The Bristol Germ (Chapter IV: 'The Vision Realised!!')

COLLAGE (ROUGH AT BASE) IV

CHAPTER IV (THE VISION REALISED!!)

DRAW CLOSE, dear FRIENDS, and LISTEN (Amazed and Inspired)

To the PREVIOUSLY-UNTOLD

STORY of a Viibrant, Eclecctiic c grooup of ARTISTIIC GENNIUSESS, Bound togetther as a COMMUNITY of Friends and Equals in the city of BRISTOLL, E Enngland.

THE STORY SO FAR…

(ALASTAIR SHUTTLEWORTH: CREATOR & EDITOR)

…iscomplicated, beingcomprisedofmany differentprojectsandvoicesoverthe pastdecade.Asitevadesastraightforwardnarrative,thisstorywillbetoldthrough a series of ever-intertwining interviews with the characters involved. This fourth groupcanberoughlycontextualisedlikeso

This publication was created in 2017 to promote a dramatic, inspiring new moment in Bristol’s underground and avant-garde music, which – through perceived failings in the British music industry – had gone largely overlooked on the national stage.

Today, the city finds itself in altered standing. Many once-overlooked artists from these pages have carved out larger audiences for themselves. Amidst these recent breakthroughs, the industry is increasingly attentive and receptive to this city’s new music, which finds itself more regularly featured across national publications and radio. While The Bristol Germ can’t take credit for these developments, they constitute the realisation of a vision set down and preserved in its pages With this, it is time to bring this project to a close.

It has been a privilege to write on this city’s music community. I am deeply grateful to this publications’ interviewees, illustrators and stockists, as well as anyone who has ever come to, played, or worked on one of our live showcases. I especially thank the past and future readers of these four instalments, with hopes that this bizarre, bracing music brings them at least part of what it has brought me.

Our first instalment TheNobleCrusadeBegins!! ’ explored the sudden wave of projects that electrified Bristol’s musical landscape from the early 2010s. New Ground’sAcquired!!brought this exploration up to date with a wider look at the city’s emerging projects. The Nation’s Eyes Turn!! focused on this moment’s gradual attainment of wider interest One month after its publication, the UK went into lockdown at the outset of the COVID-19 global pandemic. Picking up in a much-changed landscape, The Vision Realised!! features many artists who are carving out a place for themselves beyond the city, such as Sarahsson, Ishmael Ensemble, Grove, DAMEFRISØR, Robbie & Mona, Tara Clerkin Trio, Viridian Ensemble and Fever 103. We hear from new forces in Bristol’s live scene such as Strange Brew and Illegal Data, as well as longstanding projects COIMS and ThisisDA who, amidst this change, are making their finest work

Enjoy reading, friends. Thank you for everything.

THIS ILLUSTRATED

MUSIC

MAGAZINE Documents and Promotes this exciting new moment in underground and avant-garde music, driven by a community of artists creating world-beating records and shows, united by a fierce DIY ethic. This document is comprised of IN-DEPTH INTERVIEWS with the Cast of Characters driving this epoch, ORIGINAL ARTWORK by the city’s best illustrators, and FOUR MANIFESTOS outlining iniquities which influenced this magazine ENJOY, ABSORB, BE ENLIGHTENED.

LIST OF F IMMMORRTALS (INDEX)

Sarahsson

Ishmael Ensemble

Grove

(Manifesto 13: The Present)

DAMEFRISØR

Tara Clerkin Trio

Fever 103

(Manifesto 14: Selfish Mechanics)

Strange Brew

COIMS

Robbie & Mona

(Manifeesto 15: Change)

Viridian Ensemble

ThisisDA

Illegal Data

(Manifesto 16: Conclusions)

COMPOSER & PRODUCER SARAHSSON

Combining classical music, industrial electronica and hand-built instruments, Sarahsson’s wildly unpredictable debut album The Horgenaith has marked her out amongst the city’s most thrilling new experimentalists Released via Illegal Data, the album explores femininity, the natural world and bodily transformation via ankle-breaking changes in mood and texture How do you see the album’s constant state of musical transformation as relating to its themes?

Sarahsson: A fickle nature is something assigned, often accusatively, to women. There’s the expectation to embody as many opposing female archetypes as possible, whilst masculinity remains an incorruptible monolith. There’s also archaic ideas of femininity as some distant concept that can’t be understood, and of women as closer to nature. I was very inspired by mythological stories from The Mabinogion and Homer’s Odyssey,where femininity constantly flits from demureness to murderous jealousy. Blodeuwedd was fabricated from flowers by a wizard (again linking women to the natural world), with the purpose of being the wife to a cursed man who she later cheats on and tries to kill. I’m enjoying toying with these notions and digesting them.

The relationship between the body and nature is a very comforting metaphor for me. I imagine my recent fourth wisdom tooth as a tectonic plate shuffling all the others around, my hair as foliage, and the redistribution of body fat from taking oestrogen as a cave system being carved out by water flow. It’s not just a metaphor though: bodies are environments made up of many disparate organisms, and we make up a larger body as organisms ourselves.

I first saw you perform at The Bristol Germ’s stage for Dot To Dot Festival 2019, alongside Bad Tracking, Lynks, Organchrist and others What do you recall of that set, and how would you describe your shows?

S: It was still quite new to me then! I remember I was surrendering wholly to this unbridled energy for the first time, which often meant that I didn’t remember large portions of performances, and frequently injured myself. I remember deep-throating a rose, playing a track from Barbie As The Princess & The Pauper (which is still a favourite), and how striking the other performances were too! I think people really responded to the chaotic nature of those shows, and I’m glad I let myself do it: it was a necessary outlet, and I also know some of my limits now.

Perhaps in response to that fullthrottle style, I’ve broadened the energetic cadence of the shows a bit. I’m starting to really enjoy the more ambient, music-focused concerts, but still adore the violence of hammering a blood-filled piano to pieces. The nature is always theatrical: whether that be in subtle hand movements and expressions, or peeling latex skin off and making out with a strobe light. It’s fun how different they end up being each time, from lack of rehearsals.

The Horgenaith ’ s opening track ‘Ancient Dildo Intro’ moves from a gritty industrial soundscape (strewn with animalistic sucking sounds) into a gorgeous piano prelude This might be seen to gesture towards the album’s counterpoised tropes of soaring melodic pieces and dark, visceral electronica How do you see these two sides of the record as relating to each other, in an album concerned with the human body?

S: For me there is a significant feeling of balance in each track. Within the clashing tonalities, scraping and blasting, there is harmony in how the gentle and the intense interact and complement each other. I use the word ‘beautiful’ a lot to counterweight ‘grotesque’ simply because they’re signifiers of certain imagery, but truthfully they’re one and the same.

This is sort of the nature of opposites in a non-binary, Kybalion-esque way: "Like and unlike are the same; opposites are identical in nature, but different in degree; extremes meet; all truths are but half-truths; all paradoxes may be reconciled.” Rot and dirt can inspire disgust, but mould and soil evoke fertility and can be incredibly colourful. I’ve always been fascinated by that dynamic, especially within the body. I sometimes pretend it all stems from not being passed through a stone circle as a baby (unlike my siblings), which led to all sorts of illnesses, infections and infestations over the years: witnessing parts of myself decay and become a home to something else. Understanding my body as a machinic eco-system helped me rationalise that, whilst fostering a small obsession with the four humours.

These wet, animalistic sounds of sucking, rustling and heavy breathing loom large in the album – most clearly in ‘Perennium (Reprise)’ How did you go about recording them, and how do you see them as serving the album thematically?

S: I really just spent a week going full ‘messy foley artist’. I used courgettes and gourds to get those fleshy thuds, snapped pieces of wood to mimic bones twisting, and then tomatoes and a waterlogged sponge for the really juicy bits. They serve different purposes at different times I think: of course they echo the themes in various ways, but primarily sound effects are a super direct way to tell a story through sound.

A very early title for the album was Throat Centre , partially inspired by the chakra point associated with truthful expression. I was also very interested in how an open throat looks a little like a phalaenopsis orchid, and what the sexual connotations of that relationship could be. ‘Ancient Dildo Intro’ was kind of an extension of that, teamed with lyrics straight from a Wikipedia article about early human sex toys, in which the throat snaps.

‘Perennium’ also follows this device of flora-fauna hybridisation, the word itself being a portmanteau of perennial (describing a plant that lives for several growing seasons) and perineum (the skin between the genitals and anus). It tells a story about my relationship with the piano, trying to escape boundaries and reach a freer, more improvisational style. Soon I am sucked back into the institutional structure of classical music, and forced to destroy the piano which, in turn, destroys me. The melody is from a much earlier track of the same name about feeling ungrateful and ashamed after a breakup, so it’s already heavy with these uncomfortable, guilty emotions that I wanted to acknowledge in order to move on. It made sense to me that the piano should be filled with blood and viscera (since we had become each other), so I wanted to make it extremely gory and increasingly shocking until our self-destruction tears us from reality and all that’s left is the booming of the abyss.

Illustration: Luke Dye-Montefiore

Illustration: Luke Dye-Montefiore

This invites reflection on the album’s broader interest in gore and body horror This is most evident in penultimate track ‘Swallow’, which features a poem by Buoys Buoys Buoys describing someone being swallowed whole. What can you tell me about the role of horror in The Horgenaith?

S: I scared easily as a kid, but was also obsessed with that feeling. A lot of the films and TV shows I watched growing up were fantasies from the ‘60s, ‘70s and ‘80s (Willow,She,IndianaJonesetc.). They all included at least one horrifying practicaleffects transformation scene, which I’d watch over and over.

I also used to get really bad sleep paralysis when I was young, with recurring nightmares and an astoundingly vivid ‘dream universe’ that I can still remember in great detail: being slowly turned into an embryo, being consumed by mouths in the floor and cushions, my insides liquifying and pouring out of holes in my skin. I’m obviously now a huge fan of David Cronenberg and John Carpenter, as well as of artists like Junji Ito, and within a lot of their most grotesque and twisted works is the fear of losing oneself or succumbing to something else inside you – it’s pure destrudo . There’s a wonderful stage direction for the final shot of Ari Aster’s Midsommar when Dani finally smiles, which says “it is horrible and it is beautiful.” I had a similar feeling at the end of SaintMaudtoo. They both remind me of the ‘biblically accurate angels’ phenomenon: rejecting their typical depiction as Botticelli-esque humanoids and embracing their original descriptions as huge, terrifying masses of eyes and wings.

The poem Buoys Buoys Buoys wrote actually references several stories involving a whale or large fish swallowing someone (Jonah and the Whale, Moby Dick , James Bartley) and the original inspiration for the collaboration came from a fascination with vorarephilia: sexual fantasies of swallowing someone or being swallowed. After the chaos of battling with the monster and being thrown around in a maelstrom, the protagonist finds comfort being held in a giant, benevolent stomach before his inevitable dissolution. I’ve almost made a companion of fear, or faced it with curiosity and sublimated it… almost.

The album employs an instrument called a Daxophone, which you created with the assistance of fellow Bristol artist Jemima Coulter What can you tell me about the creation of this instrument, and its place in The Horgenaith?

S: The inventor Hans Reichel had left instructions on how to build a Daxophone. I discovered his music through Oneohtrix Point Never’s track ‘No Good’ and became instantly fixated. Saffron Records’ ‘Springboard’ scheme awarded me some funding to realise the album, and I’d always wanted to build my own instruments so started looking for hardwood dealers in the UK - I also dreamed of replicating the Baschet brothers’ voice leaf but it proved too ambitious for now.

I was interested in the parallels between carving this curved form – each millimetre of difference affecting the resulting sound in totally unpredictable ways – and starting on hormone replacement therapy with an idea of what’s supposed to happen but taking a bit of a leap of faith into the unknown.

It took several weeks of visits to Jemima, each time filling the air with a rich, reddish-brown cloud, and the accompanying meaty smell of the snakewood’s Australian home.

Occasionally we’d vice one of the wooden tongues and scrape something along one edge to test the tonality I did eventually bring in a violin bow, but forgot rosin so ended up using some very sappy pine offcuts to provide some friction on the hairs. It’s hard to say that it sounded nice once it was finished, but there was a real ‘what have I created’ moment in the music studio with Jemima.

