Cremation Lily, Knifedoutofexistence, The Mysterious
Monopole and Kuebiko.
Thursday 7th March 2019, The Chameleon Arts Café,
Nottingham.
I was keen to attend this gig and see all the acts mentioned;
I’d recently reviewed the Kuebiko cassette release on Outsider Art Records. I
am also a keen fan of Knifedoutofexistence and Cremation Lily and have reviewed
their stuff in the past.
Kuebiko played on the floor of the venue, he was surrounded
by devices which included contact microphones, chains and effects pedals. This
worked as you had to look down or be directly face to face with the artist depending
on whether you stood or sat. Sounds started small and gradually grew into a larger,
harsher, more frenzied assault of noise. As things intensified the chains got smacked
around, contact mikes were put in the artists mouth, Sellotape mummified his
head and things descended into a sonic tantrum. The improvised, performative
aspects of Kuebiko made for an impressive set.
Kuebiko.
I knew nothing prior to this about The Mysterious Monopole. The
artist looked very different, her eyes were covered with patches of black lace
and she was dressed in Brown with an old tie on. This coupled with how the
performance built up gave it an impressive ‘wtf odd’ factor. I don’t mean this
as a criticism, but she built tension before it even started, which is quite a
feat. Samples of noises and keyboard lines were played as the show built up to
some impressive demonstrations of unique noise making. The artist started
sawing up packs of Ryvita type snacks with a Contact Mic enhanced saw and then
she was playing homemade card records on a turntable. The noise was crumbly and
parallels the project Evil Moisture with unique sources of sound, but more
warped off in her own tangents. Like Kuebiko the set was fully improvised, with
a stronger performance art bent. An audience member was brought in to do vocals
in a repeated chant as the artist crunched up Ryvita and trampled on the saw.
This seemed to be a commentary on food politics that dominate life. I was half
expecting to be force fed Ryvita or something as the artist made full use of
the stage made for a truly excellent performance. To see someone coming at
noise from such a truly eccentric, unpredictable angle was very exciting.
The Mysterious Monopole
This show was a collaboration between Cremation Lily and Knifedoutofexistence,
which is another self-personified Power Electronics project whose slow burn
growth over the years has been impressive. The collaboration started with Knife’s
more experimental PE set with both artists contributing noise, Cremation had a
minimal set up that seemed to consist of an electronic device that threw out
sampled sounds and beats and a tape player, where as Knifed had a larger,
complex set up. The noise got harsher and louder yet contained good
atmospherics and the Knifed vocals were cleverly put in the background as he
shouted into the microphone, this added more performance to what he did as he
faced to audience. Last time he did the whole back turned to audience type performance
thing, the frontal approach was more direct and way more effective. Both
artists seemed to fire off each other. The noise seemed to be able to say more
without being overpowered by vocal rage. The performance was a mass of
complex emotion and range. This mixed with the distanced vocals and rich
textured sound made for the strongest Knifedoutofexistence show that I’ve seen
yet, I was very impressed – the slow burn development continues unhindered.
Cremation Lily and Knifedoutofexistence.
Where Cremation Lily is concerned, I’m politely obsessive. I
believe the project upped the ante with Power Electronics very early on by coming
from such a deeply personal angle. Funeral Home has one of the most impressive
modern vocal performances that I’ve ever heard, that and S.T.A.B.’s Day of the
Male are the vocal benchmarks to me in how I judge modern Power Electronics.
The project continually progresses and changes with each passing year; I’m
excited to hear where it’s at each time. This is my fourth time seeing
Cremation Lily and I enjoy each performance.
The atmosphere stripped down as things moved to the
Cremation Lily part of the set. What
threw me was that I was expecting a more ambient set, yet there were beats, moody
electronica with passages of noise thrown in, the shift between the two sets
was smooth and effective. Cremation’s vocals shifted between agonised shouting,
distorted rage and some actual singing. Knifed effectively switched from
complimenting to contrasting the work with a range of sounds. Previous
Cremation Lily sets had been displays of noise that just exploded where as this was
a longer musical set with continual shifts into different musical parameters. The
depth of feeling, past sadness and sonic texture was impressive as it seemed to
run through both sets. Like any good set I am left with questions, while I
truly loved both sets and saw both artists conquer new heights, is this duo
thing something that should be recorded and developed outside of their
individual work? Both artists shifted into new areas, they complimented,
supported and built on each other’s strengths, not allowing for any weakness to
hinder the sound. Had it not worked, this
whole collaboration could easily have had its ass kicked because of the
strength of both the support acts. But it did work, giving an epic finale to a
great night.
Choppy Noodles 2019.
