Up until May, 2011, I hadn’t picked up a guitar in around two years. But on hearing Hallock Hill‘s debut, The Union, I finally felt musically inspired enough to pick up the instrument again.

The nine pieces that make up The Instrument are layered, one-take pieces recorded in my living room using just two guitars, various bits and pieces lying around the flat, and feature everyday, unedited sounds from my surroundings. This, twinned with the fact that I didn’t note down any of the tunings, means that I can never replicate any song on the album.

Since then, the album has been picked up by Runningonair Music and is scheduled for a March release. It will be available on limited edition vinyl and as a download.

A press release is available here. 

There’s no doubt that my favourite, living British comedian is Stewart Lee. Last night, he played to almost 2,200 people at the Royal Festival Hall. Having seen Lee a few times now, this was easily the largest crowd I’ve seen him perform to. Introduced by Armando Iannucci, The Complete Vegetable Stew lasted 3hrs 45mins (including three 10 minute breaks). Though a lot of the material was recently visible on the tellybox since he got his show, Stewart Lee’s Comedy Vehicle, anyone that had seen him live over the past two years would have been familiar with most of the content.

Surprises were supplied in the form of improvised gags – his own alarm clock unexpectedly sounding near the start providing the first distraction. Like many of Lee’s shows, it was difficult to gauge the audience’s reaction. With few walk-outs, most people near me were either in hysterics, silent or busy getting pissed on the cans of beer they’d smuggled in. The dreadlocked hippie in front of me kept falling asleep during the first hour.

For me, it was a solid performance, with his truest, most honest form coming towards the end as he took arms against David Cameron and The Bullingdon Club. It is these areas where he comes closest to simultaneously uniting and dividing the audience. It would be better to see more of this in Lee’s future shows. The more acerbic material reminds me of ’90s Comedian and – like delivering his ‘Braveheart the paedophile’ gag in Scotland – I think Lee can afford to alienate his audience (and Guardian readers) further than being ironically pro-IRA.

Though I would very much favour that sort of anarchic behaviour, it probably wouldn’t benefit Lee’s bank balance and celebrity. But does that really matter to Lee? He’s unlikely to go on a sell out run of the O2 Arena. Even with two TV series under his belt, Lee finds himself in the curious position of being just where he wants yet also being on the fringe of becoming the type of mainstream comic he ridicules. No doubt he is aware of that, and even went on to claim that he was under no illusion that playing the Royal Festival Hall represented some kind of glass ceiling in his career.

His new show will be run in this summer and will feature at the Soho Theatre in the winter. By then, I suppose we’ll see what decision he’s made.

With this particular festival beginning late in the afternoon, Supersonicees are free to recover from the night before, or explore the heady materialistic delights of Birmingham’s Bull Ring. But, after Sunday lunch, it’s time for the charming acoustic fingerwork of Peter Broderick. And, by that, I mean not just the guitar: this hugely gifted 23-year-old plays piano, violin, and the saw – all while singing beautifully. Thanks to loop technology, he’s practically a one-man Grizzly Bear (though he was once part of Efterklang). The audience is suitably quiet (rapt in awe I suspect), and the incessant gas click from the bar makes for an unwelcome percussive addition. I have to say that the song he says his ‘Dad used play’ was so affecting, it actually broke my heart a little.

 httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R3oTSb36Hxs&feature=related

If I couldn’t have survived on the psych rock from Cave’s amiable American journey just hours ago, it’s across to Voice of the Seven Thunders who are actually just four, young men (including Broadcast’s Chris Walmsley) doling out heavy psychedelic doom. Their sound is snarling, pressing, but restrained. During an extended tuning session, the guitarist recalls the time someone threw a piece of cheese at him on stage. He replied, “That’s not very mature.” And so I leave.

 httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LHsw4M97hPE

For Jailbreak, take one pedal steel guitar and distort. Add one three-piece jazz kit and amplify. Give Chris Corsano some sticks, and Heather Leigh Murray a few steel fingerpicks and a vocal mic to warble into. Let free noise commence. Whether you enjoy the result or not is entirely up to the individual. Personally, I don’t get it.