It’s essentially a wooden strip held onto a hollow block. As you bow the strip it vibrates and is picked up by two piezo mics inside the block, and then you can alter the pitch by dampening the tongue with a solid parabolic block. If you add a hole in the tongue then dampen it, this creates a formant filter effect: it sounds like a really breathy voice. I was mainly excited to see how extreme and intense a sound I could create, but now I want to discover its tender side.

The album is principally instrumental –employing instrumentation from your background in orchestral music (piano, tenor horn) alongside synthesised sounds of your own creation. However, there is also an important choral element to your work, which in ‘Tonsil Pearls’ supports the album’s sole lead performance in your natural, undistorted voice. What can you tell me about this song lyrically, and the role of your voice in The Horgenaith?

S: It’s interesting that you describe the album as instrumental. I suppose truthfully it is, but I’d always considered it a lyrical album - though perhaps only in contrast to my existing releases. I consider ‘Tonsil Pearls’ my first attempt at writing something like a pop song, but after eight months of production the structure had become too fragile to fit all the lyrics I’d written. A lot of the words are consequently hidden within textures as whispered percussion or polyphonic vocal atmospheres.

In classic trans fashion, it’s a song about transformation – realising that the woes we suffer belong to our oppressors (and even to them are hand-me-downs), and that we are all infinite wellsprings of energy.

I think the reason I describe The Horgenaith as a lyrical album is because there’s a ‘voice’ in nearly every element of it: each live instrument and synthesised sound have their own vocabularies, which become conduits for emotion.

The Slovenian philosopher Mladen Dolar talks about the voice tying language to the body: forming the intersection of the two, but not belonging to either. It doesn’t fit the body, so it escapes – leaving the body behind. With this in mind, a lot of the processes behind making the album were experiments in what I consider my body, language and my voice. In the metaphor of body as earth, does my voice flow atop and off the edge of me, or is it mined from within me? Instruments, software and even field recordings can become extensions, bypassing a primitive tongue, through which the soul is translated.

One of The Horgenaith ’ s most memorable moments comes in closing track ‘Cladonia Hymnal’ – the triumphant closing melody is first heard on what sounds like a child’s wind-up music box, before being repeated in a towering synth outro What can you tell me about the idea behind this ‘music box’ section?

S: I’ve talked before about this incredibly specific feeling that I’m trying to reach in some of my music, and ‘Cladonia Hymnal’ is probably the closest effort so far: this bittersweet, smiling-through-tears moment you get at the end of a hyperemotional film, or after a dream that felt like a whole lifetime. It’s like saying “goodbye” and “thank you” and “ sorry ” and “I love you” all at the same time.

The music box I used is one I’ve had since I was born, that plays ‘The Yellow Submarine’ I arranged each note into a sound font to play my own melodies with. In the background there are also ghosts of older tracks of mine which fit the same chord sequence, including ‘Old Comforts Which No Longer Serve Me’ and one of the soundtracks I made for Neith Nyer’s runway shows: like a climactic Hollywood finale, where old characters reappear to send off the protagonist.

Prior to this, there was only one other comparable Sarahsson release – the one-off track ‘Old Comforts Which No Longer Serve Me’ from Illegal Data’s second compilation in 2021 This gestured towards some of the musical ideas in The Horgenaith : there are dance sensibilities, a choral section, and a synth outro similar to that of ‘Cladonia Hymnal’. What can you tell me about that one-off track, and how you see The Horgenaithas relating to it?

S: As the title proclaims, I was trying to move away from things which had protected me at one point but had begun to stagnate, such as making myself appear more masculine, and shutting down at the slightest hint of stress. I was particularly trying to break this recurring pattern of overthinking and paralysis when faced with creative opportunity, so it was a real purging of many things. It made sense to use ideas and techniques that I’d been ruminating on, but couldn’t let go of: things which were satisfying but maybe felt lazy to me at the time, just to get them out of my system so I could move on to something else.

I guess the spell worked slightly differently than I expected, because I ended up finding more room to explore inside those corners, and it provided a taste of where I would be heading more than a vestige of what I was leaving behind.

The Horgenaith was released via Bristol label and club-night Illegal Data, whose shows you have performed at previously. What can you tell me about Illegal Data, and the community around them?

S: The boys! I’m so grateful for the friendship we’ve formed. They both put all their energy and generosity and knowledge into everything they do, and I admire them both a lot. They’ve got some incredible artists on the roster I thoroughly recommend listening to You can tell they’re just so enthusiastic about good music. They started putting on events in 2018, and have since kept a very stable theme of ‘anything that could be considered club music’ – be that footwork, witch house, mákina, grime or ethereal trance

The first time we met, they’d invited me to join a line-up with aggressive hard techno, emo rave, hip-hop and hardcore. It proved Bristol as somewhere uniquely open: it seemed wild to me that there was a community of people who specifically enjoyed hearing lots of very different music in one night, but it’s a real thing here. That melting-pot attitude is what leads to the hybridisation that’s kept Bristol one of the most sonically interesting places for decades.

I understand you are originally from Exeter, then lived in London for a time before settling in Bristol What can you tell me about your musical journey prior to moving to this city, and in what ways do you think Sarahsson has been influenced by the artistic community in Bristol?

S: Exeter provided me with a fairly traditional musical upbringing: I had piano lessons from a young age, joined a children’s orchestra, then was introduced to dance music through the free party scene London provided a view into queer nightlife, but was mainly a social endeavour: I had no time to make music working 50-hour weeks to survive. Bristol brought those two together, and magnified the gaps between them. I was lucky that my parents’ taste was broad and fairly interesting too I will always remember long car journeys with Tom Waits’ Rain Dogs playing, or pretending to vomit while my Dad blasted Messiaen’s Turangalîla-Symphonie . That really sparked my curiosity in music.

It really is such a wonderful feeling to be a part of this community. Everyone is doing such different things and we’re all cheerleading each other because it’s all so exciting. You can feel that everyone is invested in this energy: always fascinated, always discovering, and it’s also really playful. It can become easy to take music too seriously, especially in certain genres, so it’s very refreshing to be surrounded by people who are at once sincere and silly. That environment is completely necessary for Sarahsson’s existence.

ISHMAEL ENSEMBLE

ISHMAEL ENSEMBLE

ELECTRONICA & JAZZ COLLECTIVE

ELECTRONICA & JAZZ COLLECTIVE

Illustration: Luke Dye-Montefiore

Members: Peter Cunningham, Holysseus Fly, Jake Spurgeon, Stephen Mullins, Rory O’Gorman Illustration: Sophia Jowett Helmed by producer and saxophonist Pete Cunningham, Ishmael Ensemble’s music straddles the worlds of jazz and electronica Underpinned by a regular core band, the collective’s music has been increasingly shaped by a shifting cast of guest collaborators – most ambitiously in 2021’s Visions Of Light How did you arrive at this concept of building the sound of different pieces around different collaborators, and what do you think it enables you to do beyond a conventional band of fixed membership?

Peter Cunningham: The original idea came from being bored of making sample-based music. I’d spend hours looking for the perfect kick drum in a random sample pack, or laboriously go through mountains of records in search of the perfect loop, and concluded it would be much more fun to make my own samples with the people around me instead. Since then, it’s almost become two things at once. In the studio it’s a producer project for me to explore ideas with lots of different vocalists and instrumentalists, whereas on stage the live show is all about the core five of us acting more like a traditional band, and all the camaraderie that comes with that. We do invite the guest vocalists to join us when it’s feasible, but at this stage we’re not able to afford to put 10 people on the road regularly; it has become crucial that the live show stands up on its own (10?) feet with the five of us.

What first drew you to the idea of merging live instrumentation with electronic production, and how do you see Ishmael Ensemble as relating to your peers in Bristol – such as SCALPING and Sunun –who are engaged in similar practices?

PC: I think a big part of it comes from always being a fan of electronic music, but often being underwhelmed by the way it is presented live. SCALPING’s Alex Hill and I have actually chatted a lot about our respective set ups, and what’s worked and what hasn’t. We both play with live drummers who need to be in sync, but we are also adamant about not having a laptop on stage. 20 setups later (using a variety of drum machines, click boxes and midi syncs), I think we’ve worked it out in a way that allows us to still be flexible and interesting without relying on Ableton or backing tracks. A big thing for me has always been making sure there’s enough elements on stage that could potentially go wrong: keeping us on our toes, and in turn not getting too relaxed in the way the music is performed. There’s nothing worse than watching a band play through the same set for the 100th time, looking like they’re wondering whether or not they’ve left the oven on.

The title-track to your debut release Songs For Knotty opens as a yearning, contemplative ambient piece, before shifting into a propulsive dance setting These two ideas seem in frequent conversation in your work, from similar structural changes in tracks such as ‘The Chapel’ (A State Of Flow) to their elegant coexistence in tracks like ‘Morning Chorus’ (Visions Of Light) What draws you to this use of dance beats in more melancholic contexts, and what do you think the effect of this interplay is?

PC: I guess it comes from being as much a fan of delicate ambient music as I am of frenetic jungle or slamming techno. It’s also the sum of what the various members in the group have to offer. Mullins’ guitar work is very expansive, and takes great inspiration from the worlds of Robert Fripp and Brian Eno. That becomes combined with Rory’s super heavy-hitting drums, as well as mine and Jake’s backgrounds messing about with synths and chopping samples up. It’s a tried and tested formula, but I love playing with tension and release. That’s the general trajectory of our songs: how long can we keep you in suspense, to make the payoff more rewarding? I also fondly remember my more hedonistic days of discovering rave music, and everything that went with it I think that’s where a lot of the more euphoric moments in our songs come from. It’s also about what serves the song for us. Rory isn’t offended if what a track actually needs is a massive 909 Kick instead of a live drum take. The same goes for Holly having her voice mangled into something completely unrecognisable, like on ‘Wax Werk’. If it works, it works!

The release of Visions Of Light resulted in something of a breakthrough for Ishmael Ensemble – leading to national press and radio acclaim, international touring, and a notable appearance in the BBC documentary Jazz UK: Spitting Fire How has this traction in the industry influenced your approach to Ishmael Ensemble?

PC: There’s certainly been a turning point since the release of Visions of Light , although for every great thing that goes public there’s five failures or disappointments behind the scenes. There’s a lot of hard, sometimes fruitless work done by everyone, but it’s all worthwhile when the successes do come. I think we’re all really proud of what we’ve done so far, especially having done it completely independently with a very small team We’re currently working on new material, and it’s definitely the first time I’ve felt like there’s an audience and an expectation for what comes next. At the same time, I want to keep things interesting for myself and not feel the pressure to stick to the same old formula.

Your recent release ‘The Rebuke’, led by Holysseus Fly, is one of your finest pieces to date and your first standalone single release What can you tell me about its creation?

PC: It was actually made during the VisionsOf Light sessions, but didn’t really fit the tone of the album. We sat on it, fell out of love with it, then returned to it nearly a year later. I feel the track really captures the five of us beautifully and what we each bring to the table. It’s quite an odd song in theory: one verse that repeats three times, without any strong hook or chorus to grab hold of However, it somehow works. I think it’s all about the contrast: Holly’s voice against Rory’s break-neck drums and Jake’s pummelling bass. It started much the same way as many of our songs do: me playing with loops of Mullins’ guitar from various ambient bits he’s sent me, eventually forming the triplet pad sound that underpins the whole song. I’ve also always wanted to do something that nods to the drum and bass I was obsessed with as a teenager: Ram Trilogy’s Screamer and Drumsound & Simon Bassline Smith’s The Odysseywere points of reference.

Your New Era EP sees you collaborate with Rider Shafique, who has previously graced our pages as part of Young Echo. What drew you to working with Rider, and how did this influence the record sonically?

