise’ stage presence didn’t appeal but the music was much more alive and evilly focused. Bursting with crushing single blocks of percussion, lung bursting invocation and intermittent plummeting reverb, Prurient’s sound came alive. I’ll definitely be checking any future releases (and backtracking on the last few) to see if any of them live up to this set.
Burning Star Core’s three song set touched upon several areas of sound, running through vocal, digital, analogue and violin experiments but always moving with a purpose. His opening and melodically violent violin phasing/droning piece left only particles of sound to remain in the air before rushing into the next rack of notes. C. Spencer Yeh’s high energy performance seemed to have rubbed the varnish from the instruments neck by the time he’d finished, his fingers a blur for most of the performance. Moving to (what looked like) a walkman, a box of wires and a vocal mic, he spat wordless curses and dragged tape static back and forth into a staccato binary gargling session. Shaking, screaming and totally focused on blasting a stream of meaningless invective he ended the abrasive session in a cat/reptile acapella angry hiss. His last piece was a tightly bound and minutely manipulated sine that was less energetic but no less involving. Free shows of this quality don't come along too often.
