Summer Fun (June and July)

Due to some feeble excuse or other I didn't get the June show digitised until far too late, so I'm mixing up the two shows for this post because, although they were internally very consistent, they were very different shows and breaking them up is going to give more entertainment value. Believe me.

Interestingly Blogger did a fair job of mixing up the photographs so I'm going to follow their lead....

Lastly Halal Kebab Hut played (last act in the July show).
Billed as a seven piece Junkestra, there were seven of them and they had lots of junk and toys and whistles and all sorts, also TWO sets of instructions, and more improvising than you would normally see in chimps cage in a Moroccan zoo. At once rigorous and freeform.

Halal kebab Hut playing.


Halal Kebab Hut after tidying up.

On this blog we have:
HKH-4-blog.mp3
(I'm sure there is a real name for this, as there will be with some of the other mp3's I'm posting today)

They also have on their site more mp3's including the whole show.
and some photgraphs.


Before them Same Actor played. Now that he has to travel down from (and right across) London we don't get to see the range of acoustic instrumentation we were so blase about in the past: I mean who could get on the tube with a Sitar, Dulcimer, acoustic guitar, along with the laptop and pennies etc.

But we still get to see the new Sitar, and its a beauty - possibly even more so than the Sitar that was broken just after the last show. Before the show Chris said he'd had some trouble with aliens, but blissfully they left him alone to complete a lovely set of processed Sitar figures.

Here is an mp3 of something, maybe the tribute to Ligeti he opened the set with.
But maybe not.. - IT IS!
same_actor-tribute_to_georgy_ligeti.mp3


Rashamon opened the June show, with a great reworking of "Mates to some pilgrim" followed by lots of new tunes. The new songs were crunchy and rolling. Slightly threatening if you looked at them in a funny way.

Heres something on mp3.

Lifting Gear Engineer played after Rashamon in June, keeping the beat up and scattering pittar patter bass drum patterns all around it, plus the most tuneful detuned sounds I've heard outside Detroit.

lifting_gear_engineer-4blog.mp3

Again Rob if you can tell me what this is properly called it'd be nice!


Dan Powell opened the July show with a very new set. Processing (Primarily) percussion through a laptop, plus some keyboards. He clinged and clonked, hummed and resonated.
fascinating to watch, too, July was SoG in its experiental glory.

I made up the name for this piece, lol.

dan_powell-endless_blue_corridor_on_his_couch_the_poet.mp3

Sorry Dan.


Crowning the June show multiplex took off fromLifting Gear Engineers landing strip of rhythm and soared. Their lovely melancholy brushed up with some tasty drum work, plus film!

multiplex-4blog.mp3

There are more adequate descriptions of the shows on the Spirit of Gravity website in the Gravitational Pull section.