PC: I first came across Rider Shafique about six years ago after I heard his piece I-Dentity via Bristol’s Young Echo collective, and was immediately struck by his powerful way with words. We met a few years later at Stroud Jazz Festival through a mutual friend, and began carving out ideas to collaborate on. We started recording a few weeks later at Josh “Selecta JMan” Lear’s studio in the back of The Jam Jar. I’d never witnessed anyone write like Rider does. We’d just sit with the instrumental playing on loop whilst he scribbled ideas down. When he was ready (sometimes after 10 minutes, sometimes an hour) he’d get up and tell Josh to turn the mic on. What came next was always incredible: he’s a true master of his craft. This record was also an opportunity to lean into the bass-heavy side of my music taste. I’ve always been a massive fan of dub in all its forms, and producers like King Tubby, Adrian Sherwood and Pinch have been a constant source of inspiration. This palette coupled with a voice like Rider’s is something I’ve always wanted to make

What would you like to imagine people taking away from your music?

PC: I started this thing from my laptop with the idea of recording a few mates. I rarely take stock of what it has become, and how far we’ve come. Although a little cliched, I guess the main take away would be that if you stick to your guns and really believe in what you’re doing, anything is possible.

Illustration: Luke Dye-Montefiore

Members: Pete Cunningham, Holysseus Fly, Jake Spurgeon, Stephen Mullins, Rory O’Gorman Illustration: Sophia Jowett

Grove’s thrillingly inventive EPs Queer + Blackand SPICEexplore sexuality, race and class via a bracing interpretation of dancehall: employing chopper-blade synths, industrial textures and vocal manipulation. How did you arrive at this sound, and how do you see it as serving these records’ themes lyrically?

Grove: Arriving at this sound was a total accident, but also a beautiful amalgamation of life experiences and connections. When I first started dabbling with multi-track production aged 16 on my little iPhone 4, I was making pure sugary pop – tinged with a little bashment. However, I think the frustration of seeing and reading up on classism (as well as struggling with my mental health), spurred a more dark , topical and direct approach to what I wanted to share. I think it’ll always be underpinned by those three pillars, but they’re subject to change

I like to have fun with the sonic side of production

The beautiful life experiences and connections I mentioned came through meeting Malaki Patterson: a pioneering mentor and hugely influential musiceducation figure for under-represented youth in Gloucestershire. He’s the Creative Director of charity ‘The Music Works’, and through working with them for years I joined 5 Mics, a beatbox hiphop collective, with beatboxers TMS and Sheps, as well as MCs Griz-O and JPDL who I’d be nowhere without. Also, myself and Diessa were a duo called BAAST, making hard, morbid, pretty depressing electronic music (our unbound.EPhas since been wiped from the digisphere) and attempted to refine that sound along the way.

Your work offers powerful explorations of race, most prominently in the track ‘Black’ from Queer + Black Since The Bristol Germ’s last instalment, the city played a very visible role in the Black Lives Matter movement: most strikingly in the globally publicised tearing down of Edward Colston’s statue To what extent did these recent events influence your music’s reflections on race?

G: Being dual-heritage, and growing up in a place with mostly white people, there has always been a battle as to whether I called myself black, or whether I even felt black. Would I be disregarding half of my heritage if I did? Would I be accepted in black communities due to my socialisation? Who am I and how did I come to be?

GROVE

EXPERIMENTAL PRODUCER & MC

EXPERIMENTAL PRODUCER & MC GROVE

Illustration: Sophia Jowett

Illustration: Sophia Jowett

Members: Grove

Members: Grove

Illustration: Sophia Jowett

Illustration: Sophia Jowett

These are questions that I had been mulling over for my whole life, never arriving at a fixed answer, and remaining in a liminal space. Upon reaching an age where I had the freedom and social confidence to explore the answers, I was becoming increasingly empowered by communities I came across, through reading black-written autobiographies and unpicking colonial historical narratives. This self-work had been going on for a while, and the Colston Statue being ripped down was a tinder strike to light the gasoline-soaked rag that was my brain.

An important element of your music is its experimentation with the conventions of dancehall What can you tell me about your interest in this genre, and your subversion of elements of it?

G: When I was young and didn’t know what dancehall/ bashment really was, I was always drawn to the drum rhythms of it. They featured heavily in my 16year-old pop era, and as new tools were learned, so were new ways to fuck with them It seems like a genre ripe to be totally mashed, and hearing people like Doctor Jeep, Ehua, TSVI, Equiknoxx and others do that in their own way was fuel to the previously mentioned gasoline-soaked brain rag. This time, it was soaked in anger at the prevalence of “murder music”: a whole subsect of dancehall music that incites violence against gay people, specifically gay men.

SPICE is book-ended by two different approaches to sexuality: the bold, brash ‘Skin2Skin’, and the tender, romantic ‘Soft Cheeks’. What can you tell me about your approach to sexuality in your music, and how do you see it as relating to the political themes you explore alongside this?

G: I think my approach to sexuality in music represents my approach in life. I can be very cheeky, playful, imaginative, intense and sincere, as I know we all can be. I enjoy celebrating all of it. With SPICE , conceptually I was exploring my relationship with love, lust and my partner, EJ:AKIN, through the medium of (incredibly warped) dancehall. The intention was to queer up and bastardise the heterosexuality of the genre, which I feel to be a political statement carrying on from Queer+Black I called the EP that due to a homophobic comment from a figure I respected, saying “you have to choose what you are first… black or gay ” The response is that I am both: at the same time and all of the time.

SPICEsees your sound move into darker, dubfacing territory, propelling itself more on rubbery acid synths and sizzling industrial than the drum sounds shaping Queer + Black What inspired this development in your sound, and how do you think it influenced SPICElyrically?

G: The sonic developments would be thanks to the killer production of Robin Stewart and YOKEL, linked up through the inimitable Bokeh Versions. The slower tempos and oozing synths inspired sensuality to come to the forefront, and Bokeh Versions was the perfect label to embrace the music whole-heartedly.

Your work explores weighty subject matter, but always in the context of music that seems concerned with movement. How do you think the ‘danceability’ of your music serves its social and political reflections?

G: I think it’s got the potential to be a sobering reminder of intention and various social struggles (specifically with ‘Fuck Ur Landlord’ and other unreleased politically focussed tunes) in an otherwise less-intentioned nightlife space. There’s also the potential for people to just enjoy how it sounds and have a good dance. The latter is okay still, but I’ve always found that whilst moving is also the perfect time to be contemplating and processing energy stored up in the mind.

The transfer of energy between body and mind is an important one for us to really foster, as so often we disconnect the two. I think through energising a space, we’re reminded of collective intention, and collective power through our physical form colliding with our emotional reactions. A huge emphasis is also on what we do when not in that space together. Joining tenants’ unions & workers unions is something I advocate for, and have leaflets on the merch stand promoting.

Since the release of Queer + Black , you have established yourself as one of the city’s major recent breakthroughs: building support from national radio stations and publications, as well as performing at festivals including Glastonbury and Reading & Leeds. What are your aspirations for the project going forward?

G: For now, to keep integrity, to serve community and to make good music; hopefully enough to make a living in the process.

However, I often think about whether being a touring musician is the end-game? There’s a huge element of it that serves to feed ego, and the very nature of it can detach your worldview

Whatever lies in the future, I want it to be meaningful.

Hinge

Versions

The label has grown, notably releasing Grove. They also continue to work within Avon Terror

Edward Penfold

The acidfolk artist has released the albums Caulkhead and Denny Isle Drive. Giant Swan

The duo is now an established name, following acclaimed releases, global touring and major festival appearances.

Iceman Furniss Quartet

The group has released their debut album HardBoiled. Harry Furniss also performs in Bingo Fury.

Hankins

The filmmaker has found success working with the likes of Richard Dawson and Kero Kero

success, earning the group’s

Image: Harry Wright

Image: James Hankins

Image: Peter Heyes

Image: Edward Penfold

Image: Miles Opland & Gordon Apps

The producer’s latest albums and Infinite You have been met with radio and press

The avantpop artist has achieved great success, following press and radio acclaim as well as international

The band’s profile has risen with press and radio acclaim, releasing their fourth album in 2022.

Retiring his solo project with his third solo album in 2017, he has found new success in his band Pet Shimmers.

SCALPING

The group have achieved great success, with international touring around their acclaimed debut album on Houndstooth.

Kayla Painter

trap duo

Oliver Wilde

The duo’s released their

Image: James Hankins

Image: Sam Green

Image: Jason Baker

Image: Ed Bidgood

Image: Luke Dye-Montefiore

Insides:

The artist released his debut album in 2021 via Breakfast Records. He has also worked with Fenne Lily and JUMBO.

Stolen Body

The label has grown, notably releasing Slift’s breakthrough 2020 album UMMON.

Ornsteins

currently on hiatus, the band has released several tracks on Breakfast

Timedance

continues to founded the music studio

success has helping score the 2022 film The Northman, and working with the likes of Fever Ray.

Young Echo grown, and powerhouse

experimental

album It’s Never

Image: Harry Wright

Image: Guillaume De Ubeda

Image: Sam Bedford

Image: Paul Jacobs

Image: Janey Hayes

Image: Christalla Fannon

13

DOCCUMMENNT T

Our IMPRESSIONS of THE PRESENT COLOURED By Our Changeable Spirits, Which Vest HISTORY and ART with Life.

O Friends! We Change and Change The World. Music Criticism is IMPOVERISHED where it strains to find a Dignified Position in which to be PETRIFIED. What UNREASONED EXCESSES

Of LOVE and ANGER F ill this Publication’s Four Chapters! Malleable convictions that, captured in motion, appear Violent & Rigid… SO THEY SHOULD!

How BLOODLESS conventional music journalism seems! Must meaningful analysis come with cold detachment? Must we find our OUTBURSTS embarrassing? In Documenting the Present Landscape with SUBJECTIVITY and SENTIMENT , we reveal its True Nature.

DAMEFRISØR

EXPERIMENTAL ROCK

DAMEFRISØR first made their mark with one of 2022’s greatest singles, ‘2-HEH-V’ Employing steam-whistle guitars, burbling processed vocals and yearning synth arpeggios, it presented a marriage of open-hearted rock sensibilities with cold electronic sounds What can you tell me about the creation of this track, and its focus lyrically?

Nyle Dowd: ‘2-HEH-V’started as a demo I made on Logic. Most of the song was there to begin with: the dark, moving arpeggio and surf rock drums. Once Garin and Jamie started to add those big guitars, and we started finding all these little details that needed to be added, the song started to take shape. Once we took the song in to the studio, it quickly progressed and grew into what you hear today.

Kahzi Jahfar: The focus lyrically came from wanting to express the feeling of having a onesided conversation; more specifically, having a conversation with someone who (perhaps due to drugs or alcohol) loves the sound of their own voice. I played around with lots of ideas for how to effectively translate this feeling to the listener, and landed on this ocassionally-intense overlapping vocal. Me and William Carkeet, who produced the track, had lots of fun messing around on his Kaoss Pad for the monologue: this acts as an exaggeration of what it can feel like people are saying sometimes. The lead vocal was an attempt to present an inner monologue during this anxiety-inducing experience.

Almost two years prior to this, DAMEFRISØR released the early clutch of tracks ‘Torres del Paine’, ‘Huile’ and ‘And You Know’: reverbdrenched affairs, more readily embracing conventions from shoegaze Shortly after this, the first lockdown put a stop to further shows and studio sessions How do you recall this period, and how did you arrive at this new sound following your early recordings?

ND: I think at that point in time we were still learning how to be a band really. ‘Huile’ and ‘And You Know’ were our best songs at that particular time, and we really just wanted to get something out. We had the pleasure of recording those with Dom Mitchison at Christchurch Studios in Bristol, as a five piece with no synths. 'Torres del Paine' was pretty much the first thing Sam had a part on, so that really shows how new the electronic side of things was to us back then.

Once Sam had properly joined the band, and lockdown had sadly set in, that's when we really learnt how to start writing songs together: being isolated in our houses, and sending MP3's over email constantly (as we still frequently do). Fast forward to present day, and we still really like using arpeggios in our music and lots of modular stuff whilst maintaining our organic side. Nonetheless, Garin has gone wild with constantly buying and selling synths.

‘2-HEH-V’ appeared as a Double-A with ‘Do You Think I’m Special ’ How do you see these tracks as relating to each other?

