DreamState - Balky Mule, Ignatz, Chris Forsyth, Ice Bird Spiral, Headfall, Silver Pyre, Es, Gravenhurst

Friday 25th Sept - Colston Hall, Bristol brought to us by Qu-Junktions



Nibbled on the best chips I’ve tasted in a long time as we wandered back through Park Street, sucking on the fishy smells floating out of the Hatchet’s open windows. The city was starting to take on a different life, the air getting chilly…we played the polystyrene cartons, they mixed well with the gulls and traffic… back at the Colston, time was slipping, eel like…





Balky Mule were nice n warming...





Later Ignatz was a burning coal in all that darkness… the vintage projectors making his legs all fiery , his guitar the colour of a baked bean can, working vespers through darkened loops and a vox that was otherworldly, cryptic, indecipherable, his playing, lifting the anchor and drifting away, the architecture half perceived and intense…

People were horizontal for Chris Forsyth’s guitar assault, laying back, taking it all in as we started setting up our gear… By the time he’d pared it back to folksy marauding, I had the buttock clenching fears that only playing can ease…and i think Kek was the same.





Turned out to be fun, Kek in his headgear, working his ukulele scrapes and creepy hamburger lady kazoo, all jester squid to my bleached bone animus, clatter keys and drilled gut-tar… both of us crumpling the sound up Korg stylee … the dead channelling themselves through smeared vocals, growls etc. After excelling in sound check, it was a shame the printing plate failed to bring on the thunder …



A few youtubed moments are forthcoming, as soon as the laptop starts behaving itself. Oh yes, hats off to Helen, who came down just to see us and rushed off soon after to catch the last train home, and Rasha’s excellent soundwork…



Packed away to the sounds of Headfall, those high vocals mixing up a bewildering cocktail, the sound kicking you where it should….



Met with friendly faces out by the merch, gave Deej a shakin in the bar, then cool American beer chill, the spiders were curling the corners but I was ignoring them, then more chat and back in the hall to catch Silver Pyre’s folksy tints and peppered drum patterns – I fucking luv their stuff…





Kek told me we freaked Ignatz out at Kraak, made him hide behind a dumpster or some'ut…it made me chuckle as the dj warped n distorted some classic tunes right outa shape …

Later Es’s ecclesiastical slippages were truly tranquilising – gradual peelings of organ pipes, the silhouettes of bare trees mimicking the loopage, I started filming Giles’s face, the auto focus on the camcorder drifting in and out of focus to the music and flickering light… the minimal beauty soaking really deep...

Caught a bit of Gravenhurst’s set… quite beautiful indie acoustika, he played my favourite song off the ‘flashlight session’ album but I was seriously flagging by this point and decided to call it a night, missing James B’s set completely…

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