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6YDFzfqwtg4

The Old Library is the site for Ruins, but it was more uncomfortable in there than a one-carriage tube serving the entire Northern line at 7am on a Tuesday. Space 2 was empty for Mothlite and the vegetation wrapped around their mic stands. When they started playing their form of new romance, it became apparent why. In lieu of music, it was good to spend some time sat down in the Theatre with music legend Michael Rother as he chatted to John Doran from The Quietus about influences, Kraftwerk, LSD, the development of Neu‘s sound and not working with David Bowie.
It’s worth noting that at this late stage of the festival, the toilets are still being adequately looked after. The handful of food stalls outside sit nicely with the option to buy tea, cake and records inside. With few places to sit and now that the festival has moved into autumn (possibly to allow access to more acts), chilled, damp concrete is often the tired reveller’s option.

The Old Library has emptied a little since Ruins, and a single spotlight is trained on a white, plastic, folding chair. James Blackshaw‘s 12-string Guild is to the left of it and his can of Beck’s to the right. As Blackshaw begins to cycle through his arpeggios and single string melodies, the audience remains seated. Tuning between pieces, understandably, takes ages, though that also seems to be appreciated by the audience. His soft, protracted pieces are all similarly played out, but enjoyable nonetheless.

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zCsNrhn41iQ

There is some delicious psychedelic funk being played before Khyam Allami & Master Musicians of Bukkake’s set. There is much pointing and waving of incense on stage, and whatever the effect is meant to be, nothing is happening. A lot of cold people are looking at a stage of confused men. Finally, 30 minutes after the scheduled start time, the band come on, but are now wearing nomadic headwear. Supersonic 2010: the masked festival. Some drone, some gong action, some theatrical lighting, some oud, some nonsensical pseud-Arabic gestures, and I feel like I’m one of many wanting to scream, “Just get on with it!” The Bukkake boys are centre stage while the star of the show Khyam Allami is sidelined without so much as a spotlight to pick him out. That’s unfortunate because in this limited light, he looks like Adrien Brody with a perm. Allami’s oud is prone to losing out against the thick, synthetic drone pouring from the speakers, but is perfectly audible when dueling with Timba Harris’ violin on ‘Iraqi Maqam Nawa’. Allami switches to the Buzuq for the second piece (based on the ‘Maqam Segah’) which finally gets things cooking. The group finishes victoriously on ‘People of the Drifting Houses’.

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BMGmHlmfq8I

Mugstar, a rock-based crossover complete with out of tune vocals, are rocking out in the Old Library. In this sense, they’re reminiscent of Three Trapped Tigers, but without the technical ability. Their music sounds very much like something the Chemical Brothers threw away in 1996, and as their efforts continue in much the same vein, and I seek out another music donor.

Back in a packed out Theatre, and I can’t even see Barn Owl, but I do find the only public radiator on site, and hold it to ransom – even from Robert Lowe whom I fail to realise is standing next to me, until he leaves taking the best hair on site with him. Radiators: they’re what most festivals lack. Barn Owl’s music is all bells, twin guitars and effect. Their electronic Gregorian lull serves as a glug of earwash post-Mugstar. From what I understood from the watching, non-radiator owning audience, most people fell asleep. I believe that is a good thing.

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hFcDzYqTvzA

As the refreshed leave their seats, I seize the opportunity to sit down and watch Matthew Barney’s extraordinarily weird Guardian of the Veil. Impossible to describe, or understand, seek out the film if you want to have your mind ruined.

Images of roads penetrating countryside flash on the screen at the Outside Stage as a smartly dressed Michael Rother starts Hallogallo 2010 with a soft synth wash and a delayed guitar panned heavily from left to right. Neu’s motorik beat rumbles out of the PA courtesy of Steve Shelley (Sonic Youth) and the trio open on to ‘Hallogallo’. You get the impression Rother could play one note for an hour, and the audience would lap it up. Some people desperate to publicly shame themselves for the music legend attempt to crowd surf to the incessant beat, before ending up falling, laughing, to the floor. It’s a confused end to an otherwise wonderful festival.