ND: They’re very reflective songs lyrically, talking about certain anxious feeling and moments you get in life. I also think they're the best example of what I mentioned in the previous question: being a product of a certain time, when we were exploring new ways of writing and starting to combine the elements and philosophies that we all share in the band. I like to think of these songs as the entry points to our music now, and for what's to come, even beyond IslandofLight.

Your debut EP Island Of Light extrapolates upon some of the ideas present in this AA: giving more space to both its electronic dance leanings (most notably in the extended mix of ‘Horizon’) and various shades of experimental rock They are most thrillingly reconciled, in my view, in the track ‘D.O.D.’ What can you tell me about these elements in your music, and in this particular track?

KJ: We definitely aimed to create more space for the electronic side of our music, and it felt important to counter that with an expansion in our guitar sound. This combination has been present in our music ever since Sam joined, and – given our growing experience as writers – I feel it was just a case of evolution for us to expand on these elements. ‘D.O.D.’ feels like the best example of us finding that marriage and harmony.

Lyrically, Kazhi’s style in this EP is dark, poetic and abstract How do you think this approach serves this EP’s themes, and relates to its instrumental properties?

ND: I feel this approach fits with the musical aspects of this project, down to the cold, industrial feel of a lot of the songs. Most of the lyrics were written separately from the music as prose poems, then adapted to fit with what the music was doing. I think on a song like ‘52a’, the lyrics help convey the emotion of the instrumental by portraying this lonely, isolated character who is struggling in a world in which so many are.

To what extent would you say that your work as DAMEFRISØR has been influenced by your experiences in Bristol’s music community?

ND: Massively. There’s a feeling you can do whatever you want with your art and you won’t be harshly judged – or talked over for the entirety of your set when you’re playing live. It feels natural for us, growing up here, that we only approach making music in the way we feel is right and honest. Bristol is a very warm and welcoming place for creatives, and I think our communities (on the whole) are so open and supportive. It always feels like when you’re playing a show, or you’re watching something, you have friends there because they want to be there – just enjoying the art.

Over the past year, you have found yourselves playing on bills and receiving media coverage that aligns you with the broader milieu of British post-punk Aside from your experimental leanings, I’d suggest your music is chiefly distinguished from your ‘ peers ’ by its emotional palette: concerned less with various shades of anger than yearning, paranoia and sadness How far would you agree with this assessment, and what draws you to the kinds of emotions you explore in your music?

KJ: I would totally agree. I think that the conversation of emotions is inherently political, and while anger is something we all feel when it comes to the state of the world, as a band we’ve never wanted to overtly push any kind of agenda through our music. Discussing loneliness, anxiety, sadness, and love feels unifying, relatable, and at times political. I think whatever feelings we are interested in discussing, we always try to be creative with our language. That keeps things interesting for us, and leaves room for interpretation.

Having grown up in Bristol’s music community (I understand some members went to the same school as members of Giant Swan and The Naturals), how would you describe its landscape as having changed?

KJ: I think it's changed a lot I remember a few of us going to Young Echo radio shows just off Jamaica Street when we were around 16 years old, when dubstep was something very different to what it is now. Those experiences in the Bristol music scene were very formative. Nyle and Jamie's first music project ‘STATIC’ supported The Naturals back in the day, and I can't express enough how much they continue to inspire our music today. I think we're very nostalgic about those times, and would like nothing more than for The Naturals to make a comeback: if any of you are reading this, do a show, play the classics and book us for support? Having said that, there's some amazing stuff coming out of (or connected to) Bristol that we really love: Scalping, Spectres, LICE, Bingo Fury, Giant Swan, Tara Clerkin Trio, Robbie & Mona, Pet Shimmers and plenty more. While lots has changed, some of the most interesting music continues to come out of this city.

Members: Kazhi Jahfar, Nyle Dowd, Megan Jenkins, Garin Curtis, Jamie Brown, Sam Nobbs Illustration: Members: Kazhi Jahfar, Nyle Dowd, Megan Jenkins, Garin Curtis, Jamie Brown, Sam Nobbs Illustration: Rozine Jahfar

TARA CLERKIN TRIO RIDIAN

Tara Clerkin Trio’s wild experimentation, drawing from acid-jazz, minimalism and psych-pop, has resulted in some of Bristol’s most extraordinary recent releases: from their uncategorisable selftitled debut album to the longform piece ‘Exquisite Corpse I’ How did this project come into being, and how do you see it as relating to the off-kilter folk of Tara’s earlier solo album Hello?

We’re sort of a ‘family band’, so it came about naturally – we all wanted to make music, and we were already a unit. We used to collaborate with a lot of different friends back in the day and folk/psych is where we started. It was a pretty good jumping off point to the world of D.I.Y music, as a lot of these garage revival bands operated in that way and had that sound and spirit. In terms of the time, it also coincided with the internet becoming a major force for change in music: the way it’s made and distributed, at home on a laptop then put it up one Soundcloud or whatever. It made it feel more democratised and achievable. The same forces were at play in electronic music at the time too, which we were all also very engaged with. Without that foundation of experimentation and D.I.Y ethic, we wouldn’t be in a band now for sure.

Your work makes interesting uses of vocal manipulation, from the swelling loops in ‘What’ from your debut album to the pitch shifts on In Spring’s title track. What role do you see the voice as playing in your music (which is far more instrumentally driven than Tara’s solo work), and what draws you to these vocal experiments?

The voice is a tricky one, because it’s an instrument but it’s also very personal. It’s a thing you can make sound with, like a trumpet, but it’s a part of you and you can’t really change it aside from smoking or perhaps screaming a lot. When you hear a recording of yourself talking, the most common reaction tends to be “Who’s that dork? Does my voice really sound like that?”: it can be hard to utilise in a way that feels comfortable. I think pitch shifting, sampling and heavy auto-tuning techniques – which are very popular these days – are all ways of dissociating from your voice, and treating it more like an instrument.

ACID JAZZ / PSYCH-POP / ELECTRONICA

Your EP In Spring was far more vocally led and instrumentally sparse than your debut album, making particularly heavy use of piano. What inspired this shift in your sound between the album and EP?

That was the classic Covid release: feeling melancholic and introspective, without having access to a drum kit. We made that one mainly at home on computers and not together in the practice room or at gigs. Although we did get let into a theatre at one point to record a bunch of improvised stuff on a piano, and the cutting and chopping and looping of those recordings was a starting point for a couple of the songs on it.

Lyrically, your album and EP are both highly abstract. What do you see them as dealing with thematically, and how do you think this abstract style serves this?

How you say something depends a lot on what you’re trying to say. Sometimes the most direct route is the best one, if a theme or message is clear and you can just say it outright. Abstraction can be useful when the ideas expressed are more abstract. If you’re not delivering an absolute truth or idea then you can try to express it by invoking things which relate to it, and which others can relate to through those invocations. It’s different for each person because our minds work differently and our experiences are different, but what different words, concepts, ideas, feelings etc. can invoke –and the interactions between them when they’re combined – can create very intense personal reactions. It can never be totally controlled or formulaic, but this way you can try to express things which might feel beyond words.

The title of ‘Exquisite Corpse I’ appears to refer to a surrealist art technique in which several collaborators add to a piece in sequence Is that how you approached this track’s composition, and – if so – what do you consider the effect of this technique?

That song is basically six sections: we did two rounds each, and each one is made solely by one of us. We sent a snippet (generally the last few seconds of our section) to the next person, who then used that as the jump-off point to make their bit. It was very fun to do: it felt like a game, and it was exciting to see what came out of it at the end.

Tara and Sunny have been collaborating under various guises since the early 2010s, from your membership to the Belvoir House Band to your 2015 Staycation EP. How do you think your history of collaborating has shaped you both artistically?

We’ve been in each other’s lives for a long time, and we’ve been partners for nearly 10 years. Music has always been a huge part of our relationship (both listening to and making it), so it’s really hard to imagine what we’d do, what we’d be into and what we’d make without each other. It’s good. We inspire each other, and have very different ways of thinking, so we usually come at things from very different angles which often leads to surprising results

With your members having been involved so heavily in Bristol’s music for so long, how do you think the city’s musical landscape has changed over time?

Tastes change constantly and quickly thanks to the internet, but there’s definitely a geography to it too. From doing more touring, we’ve definitely seen how musical tastes and styles can be different in different regions. In fact, to us it seems more pronounced in the UK than any of the countries in Europe we’ve played in.

So, possibly more interesting than how the city’s music has changed is what similarities have remained? It’s interesting observing Bristol’s musical heritage, and tracing threads through from 70’s and 80’s post punk (The Pop Group, Maximum Joy) through to trip-hop, and on into the late 90’s and early 00’s post-rock scene (Crescent, Movietone, Planet Records). Then we have the various bassier electronic styles which flourished here (Dubstep etc.), on to the neo-industrial vibe which has been developing here for the last decade.

Aside from the physical crossover of the scenes dovetailing together (young’uns going to see stuff and lending from it or building upon it), the makeup and social fabric of the environment will always inform what goes on. Aside from the regular trip-hop comparisons we receive (which aren’t without merit although we haven’t necessarily been directly influenced by trip hop), we have also been regularly compared to Crescent and Movietone. These are two Bristol bands we had never even heard of, but which both turned out to be comparable in some vague sense, and we now love.

Members: Tara Clerkin, Sunny-Joe Paradisos, Patrick Benjamin Illustration: Tara Clerkin Trio

Members: Tara Clerkin, Sunny-Joe Paradisos, Patrick Benjamin Illustration: Tara Clerkin Trio

FEVER 103°

DARKWAVE / TECHNO DUO

Employing elements of darkwave and industrial techno, Fever 103’s music explores sexuality, death and more via Margot Pereira’s ethereal, choralinfluenced vocals Having moved to Bristol from France, the duo’s brilliantly dark music has established them amongst the city’s most intriguing projects, released on Illegal Data and Avon Terror Corps What first drew you to Bristol, and what were the original ideas behind Fever 103?

Margot Pereira: Through Paul’s band we had met Harry and Robin from Giant Swan, as well as the guys in Spectres. We came for a weekend in January 2016 to visit them and go to Howling Owl’s New Year: New Noise event. Robin and Harry took us to a Young Echo night the first evening we spent here. Paul was more aware of Bristol’s music than I was, but I remember thinking I’d never heard music like that before. We moved here one year exactly after that weekend, and have been here since. The original idea behind Fever 103 was first and foremost for me to finally start making music. I’d wanted to for years, but really had been struggling to gather enough courage and self-confidence to do it. When I finally got there, I did not have a specific idea of what I wanted: I thought I’d just try and see what comes out.

Paul Boumendil: The freedom we experienced moving here, and the freedom we heard in the music in our new city is what I feel shaped things the most. To some extent, I think we both let what we heard and experienced here shape things a lot without always being very conscious of what was happening. I kind of see Fever 103° as the collision of who we were before Bristol and what Bristol made of us.

Lyrically, your use of violent, morbid imagery is shot through with a wonderfully shocking sense of humour ‘Swallow’ from your collection Right Between Before And After features the line “I’ll swallow your cock and throw it up on your face”, while ‘You’re So Sad’ from that collection includes the lyric “I don’t give a shit how many times you made me cum ” What draws you to this lyrical approach, and what do you see the effect as being of delivering these scorching lines in a reverb-drenched, choral setting?

MP: In my lyrics, I am able to paint myself in situations where I have the power, which is something I rarely get to experience in real life – being a woman and all. It helps me deal with the frustrations that come with that, because in that fictional world I get to tell the story. I decide when I win and when I lose. I decide when I am vulnerable and when I’m strong. I decide when I love and when I don’t.

But, as you said, the lyrics are to be taken with a pinch of salt. My lyrics are fictional at the end of the day, and I think I am trying to signal that fictional element by using my very dark sense of humour. As for the actual delivery, I like that the lyrics are not fully intelligible, which is helped by lots of reverb and a little bit of delay. I like that people might understand bits but not necessarily the full thing, because it makes it more relatable, and anyone can project whatever they have got inside them onto what I am singing. I also like how my lyrics can be dark and violent but be delivered gracefully. As one of my favourite albums says, PainIsBeauty

Your music’s marriage of live, organic elements with dancefloor-facing electronic production recalls many of your peers in Bristol, who employ similar approaches to radically different ends: from Ishmael Ensemble to SCALPING To what extent do you think your experiences in Bristol have influenced your music?

