Monday 29 July 2019, 7.30pm
Very special two-day residency from Body/Head, the coruscating duo of Kim Gordon and Bill Nace, who create a dizzying soundworld of controlled chaos that swings deftly between dissonant eruptions and joyous catharsis. Last year's The Switch LP hones the forceful synergetic noise of their 2013 debut, Coming Apart, into something even more enveloping and haunting, whilst losing none of the abrasive power that makes them so unmissable live.
“No matter how far they stretch, their tones and rhythms always cohere, making their music as mesmerizing as a hypnotist’s swinging clock.” – Pitchfork
“Together, they have stumbled upon some magickal, alchemal brew; a hardened, modern psychedelia. This is psychedelia stretched the fuck out, guitar-tone-trickery alone as the source of transcendence. The Switch makes composition out of rock's reverberation, all echo, shade, and light. It's a kind of fuzz-box sorcery.” – The Quietus
Creative alchemy doesn’t just happen in the studio or in the practice space; so much of it is the product of solo time with one’s instrument, learning how body and wood and electronics fuse, and of subconscious processes as one lives one’s daily life—picking up the ambient noise of the world outside, listening to others’ work, talking through ideas with friends. For Kim Gordon and Bill Nace, time together these days is limited to live performances and recording, so they’ve gotto bring all their magic to every encounter. Lucky for us, these are two experimental sorcerers of significant renown.
Their debut album together as Body/Head, Coming Apart, from 2013, was more of a rock record—heavy, emotional, cathartic, spellwork in shades of black and grey. The Switchis their second studio full-length, and it finds the duo working with a more subtle palette, refining their ideas and identity. Some of it was sketched out live (if you’ve not had the fortune of seeing them in that natural environment yet, see 2016’s improvisational document No Waves), but much of it happened purely in the moment. Working in the same studio and with the same producer as Coming Apart, here Body/Head stretch out, making spacious pieces that build shivering drones, dissonant interplay, Gordon’s manipulated vocals, and scraping, haunting textures into something that feels both delicate and dangerous. Less discrete songs than one composition broken up into thematic movements, a slow-moving narrative that requires as much attention and care from the listener as it did from everyone involved in its creation, it is a record that sticks around after it’s done playing.
Rebecca Mahay is an artist and performer born in Birmingham and now residing in Leeds. Mahay is of Indian-Punjabi descent.
Playing as Wild Rani, Mahay had a release on OTO’s TakuRoku label, Ruminations Until All Done, which The Wire noted “explores the music within digital noise, modulating hum, sirens and overlaid classic synth slides and whorls, threaded together with Mahay’s distorted, distant spoken word reflections on self, delivered as poetic, rhythmical snatches of vivid lockdown reality”.
Mahay’s audiovisual work in MIRROR II RORRIM added another dimension to Heath Moerland’s Sick Llama noise project with releases on Moerland’s now defunct Fag Tapes label, with one Womensware released by All Gone (Chris Durham/Church Shuttle).
“A glitchy, fragmented mess of vocals, samples, electronics, and feedback, the tape is characteristic of Moreland and Fag Tapes in general, though in some ways a little lighter and more inviting than most of the rest of their output.” Joe Bucciero, AdHoc on MIRROR II RORRIM
“A vocal ritualistic atmosphere is created by Becky Mahay bringing to mind Vox Populi "half dead ganja music" or the earliest coil live outings” - Chris Durham, All Gone Records.
Mahay’s sound and video work has featured in British Art Show’s ‘Offsite 9’, Eastside Projects Gallery, Sluice Art Fair, Vivid Projects, and Rhizome DC. Performances include Colour Out of Space, Voice of the Valley (VoV), International Noise Conference (INC) Miami, and supporting Body/Head, Wolf Eyes, and Aaron Dilloway.
Think melancholic vocal synth noise jams meets cut up life drama with a heavy seasoning of black comedy.
Adam Bohman and Jonathan Bohman have been recording together since their early teens and playing live since 1984.
Their repertoire includes a combination of sounds created in the moment and distinct compositions including songs. They use unconventional instruments, household objects, dislocated text from found, literary and commercial sources and collaged layers of recordings.
Regular concerts started in the mid-90s in London at places like The Club Room in Penton Street, The Red Rose and The Klinker. From 2000 to 2005 they had their own concert series upstairs at The Bonnington Café in Vauxhall, London.
They have performed at Tate Britain, Tate Modern, Roundhouse, Royal Albert Hall, South Bank and numerous smaller venues across Europe and America.
Their duo recordings include 'A Twist For All Pockets' (Rossbin, 2001), 'Purely Practical' (Peripheral Conserve, 2002), ‘Back On The Streets' (Peripheral Conserve, 2012), ‘Library Music’ (Des Astres D’Or, 2019) and ‘In Their 70s’ (Fort Evil Fruit, 2021). Their forthcoming album is ‘Room Service ‘ (Rural Isolation Project).
https://thebohmanbrothers.bandcamp.com
As a duo, the pair mercilessly deploy feral, hissing & rumbling tape-loops, field recordings, electronics & sometimes objects. Through this they establish a perfect high-concept/low art convergence, an intense and disorienting swirl which wreaths the synapses like the coiling, blackened, wordless squalls of our deep anxieties and desires oozing through bare, cracked windows, out of wardrobes and from beneath beds to flood and freeze the mind in the middle of the night. primitively gorgeous field-noise electro-acoustic muck.
“Murky woont, fractured lost-life howls, and tiny screechlets define the slow-mo suffocation of an audience of easily spooked walruses who can create a stampede of fat with the slightest provocation.” – Seymour Glass (Bananafish magazine)