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wg10iC4bhvo&feature=fvst

Saturday afternoon, and I arrive in time to hear the musical thrall of Robert Lowe’s ( from TVOTR amongst others) Lichens. ‘Kirlian Auras’’ gorgeous meandering drone drips from the speakers in the Old Library. The sounds are supplemented by a mesmerizing, continuous, kaleidoscopic series of blotches on the screen that resemble a trip through the sky. So…like an aeroplane, then. But as the drone subtly shifts and extra melodies are added, the visuals run thick with psychedelic colour. One man with fabulous hair and a synth becomes the best thing of the festival thus far.

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hD6hxdCi4zU

Down on the Outside Stage, Tromans and Nicholls are dueling Rhodes with interlocking arpeggios and jazz riffs working around a scripted piece. Part free, part form and amorphous; as one digs in, the other reaches for another part of an invisible equation with frequently cacophonous, but mostly exciting results. Steve Tromans plays with the clichéd use of the Rhodes and dismantles its funk. He is at his best when lost, and doesn’t see his altogether hairier and younger counterpart Dan Nicholls trying to catch his eye. Sometimes it looks as though one is trying to learn a piece from the other, but can’t keep up. Ultimately, the pair sound their best when Tromans loses his place, and the power struggle becomes more intuitive.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L4InrDTc5P0

Walking into the dismantling end of Lash Frenzy vs KK Null’s set makes me shamed to have missed the whole show. With a few band members spread out amongst the audience, the noise installation and experience is highly original and disorienting.  Still, I manage to get a good spot to see Dosh, who is Mark Dosh. A baseball cap and a beard are all that appear to loop synth, percussion, and drums through a mixing desk. ‘Subtractions’ is built slowly, and Dosh plays all individual parts once, creating a heavily layered track while demonstrating the live construction of his quirky, funky psych. His basslines turn eardrums flaccid, and Dosh melodically riffs over the created piece, adapting it just before it becomes overly repetitive. There’s something West Coast about his style and the beats are reminiscent of Private Press era DJ Shadow. ‘Simple Exercises’ is where Dosh time stretches and squashes his snare to good effect, and though he is limited with this setup, the set is mostly attractive.

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E3CGWOw9LHI

It’s time for a break from the music, and I visit Action Hero’s live music installation, Smoke and Lights. Simply pick a live track by a Supersonic artist, past or present, and sit in a dark room while living the real or imagined memory assisted by traffic lights and a smoke machine. I picked a track by The Bug and heard the Amen break being squashed for five minutes. Fun.

So, over to the cold warehouse concrete of Space 2 where Kevin Martin’s King Midas Sound are getting ready to rock. The cavernous space could be an appropriate environ for this dub and lover’s rock trio. Martin gets the process underway with an ascending and descending non-siren erupting from his laptop, before dropping his signature, brittle bass-heavy beats. Roger Robinson takes to the mic and the duo start with ‘Cool out’. ‘Waiting For You’ sees Hitomi arrive to take the mic and the trio’s eerie, spacious sounds twinned with the huge bass make me grateful for the free earplugs picked up earlier. The set gets progressively heavier and industrial, moving the live sound a long way from the blissed-out album. It’s good, but unpredictably so. While the dubstep march was appealing to many, the set ultimately betrays the dynamics that serve to make KMS so appealing. ‘Earth a kill ya’ is more fitting, but it’s not enough. Some are possibly taking the word ‘Supersonic’ a little too seriously.

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n7GwUepwTAE

Over to Tweak Bird and Caleb is playing a two-note riff with his back to the audience while John McCowan squeezes out a melody from his soprano sax. Brother of Caleb, Ashton Bird, appears and plays his cymbals. The shadows of the overhead mics make it look as though Ashton is surrounded by microphones. The front-of-house mix makes their dramatic launch into ‘The Future’ sound entirely naff, and their muddy set isn’t helped by Caleb’s guitar being completely swamped by the thunderous drumming coming from stage right. There’s a nice turn from McCowan who appears intermittently to add a necessary melodic dimension and jazz implication, but the crowd is quite sparse, implying that I should be someplace else. And that’s because Godflesh are due on.