MP: A lot. Live is my preferred way to consume any music, so it kind of makes sense that what I go see in Bristol makes its way into my own creations somehow. I love the idea of unintentional inspiration, and noticing sounds in my music that remind me of the musicians around me.

PB: I think we were blown away witnessing how fluid and diverse music felt here. Fusing the organic with electronics therefore felt pretty natural, and there are so many incredible acts that do so here and have been an immense influence. In the same way, it never felt like a question for us to play gigs or club nights, with a shoegaze band or with an EBM or Techno act. There really is a tradition of fusing genres and scenes here: the results get under your skin so much that it feels impossible for it not to transpire in what you create. The influence of dub and sound-system culture is everywhere too. It’s not what is always at the forefront, but I think it always lives somewhere within music created here, including ours.

During the lockdown you began hosting a residency at Parisian radio station Station To Station Representing another means of expressing your musical passions, to what extent do you think this influenced the more recent music you ’ ve made as Fever 103?

PB: Working on those radio shows has been great – we just called it a day after 15 shows. It felt like an amazing way to have a monthly deep dive into the music that we listen to on a daily basis. Putting it together often felt like drawing maps with sounds. Firstly of our surroundings, and therefore often of Bristol, as we always tried to showcase as much music from here as we could.

Somehow, from the whole range of things we have been playing in radio shows, I think there’s a bit of every song that lives within Fever 103°. Putting all those little sound maps together strengthens our confidence in our sonic identities, and diving deep into so much incredible music so regularly definitely pushes us to aim for making more music ourselves.

Perhaps my favourite song of yours is ‘Leaving The Club’ from Right Between Before And After An uncharacteristically sparse, melancholic piece, it is shaped by a wonderful interplay of swelling synths and white noise What can you tell me about its creation?

MP: I wanted it to talk about that very specific and paradoxical sensation of leaving the club You are exhausted, but also joyful, but also full of despair: intoxicated from that immensely intense experience, but in a state of limbo. To achieve that, I thought we needed to strip down and go easy on the beats, so the deafening beauty of that moment could emerge from the ashes.

Male/female relationships seems to be a recurring theme in your work. How would you describe your approach to this, and how do you see the instrumental palette and dance setting of your music as serving this theme?

MP: This is something I am trying to make sense of, and writing songs about it seems like the only way available to me to try and do so Not a lot of things make sense to me on this planet, and I’ll probably keep writing songs about them until they do. Male /female relationships are a big mess of emotions, domination, love, violence sometimes, and intimacy, and I am trying to come to terms with that. In terms of sounds and musicality, I like that our songs contain lyrics in the dance music setting. For me, that’s a reminder of how powerful and meaningful dance music is Dance music carries so much meaning, which I think is sometimes disregarded. I like that we try to make it very obvious. It is an amazing medium for ideas, emotions and thoughts

How do you envisage Fever 103’s music as developing from here?

PB: I think we’ve definitely grown more confident, and the music has naturally evolved It still feels rough, a bit strange, and in tune with who we are, and that’s all we can hope for. We have been writing quite a bit, and hopefully we’ll have more of this to unveil soon. The only wish is to go deeper within ourselves, and for Fever 103° to keep being the vessel that carries what we find there.

Fever is my first project, but now that we have been doing it for four years, I am much more confident and less hesitant. The core will remain the same: giving meaning to our existence or die trying.

Illustration: Luke Dye-Montefiore

Members: Margot Pereira, Paul Boumendil

Illustration: Miles Opland

14

RECOGNISE

The Music Industry’s

SELFISH MECHANICS

For A CONSTELLATION of Music Professionals’ Agency Derives From Their CONTROL of Projects

Managers, Booking Agents, A&Rs, Publicists, Radio Pluggers… A GREAT SWARM Competes Daily for INFLUENCE!

A Great New Project has emerged! Let Slip A MILLION HACKS seeking to work with them!

They will give FREE ADVICE to gain the artist’s trust, and exclusive access. They will provide INTRODUCTIONS with trusted non-rivals, to seal out competitors. They will INFLATE THEIR WORTH amidst each arm of the industry’s diminished agency. They will GIVE UP if another priority presents itself.

As t this moment in music gains some COMMERCIAL VIABILITY, View those seeking to work with it with OPEN EYES.

Yes! They may be idealists and able to do great work with artists, but they will always put their own interests first.

Your humble EDITOR has entered and left this world since this publication’s beginnings, and knows its fearsome character.

STRANGE BREW

NEW INDEPENDENT VENUE

Independent venue Strange Brew has crucially shaped the post-lockdown landscape of Bristol’s live music since opening in late 2020: quickly finding its niche putting on some of the city’s most experimental music What were your original intentions behind opening Strange Brew, and – two years on – how close is the venue to your initial vision?

Leigh Dennis: Strange Brew is actually very different to what we had in mind, because of Covid. The plan was for it to be more of a bar-café-live music hybrid: open most nights as a bar, doing two very select gigs a week and one club night a month in the back room, focused on experimental and specific club stuff. We wondered if it could provide a livelihood for 2-3 people. During social distancing it worked nicely as a bar. But as soon as things opened up there was no demand for a bar and our daytime cafe flopped as all the nearby office workers were working from home. There was, however, huge demand for gigs and club nights for the sort of music we were into at the capacity we could provide: so we just went with it. Now it’s hard to imagine things any other way, and we employ around 20 people. Like every other business, we have had a lot of financial catching up to do after Covid and we can't afford to slow down, even if sometimes it feels like we're doing too many late nights.

Strange Brew’s programming quickly established a particular inclination towards new experimental music, from Bristol and further afield: notably welcoming Yves Tumor, Dame Area and Blackhaine for recent shows What draws you to putting on more bracing, challenging new music?

LD: We have always been inspired by bracing, challenging new music ourselves and if we weren't pushing it at Strange Brew there would be no point in building the thing. The programme is an extension our tastes, and the tastes of our friends who were ready to put on events in the space. We often get compliments for our programming but nearly all of it is external promoters, with the exception of the ‘Strange Brew Presents' series and Dirtytalk. All we are doing is saying ‘yes’ or ‘no’ to stuff other promoters are proposing, who deserve the credit. Those responsible for Yves Tumor and Dame Area are Simple Things and Schwet respectively, who have been pushing great music in the city for years. I'd like to think we have helped them grow their audiences, but this would have happened to some extent with them doing their thing in other spaces. Hopefully it has helped draw parallels between different tribes.

The team behind Strange Brew have previously been involved in underground party Dirtytalk How has this fed into Strange Brew?

LD: Dirtytalk was started in 2010 by Kerry and Shaun. Rob and I got on board in 2012/13. For a couple of years, we used a non-defunct club called Timbuk2, but from 2012 we used off-theradar venues including the Motorcycle Showroom (which was then an arts studio but now a flea market on Stokes Croft), a sex club in a tower block (now burned down) and a biker gang's clubhouse basement. They were always rough-and-ready and very DIY – needing soundsystems, lights and décor. The vibe was always great as a result, but they were temporary spaces, had poor access and were exhausting to set up. We knew we had a community looking for the kind of music and atmosphere we were pushing, in a similarly designed but permanent space. At the same time many other venues were closing due to gentrification and similar issues. It felt natural to start looking for somewhere. But importantly, from our day jobs and past experiences getting temporary licences for spaces, we knew a bit about the bureaucratic processes involved in setting up a venue. Without this, we might not have had the confidence to go for it. This aspect is a barrier that needs dismantling, especially for underprivileged groups.

The success of Strange Brew seems miraculous in light of the difficult circumstances faced by independent venues Strange Brew was built shortly after the closures of The Surrey Vaults and Brunswick Club, just around the corner from what was once the Bierkeller, amidst the worst crisis in global live entertainment However, all seems smooth as you enter your second year How do you explain its success?

LD: That's nice of you to say. It's miraculous that things can appear smooth from the outside, because we have been in a flap since we got the keys. Social media can't capture our daily hairpulling, our frantic crawling around in the dark or our despair when a VAT bill lands. When the pandemic hit, we were about a month into what we had assumed would to be a three-month construction period. In the end it was 9 months before we could open, and then we were in and out of lockdowns. The four of us had to manage the construction programme and do the work we were capable of ourselves whilst in our day jobs, then juggle working there with our day jobs for a while after we opened. It was the first time we had done anything like this, so it was terrifying and exhausting, but we’d otherwise have gone bankrupt before opening. We all had to suspend our disbelief over how bad our timing was when Covid hit, and haven’t properly had a chance to slow down and reinstate our disbelief since. That said, we have been blessed by many other fortunes, and perhaps have fewer things to complain about than many venues. We are still riding the honeymoon of being relatively new.

I would put our success down to our community and to the promoters and artists of Bristol having the appetite to make it a success. We have had a huge amount of support since we got the keys, and wouldn’t have got the doors open without a massive amount of free help. Tradespeople, sound engineers, musicians, breweries, other venue owners and bar managers, accountants, planners, architects, music magazines, DJs, bands, Headfirst, the Music Venue Trust, mates with paintbrushes… you name it, we got the help, and we are forever grateful for it.

In addition to raising part of the required funds for building Strange Brew through donations from local music fans, I understand you consulted with local music organisations while plans for the venue were coming together How would you describe your particular relationship with the Bristol music community, and how do you think that has influenced the kinds of events you put on?

LD: Initially our relationship was almost exclusively with the club and electronic community, and we mostly consulted them when planning the venue. We did not expect to be welcomed so soon and with such open arms by the band/ live music community, but have been very grateful for it. We always respected live music promoters and bands, but having not done much of it ourselves we didn’t appreciate how incredibly hard work and high-risk gigs are: usually for very little financial reward. The people invested in it really are in it for the love of it, probably moreso than in clubland. Nowadays, with our in-house live programming we usually do stuff merging our interests in electronic music with live instrumentation, e.g. Ana Roxane, Dais Records, Felicia Atkinson, Oren Ambarchi, Erika de Casier.

Is there an event you are particularly proud of?

LD: The first time Tara Clerkin Trio played, for Schwet. We had watched them on support slots pre-pandemic, then they released an amazing album during the pandemic; they were the perfect Bristol headline act to host when we opened. I am proud of it because they represent exactly what we built the venue to do: platform amazing local experimental music to a wider audience. The gig happened despite being cursed: it was rescheduled twice due to lockdowns, and then the band catching Covid. When it finally happened, it was quite a milestone.

Illustration: Chris Wright Illustration: Chris Wright

COIMS

DEPTH METAL / NEW-AGE GARAGE JAZZ

COIMS’ catalogue represents one of the most genuinely unclassifiable bodies of work in Bristol’s recent music Employing industrial electronics, fretted instruments and modern percussion, their largely improvised compositions may invoke for some the spirit of Miles Davis’ early-1970s ‘electric’ period, but (particularly in more recent work) bring punishing EBM together with cold, alien ambient What were your original ideas behind the project, and how would you characterise what you do?

Jan Davey: The original idea was to find a less labour-intensive way of making the abstract music we’d been making as Eftus Spectun. I came into that band as a hired hand who had been a fan of the earlier incarnations, so I found it really interesting to see how it was put together. The sound was often something with no recognisable structure, but it was so tightly written. Ol and I wanted to find a shortcut to that sound: uninhibited structures where there are disparate elements that are clearly related, but you can’t always tell what it is that’s holding them together – with quiet bits.

Olly White: We had both worked on very composed and over-laboured music for years and felt a new approach was both exciting and necessary. I guess we now work in different perimeters, but with the same goal: to have more unanswered questions then when you started.

Your music makes, to my understanding, heavy use of improvisation What do you find gratifying about this, and what do you think the effect of it is in the context of your recordings and live shows?

