Monday, February 20, 2006

Mischievous Noise








"...think of the scrapings and the subterraneal sounds of
"through water" (from the album "the wind is strong");
the dark brooding cacophonies of "the beginning of wisdom"
(in this world) and the proto-technoize of "everybody
is christ" (camouflage heart).those more "experimental"
aspects of cindytalk have always been as crucial
to their sound as say Sharps' voice and it's in
those elements that you might find the connections
between bambule and cindytalk.past-present-phuture.
a still warm,disembodied voice reinterpreted into
signals collides with "extreme electronics and splintered
beats"...
cindytalk meets bambule"...

Photos from Darkside 6 , Oct 30 1998, courtesy of ele_mental

Review for Darkside 5 :

d a r k s i d e 5 :: journey from the light
columbus ohio, fri 31 oct 97

"the next performer was BAMBULE COMMANDO, aka gordon sharp,
a Scot (via London) who has been residing in columbus for the last
several months. although he has been working on the outer fringes of
electronic and experimental music for 20 years (as the head architect/
vocalist of the UK outfit CINdYTALK), he is careful not to claim he is a
DJ, but his approach has liberating implications nonetheless.his music
continued in the vein of AXESS, playing a 45-minute set that continued
to defy the expectations of those who expected to come to a "rave" and
have a great time. this was not for them (they were the ones hanging
out outside waiting for the party to "start," as usual ;), but it was for those
interested in expressions of sonic purity.
the liberating aspect of his DJ style is that he does not beatmix at all,
using a technical limitation to his advantage to create deliberately
shocking and abrupt changes in sonic contours. to say he cannot spin,
however, would be a drastic miscalculation, as he is an artist of the
highest order, creating a set of music that at times vaguely resembled
those forms of music we used to call techno, electro, hardcore, and
drum&bass, but whose ultimate result was an obliteration of forms
underpinned by a deep, growling hum of grime and dust and noise
(marred only by some modest sound problems that created some
unwanted feedback and a bit more distortion than desired).even more surprising,
perhaps, was gordon's incorporation of vocals into his own DJ set...
not entirely unlike MCing. he growled, yelled, screamed,chanted and made
percussive sounds with his voice, going perfectly with the music.
it may seem very hard to imagine someone "singing" over their own set,
but to experience it was to witness a true vocalist at work,
exercising total control over his voice in a way that flowed seamlessly
with the sounds his records produced. this was not a rock'n'roll show,
but a vocal performance by someone who truly understands uncompromising
underground dance music and works within it to create something uniquely
his own. in so doing, gordon reveals the borders between which he seeks
to navigate; bringing to light the now-obvious links between punk and
techno, combining the best aspects of both into a new configuration that
seems to be both punk and techno, and neither. a mindblowing, important experience".



ed luna
ele_mental,
columbus,
ohio.


17 comments:

Anonymous said...

november 1999 (columbus,ohio)
"DARKSIDE 7 is the culmination of ed luna's (ele_mental) collaboration with gordon sharp, featuring breakcore artists from praxis,zhark international,audio illusion and noise artists from RRRecords."

i'd already moved away from columbus to philadelphia by this time but came back to do this party.my time in columbus was a bit desperate,trying hard to help share
my love of fucked up beats and burning electronics,it always seems as if nobody was really listening (except for ed luna of course).but when i returned for this party,the place was packed solid and the party actually kicked off.i'm not particulary fond of the term breakcore (the form itself bores me
shitless these days) but it did seem as though it had finally arrived in the midwest.

Anonymous said...

darkside of course should not be confused with darkmatter.darkside was the ele_mental
collectives' darker than usual techno party,held on or around halloween.darkmatter,which refers to that baffling unseen matter that exists in the universe,was a sound system and party collective which i co-founded with some friends in los angeles in 2000/2001.more on that later.

Anonymous said...

for darkside 6,i was joined by cindytalk's paul jones,who was visiting from london.it was supposed to just be me dj'ing but with him visiting we decided to do a live set.so he improvised with tones and beats whilst i
used the microphone and mixed in some noise and beats.i think it went well.at the time i was reminded
of unit mobius or one of those other dutch hardfunk electro teams.

Anonymous said...

remembering those dutch geniuses...

alongside unit moebius (correct spelling.oops),there was Ra-X,whose schauw 12inch on bunker records is still a huge favourite.also Interr-Ference (I-F,who bambule sampled for "thirdforce").
and then there was curley,a dutch expat in london around the middle of the 1990's.a great "spiral" style dj who caused a slight confusion between simon and myself after i'd met him for the first time at a hellraiser party in south london,he was a bit the worse for wear that night and he later mentioned to simon that he had met a girl at the party who in conversation mentioned being involved in the cunning meets bambule praxis 12inch...

by pure co-incidence,earlier today i downloaded a minimal techno mix from the internet by some german dj,it has about 3 of curley's tracks on it,along with some other very old favourites of mine ;escape from 2017-the theme (pcp),stormcore 3(network 23) shark trax(rising high) and somatic responses (future galactica).most of the tracks
seem to come from the mid to late 1990's.it's good
to hear them again.i needs to be reuinited with my
vinyl!!!

sad post-script... curley died of heart failure at a party he'd dj'd at,in 1998.

Spaewaif said...

Is Darkside still happening?
What about "Candlelight"?

Anonymous said...

That really was an inspiring review.

Anonymous said...

I suppose that what you did in Darkside with Paul was very different from the Buffalo bar set?
Was any of this live stuff recorded?
Cheers!

