Break 4 Beats, Heavy Metal.

It's been quite a busy time of late. Lots of fun things to do, lots of work and no time to make posts about any of it. So I'll go back in time a little and mention some of the events I think are of note.

Break 4 Beats Open Air Party at Riviera Brno. 16/05/08
Skateshop.cz stage
20.00 - Gabanna


21.30 - Beast 67


23.00 - Krust


00.30 - Roni Size + Dynamite MC


02.00 - Sound Weapon (Fresh + MC Ivory)


03.00 - Mampi Swift


04.30 - Sayko
06.00 - end

I worked throughout all the above with occassional short breaks to fetch drinks.

Second End/Eagleheart/Svatý Pluk - Faval 22/05/08
Heavy metal night. I was joined by Adam to go and se one of my students bands. It's been quite a while since i've been to see a full on rock act. This was a welcome reminder of what i had been missing, with the addition of a rather curious choir type ensemble as an opening act:
Eagleheart



Second End


Svatý Pluk

B 4 B - Dieselboy

Lineup 5.4.08
21:00 Vje
22:30 Shroombab + MC Coppa
00:00 Dieselboy
02:00 CLS & Wax + K-Size
03:30 Sayko
05:00 Eddrum
Sterling performances all round.

MC Coppa and Dieselboy

Music on Film - Film on Music

Last night I went to see Control (2007 Anton Corbijn). A black and white film about Ian Curtis of Joy Division based on the book by his wife Debbie. A touching biopic, created with affection for the subject matter, without over sentimentalising or trivialising the narrative.

This was the first film I made it to in the Brno leg of the international festival of music films called 'Music on Film - Film on Music'. unfortunately due to my work schedule I will miss many of the screenings, but I intend to go and see Metallica - Some Kind of Monster (a film to be taken seriously in the words of radiohead's Colin Greenwood)on Friday. Good times.

In other news I'll be vjing for Dieselboy at Fleda this weekend. Another Break 4 Beats party; so you can expect a long night full of high-tempo beats and large helpings of bass to bounce to.

Endru and Heavy Mental

A really mixed bag on Tuesday evening. After work I popped over to Trojka to listen to a young man called Endru do his thing. I met him a few weeks before and he told me he was a beat boxer and he'd be playing there. When I arrived there wasn't a free seat in the place - a good sign, I found a spot of floor to squat on and tried to get comfy.



He was using a loopstation to lay down rythmns which were then dressed up by a guy playing electric piano, over which Endru added various vocal stabs and sound effects. It seemed that some of the material was improvised, taking a little while to warm up, but it was clear that once the grooves were in place that there was a good level of communication between the two players. Beats, breaks, rap, scat, improv. It was an impressive set and a clear display of talent.



More videos of the performance may be seen here

After listening to Endru it was time to head off to Fleda for a bit of Heavy Mental. I had skimmed the info on the website and followed the links to the different acts they had posted there. It seemed like quite a variety of styles, from minimalist noise to electro punk.





The evening started with a man playing some music which was a little like listening to a broken fan, or dark ambient if you like that sort of thing. It so happens that I like a bit of deep listening, but I feel the listening experience would have been enhanced with more comfortable seating.





There was also more dark insectoid glitch material, which occasionaly broke into rythmns which was rather slick in a MSP-chic granular synth abuse fashion.





There was also a bit of humour with the bass lines to 2 Unlimited's 'No Limits' raising a smile. Straight after that came a reworked 'She's Lost Control' by Joy Division. Goodtimes.



There was a lot of fiddling about with equipment before the next guys got their accordian, melodica and guitar to work with their digital tools, it was quite beautiful once it got going, but it took a long time to get there.



The last act I stayed to listen to were 'Like She' the only act I can say for sure I know who they are/were due to the fact they're a duo that like to dress-up. All the other acts that night are impossible to link to myspace pages with any certainty as the music played on the night wasn't quite the same as the material on their spaces and there was no information about who was performing at any time.





Like She were the high energy point of the night with plenty of nasty kick drums, bleepy lo-fi synths, aggressivie bass guitar and shouty vocals. Party music.



I think it would not have taken too much effort from the VJ to stick the artists names on the screen...



There was another duo playing after Like She, but I decided it was time for food and a tram home, so I can't comment on them. Nor name them.

Break 4 Beats - party clips.

Good fun last Friday at Fleda - once again the club was ful of people up for some high tempo drums and synths.

Check the following (blurry/dodgy quality) clips to hear a bit of what you missed.

BEW Bootleg

The shows the other night were as I said, in my opinion, quite successful.
If you want to hear how they went download and listen to the following.

01 - Electro-acoustic Improvisation
02 - Horn Joy Live
03 - Noisey Beat Mix Live

These were recorded from the mixing desk to minidisc then onto my PC.
The minidisc was running at LP4 - a low quality long play - so the recordings are quite fuzzy, but they still contain plenty of fun tones.
In addition here's a tiny snippet of noise from Friday's improv set at The Golden Thread Gallery it was recorded onto chrome cassette on a little SONY dictaphone so again lo-fi, fuzzy fun. If you want to hear more, let me know.
04 - live improv part 4

The Attic Sessions: BEW

Matt Hazley over at No Clarity is now hosting the last mix I mad for Queen's Radio.
Go there and download it if you like.

New tunes are being crafted at the moment. More breakbeat stuff with a heavy chiptunes flavour.I was teaching Adam some tricks with PC music-making. Fun was had.

We worked step by step through making a sample to adding a beat and bass to various audio warping. I showed him what to do on my machine and he copied on his. I imagine that our end results should be interesting to listen to when we're both finished with our versions of that tune.