JD: Improvising is cathartic and gives instant gratification. Because of that, the emotions it conjures up are often pretty base (angsty noise or trancey drones) which can be pretty common. We try and hit some of the more subtle emotional buttons you might get through more structured music. So, when playing live or recording, we don’t always know what we’re doing, but we’re always trying to avoid falling into certain traps. In the studio, we’re more likely to stumble across a good sound and then try to really dial it in before capturing a performance. Live, you can spend a whole gig trying to catch a specific sound, so we’re more likely to just give up and work with whatever our gear/ the surroundings are producing.

OW: Improvising live or in the studio feels risky, natural and thrilling. Sometimes you feel like you're sawing through space with a million new ideas and possibilities. Other times you feel like you're telling a dull story.

Members: Olly White, Jan Davey Illustration: Olly White

Members: Jan Davey, Oliver White Illustration: Oliver White

The percussion in COIMS’ music is full of unusual ideas. When you performed on The Bristol Germ’s stage at Dot-To-Dot 2019, I saw you roll a metal ball around the inside of an upturned cymbal What has inspired your approach to percussion?

JD: Sam (of Eftus Spectun) and Ol brought those ideas. I guess they came from musique concrète stuff like Iancu Dumitrescu, but brought down to ‘jam band’ level: taking the sounds and the structures of avant-garde composition, but turning it into something two people can recreate in the corner of a pub.

OW: We have a playful approach to sound, I guess. Once we played a food processor live with two different contact microphones attached to it.

My favourite recording of yours is ‘SANDPAPER ON THE BEACH (WELCOMING)/ LAMBS LETTUCE’. What can you tell me about its creation?

JD: We’d been collaborating online through the pandemic, but the meat of this piece came from our first in-person jam –so we must have captured some of that catharsis. It was a mixture of carefully working out sounds and structures in isolation, then stumbling across new ones when in trying to recreate them, and getting caught up in the pleasing noise.

OW: I think in the first part of the track we were trying to write something metronomic, almost like an industrial dance piece. As usual, it all got out of hand and became super heavy and weird. We managed to make the guitar sound like a synthesized sax, which is cool. The second half sounds very intimate and close, which was a new horizon for us to capture.

You arrive at unearthly sounds via broadly conventional instrumentation, rather than synthesising them digitally Most of textures on your otherworldly longform piece ‘The Anericam’ were created using a guitar What do you find gratifying about using live instrumentation to these ends?

JD: It comes down to catharsis again: feeling as well as hearing the sounds. Also, that thing of working within limitations to fuel creativity. We set ourselves little challenges when we’re recording: trying to get continuous sounds out of things which normally make percussive stabs. There’s a challenge in how you play the equipment, as well as choosing the equipment you use, which can be pretty engaging and gratifying when it works.

You’ve collaborated fruitfully over the years with Adam Bohman, noted for his use of handmade and ‘found’ instruments How do you think these collaborations have influenced COIMS’ development, and how did you go about making your extraordinary collaborative record NIACIAN FLAKES WITHADDEDTHIAMIN?

OW: Collaboration is great way of finding different approaches to chopping an onion: we favoured using a knife, while Adam chose a toothbrush.

JD: It’s really inspiring to meet people like Adam who’ve been on the outer fringes, doing their thing for years. It’s like they’re setting out the boundaries of the world we occupy, showing us what’s possible, but then we marry that with stuff which they perhaps wouldn’t feel comfortable doing. We’ve got our poppy influences, and feel free to bring them in and drag the sound back in a different direction: somewhere less ‘out there’, but in a way maybe more ‘free’? Although the people we most enjoy aren’t trying to be ‘out there’ – they just are.

How do you see yourselves as relating to Bristol’s music community, and how do you think it has changed in your years as COIMS?

OW: The music community in Bristol has created a whirlpool of possibilities. We have had so many opportunities created for us by kind and passionate individuals.

JD: Ol and I spent years in bands with some loyal fans but which struggled to get a gig with complementary bands. Playing fruity music in conventional venues could be a bit of a ballache: not getting paid if you don’t bring in this many people and all that. You’re not happy because you’ve got no crowd. The people who’ve actually come to see you aren’t happy because they’ve had to pay loads to watch shoddy bands. We started Coims just to make music, but by the time we came to play there was a really supportive DIY scene in Bristol. People like Harry Furniss, Liquid Library, the Surrey Vaults and Diego from the Old E made it really easy to play good gigs with a receptive crowd. Cheap on the door. We get beer, we might even get paid. The music is diverse but in the same ballpark. Everyone’s happy. The community around us is what’s often encouraged us to collaborate with others, like Copper Sounds, Dali De Saint Paul and Adam Bohman. Maybe people are interested in what we do, but we don’t sound like the complete package? Whatever it is, we’re really flattered to be invited to work with the people we have over the years. The pandemic has knocked the gigging back somewhat, but the network is still there, so it feels like the potential is still out there.

ROBBIE & MONA

INDUSTRIAL-NOIR / AVANT-POP DUO

Robbie & Mona’s uncategorisable albums EW and Tusky are characterised by elasticity and unpredictability. Always built around the gorgeous, diaphanous lead vocal of Ellie Gray, multi-instrumentalist Will Carkeet’s production free-wheels through glitch-pop, lounge, art-punk, EBM and more What were the original ideas behind the project, and what drives this emphasis on structural and textural unpredictability?

Making sounds, lyrics and songs is an opportunity to get in touch with a part of you that doesn’t belong to the logical world. When engaging with that, it doesn’t necessarily always come out in linear ways. At the same time, there is always a mood we are chasing, so the pursuit of that mood is what creates the structure.

Your track ‘Sherry Prada’ from Tusky samples the Oliver Wilde song ‘Sad Sack’, taken from his 2016 EP Long Hold Star An Infinite Abduction

Prior to forming Robbie & Mona, you both performed in Oliver’s band Pet Shimmers What influence has Oliver’s music, and working with him in Pet Shimmers, had on your music?

Oliver’s music has always been a sonic rabbit-hole you go down and into – off into your own emotional world. That going ‘inward’ is very much an influence on our music. For both of us, ‘Sad Sack’ was our favourite before we knew each other; upon finding this out, we enjoyed knowing that we had simultaneously been listening to it whilst going through break-ups. Oliver also physically brought us together through the assembling of Pet Shimmers. It felt meaningful and synchronistic, so we wanted to honour that by having ‘Sad Sack’ sparkling underneath this love song.

While Ellie’s vocal performances are generally delivered in a ballad setting, her voice is often manipulated in your recordings – from its distortion beyond intelligibility in ‘Slow Club LUV’ to its heavy layering in ‘Queen Celine’. What influenced Ellie’s vocal style, and what broadly inspires its manipulation where this is used?

We like that monotone female delivery found in things like Broadcast and Roger Doyle, so the manipulation kind of brings that out a bit - making the voice more like a texture. Whenever I (Ellie) hear those delicious, monotone female voices, I feel at home. It has also felt good to explore my voice, and what it can do outside of a monotone texture.

Your music places synthesised electronic sounds in conversation with live instrumentation How do you see these as relating to each other in your music, and influencing how the songs ’ themes and messaging are conveyed?

We want it to create a classic feel, alongside the eccentricity that electronic music is good at achieving. We like chaos, but at the same time we like refinement. We don't think we’ve gotten too bunched up in what you’re 'supposed' to do with this instrument or that sound, and have hopefully used them more as tools to paint the mood.

Your music also makes occasional use of heavy electronica: from the lurching industrial bridge in ‘Queen Celine’ to the blistering freakout in Tusky-highlight ‘Dolphin’. What draws you to using heavy electronic sounds in the instances you do, and to what extent do you think your approach to these sounds has been influenced by peers in Bristol’s rich industrial electronic scene?

We love projects like Giant Swan, Kinlaw & Franco Franco and Max Kelan, who use noise to take you to the edge of yourself. We are also influenced by the way EBU creates a mad landscape through electronic sounds that you very viscerally enter. Bristol is where we have spent a lot of our formative years, so its music scene has definitely been seeping into our listening ears and nervous systems.

Perhaps my favourite track of yours is the Tusky closer ‘Always Gonna Be A Dead Man’ What can you tell me about the creation of this piece, and the ideas behind it?

‘Always Gonna Be A Dead Man’ is about the magic effects that fiction and the imaginal can have upon our perspective of reality – like an ode to fiction.

We were watching the 1946 Jean Cocteau film LaBelleEtLaBête, and we sampled a bit of the Beast’s voice in the song. It was the first song we wrote for the new album. The mood we were following was happiness mixed with an off-kilter irksomeness: reflecting the way imagination can present wonderment, but also intrusive thoughts. The name of the song comes from a stupid moment when we were watching Bad Boys , and realised there always (and casually) seems to be a dead man in stories.

‘Mildred’ from TUSKY features a guest spoken-word piece, contributed by Monika from the London-based collective Nukuluk. What inspired this collaboration, and what do you think its effect is in the context of the track?

We asked Monika to write and deliver something on 'pain'. He came back with his first demo and it was stunning – his delivery is so rich. We had gone to many Nukuluk shows and always found his voice and delivery so emotional and intense. It sends the song into a different world.

Will has also produced Bristol-based projects such as DAMEFRISØR, working out of the new basement studio in Bristol institution The Louisiana To what extent do you think working with other projects here, and the landscape of Bristol’s music generally, has influenced your approach to Robbie & Mona?

If I'm honest I don't think producing bands has influenced us. When producing music for other bands, you have to approach all the projects differently as everyone’s music has its own unique expression. Robbie & Mona requires a different part of Will. Bristol’s music is a constant source of inspiration though: projects like DAMEFRISØR, Jabu and Scalping are constantly creating unimaginable worlds.

What are your ambitions for the project?

We are going for slower and moodier music. We’re writing an album for the slowcore club scene with big subs in mind, unlike the last two albums which were very much written as albums to be listened to with headphones. We also want to make a feature length film score. We want to be flown out to Miami and have the sun influence the dark and see what happens!

Illustration: Luke Dye-Montefiore Members: Ellie Gray, Will Carkeet Illustration: Ellie Gray

DEMAND

15 Necessary CHANGE

For RECENT EVENTS Prove Support Will Not Be Freely Given To Independent Music.

The final issue of this publication finds itself in the shadow of the GLOBAL PANDEMIC. Amongst its horrors, it presented the worst CRISIS in the history of the modern music industry. The Jobs Lost

The Venues Sunk

The Opportunities Destroyed AND YET

“Art and Culture have been more in people’s mouths in England than they have ever been before”

What Support Came?

What Old Ills Were Emphasised?

We have seen how the independent music industry is UNDERVALUED by those with the Financial and Political influence to strengthen it.

We must SEIZE the changes needed to withstand FUTURE STORMS.

VIRIDIAN ENSEMBLE

WOMXN-LED FREE IMPROVISATION & AUDIOVISUAL COLLECTIVE

Viridian Ensemble’s live experiments in music and film have produced some of the city’s most extraordinary contemporary recordings Drawing influence from feminist free improvisation groups such as Les Diaboliques and Feminist Improvising Group (FIG), the womxn-led project’s music features percussion, strings, vocals and woodwind What were the original intentions behind the project, and what draws you to free improvisation?

Laura Phillips: A group of us worked at St George’s Music Hall in Bristol, and were in various art projects and bands. Two members had a really common misogynistic experience and were venting about it. Through that conversation, we thought about creating a space to platform womxn musicians, and find a productive way to channel that anger. I came to the project wanting to show some 16mm film work with musicians in an expanded, performative setting, and to do interdisciplinary work across different genres.

FIG have that mentality, and are second wave feminist trailblazers for that reason. They are punk because of that aspect of being open to the differing abilities of musicians, akin to the Fluxus ideology that art is for all and everyone is an artist. We have a mix of musical backgrounds: how you bring that together to make a common language is where the magic happens. Having an ability to listen, respect and appreciate the serendipity of improvisation is a quality I find interesting. The potential for it not working is what makes it so exciting and different each time. There have been loads of performances that have been awkward, with the film getting chewed up or pedals not working. We can stay within that space and work through it, via dissonance and conflict as well as polyphony or harmony. The draw of improvisation, for me, is more about the process than an end product.