Anonymous said...

as mentioned above,the bambule set in columbus was fucked up electronics.the cindytalk set at the buffalo bar in 2003 was guitar and voice based with added sounds from the computer.both were largely improvised.

sadly,paul and i have not recorded much music together.in fact that whole period of cindytalk circa 1993-1996,didn't get many chances to record.the muster/prince of lies 7inch was all we had to show for it.we put all our energies into playing live.

Anonymous said...

Yes, that's a shame...i'd give quite a lot to be able to HEAR what we sounded like then...I recently met someone who saw us at The Garage but the only thing he could clearly recall was a minimal beats track at the end which i think may have been Cindy, Mark and Simon?? I really can't remember that clearly... do any live tapes exist? I'd so like to hear them... much love, Pufff xxx

Anonymous said...

candlelight (los angeles) was formed in 1999 and
only lasted for 4 parties.the last party,with dan hekate (hekate sound system) visiting from europe,was in many ways the first darkmatter party.by that time some of us had become a little disillusioned and decided we wanted something more "collective".so we decided to split and regroup as darkmatter soundsystem.candlelight splintered into many different pieces including darkmatter and mash up soundsystem.last i heard,deadly buda,who was the central figure in candlelight,was still playing in and around southern california.

the next darkmatter party is on sat 11th march
in los angeles.
http://darkmattersoundsystem.com/news.htm

darkside (columbus,ohio) i think stopped a few years back.the last involvement i had was in 1999.
ed luna who was the main instigator of those parties for the ele_mental collective,moved into a more academic life.he's still a major player in the ele_mental world

http://www.ele-mental.org/ele_mental.html

Anonymous said...

andie... one word,MUSTER.if that was to be our trumpet call AND our swan song,then i can't think of a better cindytalk song for it to be.we should definately be proud of that little chunk of cum poetry!!!

Spaewaif said...

Regarding live tapes,I found two references of existing recordings (apart from what cinder may have hidden in Thulean lands).
I managed to contact one of the people who has a 50-minute long DAT for a Seattle show dated 1996/02/28.
However,he will only trade it for "obscure" Cure recordings . . .
*sigh*

Anonymous said...

andie,i used to record the rehearsal improvisations but not the gigs.i don't recall ever asking david (ros) to record any of our sets from the mixing desk and i've never come across any bootlegs from that period.on the U.S. tour though,we were recorded almost every night.i have a box full of dat tapes AND hi-8 video footage.ouch.by the time i'm re-united with all my "worldlies", hi-8 and dat will be obsolete and unplayable.next time i'm in linlithgow i'll look out some rehearsal tapes,bring them to london and we can have a listening session.okie.

there was a really cool rehearsal tape from just after you left the band.we had gary jeff (ex-god) deputising on bass (very dubby) and we were due to play at some huge industrial festival in leipzig with test department and others (i forget who).as gary wasn't so familiar with our stuff,we recorded the set in full during rehearsal to use as a guide for that and other gigs.it turned out to be one of the best live tapes we ever had.this must have been mid 1995.we travelled to germany on a bus full of goths,a truly terrifying experience (it works,really,it does!).we took along our own goth, dj autaxik j,just in case we needed a translator.we had ourselves a nice wee trip to leipzig with a few days extra to enjoy the scenery.the day before the gig* we went for a long walk in the countryside,i passed the tape of our proposed set around various members of the band to refresh the memory and keep the dynamic focused.when the tape eventually gets back to me (from mark) there were huge chunks missing!i had forgotton to pull out the protection tab and one of us had either absent mindedly flicked the record switch on and off as we walked,or the walkman,bumping about in a pocket had done the same.the whole of "muster" was ruined and it was a particularly good version too. professionals,nah,never...

*incidentally,the festival was a total disaster.we were due to play in the grounds of an old castle... the main stage,the usual festival type scenario had the mission headlining but we and test department were to play in the actual castle in an intimate amphitheatre type setting,beautiful.but just before we were about to play the whole event closed down. someone in the organisation had run off with the money and the tech people had decided to down tools.hilarious.we put up a bit of fight (i was delirious in a red dress) but we didn't get to play.we did get a band outing to newly opened up east germany though,carnt be bad...

Anonymous said...

babylab... the second track in that cindytalk set (circa 1995) started with a sample from abel ferrara's bad lieutenant.taken from the scene in the church where harvey keitel is screeching and braying like an injured demon.we used that same sample whilst on tour the following year.wish i could remember the name of the song...
:-/

Anonymous said...

ah that's interesting to read. I(obviously) love that film. I think it really started Ferrara's golden age up to... well... up to now. Interestingly Keitel hasn't made many good films after this one as if it had emptied his soul (well one can understand that !).

There's a terrifying Zoƫ Lund sound sample from "Bad Lieutenant" here : http://lundissimo.info/Zoe/aud-vid/sound.html

I thought I would put that sound file on my "myspace" page but on second thought I realized it would probably scare people there and maybe get me banned... oh well...

Anonymous said...

wonderful to see this event being noticed, I moved out of Columbus at the end of 1998 and was glad to experience what I could before I left. Does anyone know if Bambule or Cindytalk tours anymore? I would love to catch up...
Cindy, if you get a chance to read this it would be great to touch base again, I last saw you a long time ago in Columbus. Take care sister....
Amy McFadden
amytattoos1@yahoo.com
trademarktattoo@yahoo.com

Anonymous said...

Surprised nobody else has notice that "Through Water" is on "In This World" and NOT "The Wind Is Strong".