radio free midwich

midwich playing live! saturday 4th february 2012

RFM is delighted to announce the first live midwich gig in about, what, seven years?  Don’t look at me like that, I’m as surprised as you are. For many years my reaction to the question ‘will you ever play live again?’ was a Gallic shrug and a protestation that the volume control on my long-suffering Roland MC-303 was broken.

However, discovering that I could use a little Korg Monotron not only as a filter but also as a way of regulating the 303′s output caused a rush of blood to the head and before I knew it I found myself touting my ‘act’ around the promoters of quality happenings here in Leeds.  My dream gig was soon realised and it couldn’t be more low-key or cosy: fourth on the bill of a ‘group hug’ (as described by Neil Campbell) organised by the tireless Kieron Piercy at the Fox & Newt (of course).  The details are as follows:

• Astral Social Club
• The Piss Superstition
• Culver
• Midwich

Fox & Newt (9 Burley Street, Leeds, LS3 1LD), Saturday 4th February 2012, £4, doors probably 8pm-ish

These acts should be familiar to readers of this blog but tradition dictates that a gig listing should include blurbs.  So here you go. Each paragraph, apart from the midwich one where I talk about myself in the third person, is paraphrased from stuff previously published on RFM so apologies if much seems familiar:

Midwich

The first live appearance in many years from house band of the radiofreemidwich blog.  Expect nervous performances of tracks from Rob’s new releases on Zanntone, Memoirs of an Aesthete and Matching Head.  Industrial folk drones, neo-radiophonic throbs and the finest in Yorkshire nothing music will be delicately teased from wonky kit.  Hearts will be melted and egos dissolved by lovely, enveloping noise.  Or nothing will work, in which case there will be 20 minutes of swearing.

Culver

Like the background radiation that has been humming since the Big Bang, Culver is ubiquitous yet mysterious and indicative of something ominously apocalyptic.  Culver’s noise is predominately a bass-heavy rumble, a slow-motion fire.  Your attention is demanded – changes in tone and texture reveal themselves like a giant sturgeon moving slowly at the bottom of a lake.  Tuning in to Culver is like waking in a seemingly pitch-black room and gradually distinguishing unnerving objects – a clown doll, a bloodied knife – as your eyes adjust to the dark.

The Piss Superstition

Julian Bradley has found a way of cutting and pasting music into Google Translate and has amused himself by pinging it back and forth between languages.  Once the entropy of the process has removed meaning and context altogether, once all that is left is an incommensurably strange residue, he then offers it to us.  The Piss Superstition live – beefed up to a power duo by the addition of Paul Steere of Mob Rules – is an unmissably alien experience.  Scorched wrong with genius.

Astral Social Club

ASC is a joyously uplifting, billowing cloud of psychedelic noise constructed with wit, subtlety and a sure hand keeping it just the right side of chaos.  Apart from when that sure hand mischievously lets go to see what happens.  Transporting you from nostril-flaring delirium to blissed-out meditation and back again, the theatricality of the racket disguises a satisfyingly tough emotional core.  ASC return you to the world with your senses sparkling.

What a terrific line up.  It is also near enough to my 40th birthday for me to co-opt it as an unofficial birthday party too.  Come and celebrate!  No need to buy me drinks or shower me with presents (or indeed shower me with drinks, though you may be tempted to after my set) just roll up, give Kieron your money and get your groove on.  Good to have something so wicked awesome to look forward to in the New Year, eh?