Your record Trotula is a live recording of your final performance at Viridian Ensemble’s original base The Brunswick Club This was a locus for Bristol’s DIY scene until its closure in 2019, notably hosting Thorny events and Howling Owl’s final New Year: New Noise What was your relationship with this venue, and what do you recall from this show?

LP: This was a space where we would practise, and rehearse in the beginning. I was part of the collective there, so I cleaned the toilets, worked the bar, slept there sometimes, shared a studio there and made the darkroom where a lot of the 16mm film was developed.

Dali De Saint Paul: Laura is one of the founders of The Brunswick Club, so it was a hub where we met, practised, performed and partied – a vital space for us. The recording of Trotula was an event created especially for this occasion, where we were surrounded by friends.

I understand the title Trotula refers to the Trotula texts: medieval writings on women ’ s medicine What influence did these texts have on Trotula, and what drew you to them?

LP: I was working at the library at Bristol University. I remember a history PhD student called Jade talking to me about the oblique identity of the author of the text, as well as the battle between church/state and women's freedom, and education around their bodies. I thought it resonated with the feminist critiques the two tracks portray.

In 2020 you released the extraordinary piece ‘CAMRA’ for the Women Composers Collective compilation HER INDOORS What can you tell me about the creation of this piece, and the ideas that fed into it?

LP: HER INDOORS was a compilation raising money for charity work against domestic violence, with tracks from nearly 50 female artists, and women-led projects. We called the track ‘CAMRA’ as a reference to the Bolex camera that we use in making the 16mm film imagery, but also CAMRA as in Campaign for Real Ale: we love the She Drinks Beer events which are organised by Kelly from Good Chemistry Brewery in Bristol. It’s a great initiative to advocate for women and non-binary people in the brewing industries.

The human voice takes many different settings in your music, provided by Dali De Saint Paul (HARRGA, EP/64). Even within the piece ‘CAMRA’, voices are heard chanting in haunting loops, then (towards the track’s close) snorting and gasping What can you tell me about the role of the voice in your music, and how do you see it as relating to Dali’s vocal experiments in other projects?

LP: ‘CAMRA’ was prompted by a practice session where there were instructions to explore breath and laughing. Sighing, laughing, screaming and gasping are expressions which are on the periphery of language, but convey emotion and can be seen as a core part of human expression across different cultures. In the past, Dali has spoken about her performances as related to a form of primitivism. I agree that the voice is essentially the first instrument we use: from the womb, our first actions are to breathe and cry. For ‘CAMRA’ we were really exploring those sounds that seem unconscious, and echoing the tradition in which women circumnavigate patriarchal structure to find new ways of being heard. One example is 19th century mediumship, in which working class women discovered a public voice by channelling the dead. These phantasmagorical ideas also seep into the 16mm filmmaking process.

How would you characterise the relationship between the musical and visual aspects of your work, and what draws you to working in both media?

LP: There is already a massive historical canon of work that is at the intersection between music and images. In our project it's important that the projectionist is seen as a performer, and the projector as an instrument. It makes noises as well as introducing texture, rhythm, colour, hue and tone. I was inspired by seeing a conference in Nantes in which film collectives such as Filmwwerkplaats performed on the bill alongside intense noise bands such as Guttersnipe. I got to experience an updated theory there from Gene Youngblood’s 1970s idea of expanded cinema, which Mackenzie and Marchessault would describe as ‘Process Cinema’: “the creative tradition in alternative filmmaking that is unscripted, improvisational, participatory, and based on the manipulation of the very materiality of film.”

Members: Laura Phillips, Dali De Saint Paul, Esme Betamax, Tina Hitchens, Liz Muir, Caitlin Alais Callahan et al. Illustration: Amy Gough

Members: Laura Phillips, Dali De Saint Paul, Esme Betamax, Tina Hitchens, Liz Muir, Caitlin Alais Callahan et al. Illustration: Amy Gough

In Viridian Ensemble the 16mm film gives a durational aspect to the work. Although the film is played on a variable speed 16mm projector, it ultimately limits the performance to the material length of the film. I came to learn 16mm skills through attending a workshop at No.w.here Gallery by James Holcombe in 2012. He also invited free-improvising vocalist and trumpeter Phil Minton to lead a session, so these worlds of film and music have always been intertwined in my eyes. The Viridian Ensemble films are all handmade. It's a really slow process of shooting on a reel that only captures 3 minutes of film: the antithesis of high speed digital material. Sometimes you will see some of the people from the band or images made via contact printing: a direct camera-less way of printing film. The infrastructure of 16mm film, hand-processing and using film labs infrastructure is about independent means of production, artisanal making and anti-capitalist models: a bit like DIY or underground music. The films are digitised, so when you come to the shows I project digital loops on top of 16mm footage: blurring the lines between digital and analogue. Essentially, the film adds visual provocations and grounds some of the discussion and thoughts we are having about stuff. The latest shots are all riffing on the idea of rough music and shame, which were ideas circulating around lockdown with the clapping for carers. Filmmaking is such a slow, deliberate, laboured process!

There is a fantastic documentary short from Yesterday’s Witness (1970) in which two women are interviewed about their experiences of being teenagers in the 1890s, including their first impressions of “some sort of little machine”: the typewriter being fairly new technology. The passage I wrote contains no words, only symbols, and it looks like a secret code – some uncanny cousin to morse code and musical notation.

Your work advocates for womxn in the experimental arts from different backgrounds From your experiences performing around the UK, what are your impressions of the access and visibility womxn are given in live music in this country, and what would you like to see change?

DDSP: Having performed a bit more around the UK with other projects, I’m happy to say that things are moving –albeit slowly. Even if you still have a lot of men producing the music which is promoted by the ‘music industry’ I feel there is more interest in womxn’s work. There are the usual supporters of womxn, non-binary and trans people like Counterflows Festival or Supernormal Festival, but over the past few years I have also seen womxn’s work echoed by festivals or venues where women have some key roles: Newcastle’s TPHO and Tusk Festival, Birmingham’s Supersonic Festival and Centrala, and London with New River Studio and Iklectik. But this change is not only for experimental music: Saffron is doing a lot for Bristol’s ‘mainstream’ music scene.

To what extent do you think your music has been shaped by Bristol’s musical landscape?

LP: Massively! I love the smaller DIY promoters (Schwet, Off Grid, Quakclub, CBOD, Improv’s Greatest Hits, Music to Come, Matt Griggs’ improv nights) who are dedicated to putting on loads of weird and wonderful stuff. I also love the DIY collectives and labels.

EB: It’s funny how the musical landscape reflects the physical landscape of the city. I once overheard a guy leading a walking tour boldly claim “Clifton is the heart of Bristol”; I thought “no it fucking isn’t”, but I don’t know where I would locate Bristol’s heart. There’s no specific centre – it’s sprawling. That’s how I would describe the music scene. There are so many pockets and niches to explore, and they all overlap in curious ways. We also have to keep discovering, inventing and investing in places to play, and Bristol provides that. The Brunswick Club is sorely missed, but now there’s Strange Brew and Dareshack: it’s constantly changing and evolving. So many musicians come here with the desire to experiment and collaborate. It’s an exciting place to be for us, especially with the fluidity of our line-up.

While recordings of your performances are available with some digging – from an extraordinary Café Oto performance available via their website to your various compilation contributions – you have resisted presenting a conventional body of studio recording. What draws you to presenting Viridian Ensemble’s music primarily through your live shows, and what would you like to imagine people taking from your performances?

Alive All Together

Your piece ‘Borealis’ from the Glow Worm Society compilation So That We Could Be

features a typewriter What inspired the typewriter’s use in this piece, and was anything specific being typed?

Esme Betamax: ‘Borealis’ was created in 2020, when we had to experiment with new ways of creating music together. Unable to record a drum kit in my flat, I looked for other percussion. I love all things mechanical, and the sound of a typewriter is unmistakable. Also, the fact that typing was understood to be ‘women’s work’ speaks to the themes we like to explore.

What I can observe, after 10 years in music, is that womxn are building connections, and people are keen to take some risks in programming more womxn and even challenging artists: the ones that won’t tick the boxes of the ‘great market of female flesh!’ I’m glad to see that, as culture should not comply with a capitalistic agenda. Women, nonbinary and trans people from diverse ethnicities are part of the cultural landscape, and it’s important to break the vicious cannibalistic circle – the necropolitics. I would like to see more womxn, non-binary and trans people in charge, with key roles in curating big events and the money they need to do it!

EB: Space, presence, and physicality mean a lot to us in performance, and I think we all feel that the best way to experience Viridian Ensemble is to become immersed in the moment. This goes for us as performers and also for the audience. There is dialogue across every space we perform in - it’s not a one-way thing. The variety is endless when we respond to different spaces (the weirder the better) and embrace guest musicians. That keeps things exciting, but it’s impossible to fully replicate it in a recording.

Image: Scan of Esme Betamax’s typewritten page, produced during the recording of Viridian Ensemble’s ‘Borealis’.

THISISDA

PROLIFIC HIP-HOP ARTIST

ThisisDA’s catalogue features some of Bristol’s best contemporary hip-hop, with his latest album 0800-GHOSTconstituting his most bracing, inventive record to date: from the muscular, noise-facing ‘BOUNDARY DRIFTER’ to the percussively elaborate ‘ADDICTED’ How do you see 0800-GHOST as relating to your previous releases?

ThisisDA: 0800-GHOST is both a manifestation and a bridge. It’s what happens when you have a breakdown and a breakthrough simultaneously. It was everything I’d been doing up until that point, but polished – plus, a proposition of everything I intend to do going forward

Across 0800-GHOSTyour presentation of yourself shifts between braggadocio and vulnerability, suggesting on the openhearted ‘REAL ONES’ you were “brought up in a way/ if you have love you do disguise it ” How did you go about reconciling these different sides of yourself in this record, and how did this influence the production?

T: I really don’t think about it. When you’re young, you’re oblivious to what the summation of your upbringing may equal. As I’ve gotten older, the dividing lines within my life grow more apparent. I now see a huge culture of contradiction presided over me. It’s too late to change things, but it’s nice to sing about it every now and then.

On this record, you place your natural unaffected vocal in conversation with hooks and segments where it is warped or distorted (as on ‘SHORT CIRCUIT PERFECT’) What do you see the effect of this as being?

T: At this point, I’m trying to sound like as many people as possible.

While your previous release Aloof Gospel was characterised by brighter production and heavy use of piano, 0800-GHOST places flashes of this more sentimental side of your music (such as the gorgeous ‘FULL SCALE BLEW IT’) in the context of a more frequently dark, aggressive and electronically driven record What do you see the effect of this as being, and what influenced this stylistic shift?

T: Got done with holding back. Got told I was doing so on AloofGospel and in real life. Aggression and drive come with being direct. I was worried about dedicating myself to that. Over the years, I grew a little obsessed with trying to pre-empt what may be appealing. Internal desire burns brighter, and you eventually run out of fucks to give. Especially when life gets threatening, and options are no longer presented to you.

You are known as being fairly reclusive, and have spoken previously about not feeling compelled to place yourself in the context of Bristol’s musical landscape I was surprised as a result to see you contribute the excellent instrumental track ‘Encoding’ to Illegal Data Compilation #2 How would you characterise your relationship with Bristol’s wider music community, and how do you think it’s changed over the years?

T: I don’t know, man. I can be extremely strict with myself and on others too. I don’t rate a lot of things in general. Came to realise recently that it’s likely due to neurodivergence as opposed to me being intentionally exclusive or haughty. If I was different, I suppose it would be much easier to align with what’s going on around me, but I truly live on the inside.

In 2021 you released the instrumental EP Bone Deep, which featured some of your most unusual beats – especially the brilliantly erratic ‘Threats From The West’ What prompted you to create this instrumental project, and have you been tempted since to give these beats lyrical accompaniment?

T: Well, it depends on how you listen to it. I speak through instrumentation the same way I speak through vocal takes. Always trying to say something, even if I’m verbally saying nothing. I wouldn’t bother to go back, though. I create far too much music for that.