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TgfnRZLqmZo

A busy Space 2 are ready to greet local industrial metal legends, Justin Broadrick and G.C. Green aka Godflesh. Broadrick rips into ‘Like Rats’ and the crowd goes wild. It’s just possible to make out the pair on stage through all the smoke. Broadrick’s riffs are peppered with harmonic squeal, and his body twists with each vengeful strike at his axe. Tracks from the Streetcleaner and Pure albums suit this eager audience just fine.

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iiH4op8t48U

To close the evening indoors is no bad thing, and I await the sounds of the unusually attired Cave. The Old Library’s sparse as most people are over watching Godflesh destroy Space 2. The four take to their psychedelic inspired rock pitched in darkness. Cave are virtual metronomes thanks to their svelte, determined drummer (who bears a passing resemblance to Grange Hill’s Zammo crossed with Ian Curtis) and his grey vest. His right leg is so active that he has to put the unused monitor in front of the bass drum to stop the thing from drifting away from him. Though space rockers, there’s also a hint of post-punk around them. Cave prove to be a delectable end to a splendid Saturday.

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Io2PMKDXi30

(Covered for MusicOMH)

Freaks! Hipsters! Hipster haters! Sonic warriors! Aural artists! All these groups and many more gather at Birmingham’s Custard Factory to get thick and gooey to the noise and activities offered by Capsule’s Supersonic Festival.

Starting on a cold, dark Friday night in downtown Digbeth, there is a queue stretching all along Gibb Street leading on to site. There’s a good mix of people here, with a range of ages across both genders – though it is absolutely fair to say that this is a festival dominated by the presence of men. The site is not huge, and sound does spill across areas such as from the Outside Stage into the Theatre.

Gum Takes Tooth comprises two masked men, a drumkit and a synth sitting on the Outside Stage, while Emeralds‘ delicious Candy Shoppe drifts around the empty swimming pool. Under a red light, the duo drone and clank like outlaws. Staccato sub-bass notes dig into the audience, the toy megaphone used for effect doesn’t work very well, and some looping technology is employed for some semi-musical harmonies. More of a theatrical act interwoven with music than a music act, it’s not long before I leave them to their own scattered devices.

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bXbsX4hwssc&feature=related

For a slightly more melodic quality, it’s a short walk across to the Old Library for the doomy laptop powered Necro Deathmort. Techno-oriented, the duo dabble with slow hip-hop breaks that are never quite UK bass, and add 303 squall to an energetic yet low-tempo set. It’s engaging stuff, and when they do ramp up the tempo, the drums run glitchy and the bass, distorted. Distinctly technically minded, Necro Deathmort lack the tangible passion to make this more than an interesting sonic display.

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7vUJ67jtwFo

With Supersonicees currently choosing betwixt metal and digital noise, it doesn’t take a genius to figure out Fukpig’s genre. The original metalheads (NB not emo children) floating around make for a jovial and polite atmosphere while the uber chic, unfussed, and quite unfuckable trendy types loll around outside the Medicine Bar as they always have. Fukpig are on stage, soundchecking. They look very much like a group of middle-aged men, comprising two bald guitarists, one balding, bespectacled bassist, and a very hairy frontman. The band disappear backstage and return with masks on. This would appear to be the ‘Wear A Mask’ stage. They launch into the rapid ‘Die Bastard!’ before continuing with ‘Britain’s got fucking AIDS’. A comedy pastiche of Slipknot, their riotous grindcore is equally as pantomime. The songs are short, but the sound outside is poor.