You’ve collaborated fruitfully with Lowkey-E over the years, including several collaborative EPs How did you start working together, and how do you think your collaborations have influenced your artistic development as ThisisDA?

T: Lowkey-E is my younger brother. We currently share a place together, and prior to that, we shared a room for most of our lives. He’s a stringman and I’m a percussive-punk. Two ends of two different spectrums. He had me switch onto melody more, as it was his primary purpose. He’s always encouraging me no matter what. My second biggest fan – after me, of course.

Since the project began, you have been extremely prolific, as gestured towards by the lyrics of ‘Some Kinda Mission Statement’ from TWO SONGS To what do you ascribe this desire to release music at such speed, and how do you think this has influenced your development artistically?

T: Was always natural to do loads. Not concerned with the quality/quantity argument. Life is not short, but it’s also not long enough to remain debating. I have an urge to go for it. No need to think twice or worry about who’s watching. Way more fun that way

The international profile and landscape of UK hip-hop has changed dramatically since you first began releasing music How do you see your own music as relating to the changes the genre has experienced over the years?

T: Hmm, I’ve never seen my sound befitting what UK hip-hop even is. The terms UK and hip-hop don’t come to mind when I consider what constitutes ThisisDA. I prefer time and space. The microcosmmacrocosm of the thinking mind and outer space. That’s the type of thing I’m on.

Illustration: I Know What It Means Now by Khadija Choudhury

Illustration: Luke Dye-Montefiore

ILLEGAL DATA

CLUBNIGHT & LABEL

Illustration:

Since its foundation in 2018 by Mun Sing and DJ NE$$, Illegal Data has been responsible for putting on some of the city’s most unusual, electrifying parties. Characterised by the fierce eclecticism of their line-ups – always mixing DJs and live acts – these have featured local artists (Kinlaw & Franco Franco, Boofy etc ) alongside talent from further afield (AYA, Container etc,). What can you tell me about the original intentions behind Illegal Data, and the experiences of live music in Bristol that influenced your nights?

Mun Sing: The original idea behind Illegal Data was to put on a FUN party night with plenty of room for pop music alongside all the other more head-y dance music. The aim was to reach out to new people and make friends who had a shared interest in pop, vaporwave etc., as we felt like there was a bit of a gap in the Bristol Music Scene ™ in this area. Another important aspect for us was to always put on nights that showcased a range of abilities and genres. From people playing their first ever show to seasoned touring DJs – I feel like everyone can learn a lot from each other this way! We got bored of going to nights that are centred around just one genre. We wanted to mix everything up as much as possible and give people a platform they might not have had access to before.

NE$$: I think our MO from day one was to avoid any 'serious' or chin-stroking/ edgy vibes and to just facilitate the nights as more of a party and unrestricted space for all involved. In the words of the philosophical Andrew WK: "a party is a situation where people can feel free to truly be themselves, and where anything is possible ” True Pop music to me is a sense of universality and freedom, accessible to any who wish to participate. We wanted to capture that feeling for our nights and I think the artists, audiences and spaces responded positively to that intent. The eclecticism of the line-ups was also paramount, and I think came from our own backgrounds playing amongst diverse line-ups of bands, DJs and experimental acts. Variety is the spice of life!

A year after these nights began, Illegal Data also began operating as a record label with the release of IllegalData Compilation #1 You’ve since released another compilation, as well as EP and LP projects from TEEN, Zoee and Sarahsson What drove this development?

MS: At this point we’d built a small community around our nights We wanted to extend this to those outside of Bristol, and think a bit more #internationally in terms of how we can all connect around our shared musical interests. It was a chance for us to work with some of our favourite artists, and help them get their artistic vision out in to the big, bad horrible world

Illegal Data’s curation is partially distinguished from that of many other ‘experimental’ vehicles in the city by embracing various shades of ‘ pop ’ music. Your compilations place dark, gritty cuts from Fever 103, Silver Waves and others alongside bright, sugary pop-facing tracks from the likes of Mouse and Marged. The first album you released was Zoee’s Flaw Flower, which nods clearly to 1980s pop music. What draws you to promoting music that embraces more conventional notions of ‘ pop ’ , alongside artists who subvert those notions?

N: Our own musical tastes are very broad, so we'd both individually be listening to Pop music often alongside experimental/ avantgarde/ metal or whatever else anyway. Our approach to curation and releases probably just reflects that. Pop music as a genre or term resonates with us, as it could be argued any genre could fit into Pop Music really

Last year you released Sarahsson’s debut album The Horgenaith What can you tell me about the process of releasing this album?

MS: We have always admired Sarahsson, both as an artist and a walking flesh prison (human being) for a while before we worked on the album together. We felt like competition winners when they said they wanted to release it with us. We had absolute faith in their vision for the album. They’re a genuine inspiration to me.

N: As long-time fans (Sarahsson had performed at an earlier ID night) we were blown away when Sarahsson approached us. We felt a strong responsibility to help support, facilitate and take care of that release to the best of our abilities, as we both knew it was going to be amazing Then we both heard the album, and it was even more amazing than we ever expected! I cried! The process taught us all so much, and to be honest gave me a lot of respect for DIY artists and labels working together to release music, as it can be a lot of work! The feeling of releasing an innovative and impactful record can't be understated –it's an incredible feeling.

Illegal Data has held shows in various spaces around Bristol, such as The Mothers’ Ruin, The Old England, Exchange, Take 5 Café and Strange Brew How would you describe the landscape of Bristol’s small venues?

N: We were lucky to have been able to start putting on nights pre-pandemic and explore as many spaces as we did. The Old England was certainly a bastion of our own unique chaos I think the landscape has changed post-pandemic though, as many venues either closed or decided to do away with music events generally, which is a real loss. Still though there's some great new venues and spaces, and music will always find a way.

Is there an Illegal Data night you are particularly proud of?

MS: We’re proud of all of them [Ego Mode: activated]. For me one that comes to mind is our night with Golin, Swan Meat, Sarahsson and I-Sha. That felt really special. It was our first proper night postcovid, and it was very humbling to see a lot of people turn up for it. Every act that night blew us away, and it’s nice hearing that the artists have stayed in touch and even collaborated since that show.

N: That first big one post-pandemic was an amazing experience That sense of the artists staying in touch is another unique part of the nights we've had since early days with ID. At most of our nights, ourselves and the artists have formed close bonds, and it almost has a family vibe at times. It's quite moving to be honest, and a big reason why we do this and try to book national and international artists.

Illegal Data’s work clearly values unpretentiousness Show announcements are paired with long, whimsical artist-bios, with past examples claiming Swan Meat “gets through 8 stress balls a week” and Kai Whiston “refuses to eat hot food due to an irrational fear of steam” I see this as subverting the grave seriousness with which a lot of ‘experimental’ vehicles frame their activities, and some of the genres you represent are often perceived How far would you agree with this, and why do you present Illegal Data this way?

MS: The silly artist bios are a way for us to poke a bit of fun at the serious artist writeups we’re all so used to seeing. It hopefully sets a tone for the nights and helps artists and audiences to not take themselves too seriously. We also didn’t like the idea of always using cool labels, affiliations or accolades to justify an artist’s worth to an audience. It’s sometimes not the best way to quantify good or successful artistry. I think humour can be a good way to cut through all of that – and it’s fun for us too.

What would you like to imagine people taking away from your shows?

MS: Hopefully a new favourite artist, and to be inspired to start DJing or performing: whether that’s because they want to join in on the fun, or because our night was so bad that they need to do a better job Oh, and at least one Illegal Data T-shirt, a Sarahsson necklace and a Zoee cassette

N: That music events should be an accessible, inviting space: accommodating a celebration of our own and each other’s individual weirdness

Luke Dye-Montefiore Members: Mun Sing, DJ NES$$

Illustration: Mun Sing

While This GLORIOUS MOMENT IN MUSIC CONTINUES, What RESOLUTION Can we Reach?

Friends, we find ourselves in a CHANGED WORLD.

BRISTOL’S NEW MUSIC

The profile of this city’s music, Once broadly overlooked, has RISEN DRAMATICALLY:

Heard on the radio

Written about in publications

Seen at far-ranging festivals and venues

Recognised by the UK industry

THE UK MUSIC INDUSTRY

The agency of our major arbiters, So brutalised by this publication, PRESENTS NEW FLAWS.

We have watched: New Music Media Fracturing

(signalled by the demise of Q and print-editions of NME) Major Labels’ Power Expanding (not least via their shares in streaming platforms) Commercial Radio’s Venomous Rise (and marginalising of specialist new music programming)

This momennt in music GROWS DEESSPITE

The Transformed Strength of Agents Against The Prosperity Of All That is CHALLENGING, COURAGEOUS and ALIVE, Through these artists’ CONTINUED WORK and MUTUAL SUPPORT. WHERE TRULY GREAT MUSIC PULLS ITSELF INTO THE SPOTLIGHT, noblest where it is IDEOLOGICAL in vision and EXTREME in realisation, IT WILL BE MET IN THE END WITH LOVE.

CHAPTER IV ENDS

AN ISSUE CAN ONLY BE SO LONG.

These projects are just threads in a larger, grander tale. There are many, many more to show ye.

BUT THE BRISTOL GERM CONCLUDES, in hopes you yourself will explore more ARTISTS, LABELS, and PROJECTS from this GREAT EPOCH.

THIS HISTORIC MOMENT IN AVANT-GARDE

MUSIC Will indeed, finally, be delivered to the masses, chiselled into the popular consciousness, and marked in the annals of history

THE STARS ALIGN; Eyes turn to the city as several Bristol projects (IDLES, Giant Swan etc ) break through on to the national stage, and new projects emerge at a startling pace. The Landfill can’t obscure it much longer The junkyard prepares to be re-shaped

AND WHAT OF YOU, DEAR READERS?

LISTEN to these artists, for this epoch must be heard to be understood. Writing, good as it can be, is always a compromise for the first-fact of musical/aesthetic beauty; only in encountering it firsthand will you know its dazzling brilliance

PROTEST the cultural treason of complacent music journalism, and hindrances to the promotion and experience of great art

SPREAD the news of this community, and SPREAD THIS GLORIOUS DOCUMENT!!!

THE NOBLE CRUSADE CONTINUES!!

(ALONNG WITH H THIS PUBLICATION, , ITS VISION REALISED) CREDITS

Projects:

COIMS/ DAMEFRISØR

Fever 103/ Grove/ Illegal Data

Ishmael Ensemble/ Robbie & Mona

Sarahsson/ Strange Brew

Tara Clerkin Trio/ ThisisDA

Viridian Ensemble

Alastair Shuttleworth

Illustrators:

Adrian Dutt/ Amy Gough

Chris Wright/ Ellie Gray

Esme Betamax/ Harry Wyld

Khadija Choudhury/

Luke Dye-Montefiore/

Miles Opland/ Mun Sing

Olly White/ Rozine Jahfar

Sophia Jowett

FRIENDS, FIGURES & PARTISANS IN THIS NOBLE CRUSADE

ADRIAN DUTT, AMY GOUGH, CAITLIN ALAIS CALLAHAN, CHRIS

WRIGHT, DALI DE SAINT PAUL, DJ NES$$, ELLIE GRAY, ESME

BETAMAX, GARIN CURTIS, GROVE, HARRY WYLD, HOLYSSEUS FLY, JAKE

SPURGEON, JAMIE BROWN, JAN DAVEY, KAZHI JAHFAR, KHADIJA CHOUDHURY, LAURA PHILLIPS, LEIGH DENNIS, LIZ MUIR, LUKE DYE-MONTEFIORE, MARGOT PEREIRA, MEGAN

JENKINS, MILES OPLAND, MUN SING, NYLE DOWD, OLLY WHITE, PATRICK

BENJAMIN, PAUL BOUMENDIL, PETER CUNNINGHAM, RORY O’GORMAN, ROZINE JAHFAR, SAM NOBBS, SARAHSSON, SOPHIA JOWETT, STEPHEN

MULLINS, STUART MACONIE, SUNNY-JOE PARADISOS, TARA CLERKIN, THISISDA, TINA HITCHENS, WILL CARKEET, WIRE MAGAZINE