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n5SVmgwZMxs&feature=related

Trotting back up the stairs for the digital dub nightmare of Devil Man; glitch, white noise and sub mix with decent graphics. The music is industrial in the sense that it sounds like there is cavernous ring modulation in action. DJ Scotch Egg (part of the Devil Man duo) certainly seems to be having a good time, and the sound is better suited to an outdoor tent area in a field to give appropriate juxtaposition to this aural interpretation of hell. And yet, this isn’t something not already delivered from artists like King Cannibal. But this isn’t dubstep: it’s grinding digital dub (or ‘Noisestep’ as the festival guide states). As the set progresses, it becomes clear that there is something embedded in the sound that’s reminiscent of early ADF. The delays on the taut snares are fun, as are the double-time rhythms, but as the night wears on, the set becomes less intriguing. I am sad to have to miss Napalm Death, PCM, and Dead Fader, but the journey to Birmingham has been long, and tiredness comes creeping.

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tvn-13S5dDk

A majority of the earth’s populace will never visit space. Thankfully, there are books, records, and films innumerable enough to fire the imagination and prevent us being distraught by that unsurprising fact. And let’s face it, from what we know, the moon is a pretty boring place. Dust, rock and a few flags: it’s hardly worth saving up for one of those Virgin Galactic tickets.

Brian Eno‘s Apollo is a cheaper, and more accessible option than the Apollo program, and – judging by the Tom Hanks film – it’s vastly more enjoyable and less stressful. So, it is with a supercilious air that the audience of the Queen Elizabeth Hall take to their comfortable, padded, leather seats to watch the 12 musicians of Icebreaker attempt to recreate those warm, ambient tones with the aid of BJ Cole on pedal steel guitar.

The colourfully attired artistic director (and pan-pipe player) of Icebreaker, James Poke, helpfully introduces the music and prior to departure, we eager astronauts are informed that the first half of the show will focus on the work of David Lang and Michael Gordon.

Lang’s ‘Cheating, Lying, Stealing’ comes first, and the piece is a multifarious journey into seemingly inexhaustible time signatures and a syncopation that bears a passing resemblance to the icy tension of Ennio Morricone‘s work on The Untouchables. Anyone familiar with the original ‘Cheating, Lying, Stealing’ (or the Rock Band series in which it appears), will know the version as performed by New York chamber group, Bang On A Can. A technical piece as thrilling and gripping as this makes it easy to forgive the errors that arise.

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=juJqalaNhX4

Next up is Gordon’s ‘Trance’ which, in its original form, is a lengthy 52 minute piece. James Poke describes the author’s ambitious intention: to create a piece of music that sounds as though all the music in the world is playing in the listener’s head at once – a piece that sounds like information overload. Tonight, Icebreaker play just two movements from the piece – a sample of overload. Cue the chattering of saxophones and percussion to mimic the receiving tones of multiple hard-wired data transmission machines sounding simultaneously. Gradually building, the finale is far greater than the sum of its parts, as the noise eventually splits the brain left and right.

After the break, and Icebreaker finally launch into Apollo. BJ Cole is centre stage, but as he doesn’t play until two-thirds of the way through, he simply sits there and gazes at the notation, occasionally shuffling paper about. We, however, are not watching this man with the thick glasses look bored. No, we are watching the footage from the epic Apollo journey into space – exalted by the pleasure of hearing Eno’s iconic piece of music played by musicians live in front of our very ears. Except that actually, we’re not.

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aKw5mbcE7VY&feature=related

Though the individual pieces are well thought out, and musically accurate; the delicious, analogue bubble of ‘Under Stars’ is missing; the eeriness of ‘The Secret Place’ entirely absent; the fog of ‘Signals’ vanishes unacknowledged, and so on. Until Cole joins in towards the end on ‘Silver Morning’, the entire exercise seems entirely futile. It would be more pleasurable to watch this historic – and  in places, comedic – footage while listening to the original, irreplaceable, and iconic piece of music.

Though strange to say that an album almost three decades old sounds more futuristic in its original form than Icebreaker’s attempt at replication in 2010, it is also very true.

**½~~ (2.5/5)

Those of you hip enough to Twitter and foolish enough to follow me will already know I live tweeted The Big Chill Festival. However, you may have missed a random thought that makes me look stupider than this picture or just not read any of them at all.

So, you can now download all those 140 character thoughts in an easy to read document by clicking the link below.

Big Chill Twitter

Now, I’m off for a shower.