Electronic Music Open Mic - Norwich

Same Song Different Words

A lot of music in Norwich takes place underground.  The Holloway on St Laurence Steps and Voodoo Daddy’s Showroom below London Street, being the most heavily frequently spaces, with The Bicycle Shop on St Benedict’s being an occasional performance space, better known for being the home of the monthly Poets in The Cellar gathering.  Ben Street even organised a performance by Zamani Fitra in The Secret Street, below Castle Meadow during last year’s Wild Paths Festival.  Then there is the monthly electronic music open mic night held in the basement of the Rumsey Wells. 

Run by Barry, who has been curating this get-together for a few years now, this open mic attracts accomplished performers, like Mark C. Sargeant, as well as dabblers in synthetic sound music, like, well like me.  Barry is an enthusiastic supporter of all electronic music in the city and from his little counter by the improvised stage (actually a table for performers to layout their kit) he announces local gigs, events and festivals. Examples range from the weekend long Synth East held at Norwich Arts Centre, to Norwich’s first drone music festival ZERO BPM at the Church Piano Bar on 25^th May 2026, (Spring Bank Holiday). Admit it, Lose Yourself in The Drone appeals doesn't it? Just a little bit?

A great little project he promoted is the  Synth Picnic at The Honesty Library in the cavernous, under-patronised Castle Quarter shopping mall on the first Saturday of each month. The next Synth Picnic is being held on 7^th March 2026 with the Synth Picnic April 2026 tba. I went along there after Norwich City had played Blackburn Rovers on 7^th February and had a brief chat with Robin Vincent, who hosts Synth Picnic.  

Robin knows his stuff as a reviewer of music-making technology and he organises rental of equipment and liaises with suppliers who retail the kit. It is a low-key affair, where the curious are provided with headphones, (do feel free to take your own set with a 3.5mm jack), so they can play around on the machines set up around the room.  Robin just encourages people to have fun playing, discovering how things work, or otherwise.  I spent just over an hour there, which seemed to go a lot quicker than the first 45 minutes at Carrow Road earlier.

Back to the open mic on the Thursday now. I arrived at the Rumsey Wells having sat through the arty movie at Cinema City, H is For Hawk, (link here is to official trailer) a story about bereavement and depression.  The book is a best-seller and apparently offers a lot more depth on the subject than the film, which is a slow-moving introduction to hawking, filled with what I felt to be patronising commentary on loss and mortality. Funnily enough, this 2025 film does give an underground former resident of Norwich the concluding words, with Julian of Norwich’s line, “Things will be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of things will be well.”  As philosophy goes this is pretty much a head in the sand approach to life and wishful thinking when it comes to any difficult situation, not least climate disruption and the global catastrophe of free market extremism.  It is too much, I suppose, to expect anything truly enlightening to spring from someone who lived as a hermit armed with a quill and parchment and suffered hallucinations from extended fasting.

From slow motion film of a hunter-killer avian (the stuff David Attenborough’s camera teams have done a lot better on TV for a generation), to Barry’s electronic music open mic night, was possibly the biggest leap in entertainment genres one could make on a miserable February evening.  It is only a couple of hundred metres from the cossetted quarters of Cinema City to the chalk cave of the Rumsey Wells, but it is far enough to appreciate what a vibrant artistic world is at close at hand in this city.  I was able to walk from a film about loss, bereavement and depression and nature, to a cellar that was to be lit up by a dramatic and captivating performance of original hip-hop covering, loss, bereavement and depression, struggles with mental health and the salving power of love.  

 

The film and the hip-hop of KDubz essentially addressed the same vital themes, but KDubz's perspective is from experience lived without secure work, irregular earnings and the worry of eating versus heating, rather than the elevated, over-indulged Oxbridge world that gives such a limited angle on Britain.  Apart from the hawk training, I was left cold by H is For Hawk, whereas KDubz demanded attention and concentration, so fast was the poetry, so complex the commentary, so provocative the insight on family, fortune, money and the state of the nation, the condition of the planet.  I would have loved to have brought everyone from Cinema City down to hear KDubz. They would have learned a lot more from his brief set, more than what seemed like an eternity sat in the slow-sinking ageing, sprung seats up the hill, (I know, I know, the film was meant to be slow, the death of my dad hit me like that too, every day a treadmill of grief).

KDubz opened with 4 Minutes of Truth, a sharp crack at how politicians, (sincere, worthy and hard-working as they might believe), are making little impact on the day-to-day realities of life on a low income in the world of shit jobs.  KDubz then moved on to how he realised that love is something that is not only life-saving, but life affirming too.  His poetry covers the whole gamut of life.

KDubz displays a self-deprecating nature in between his passionately delivered tracks. “Due to the political situation I cannot mention my dad and my mum in the same song, so that was about my mum and this one has my dad in it.” Is just one example of his wry sense of humour.

 

KDubz really hits his straps with Missing Information, an excoriating critique of the lie that anyone and everyone can achieve their dreams if they believe.  Luck has a huge part to play in everyone’s life and as the news reminds us daily, luck is a two-sided coin.

Living My Life is a track that you can find out there online.  It chimes, in part, with Julian of Norwich as he spits:

“Don’t tell me I’ll be ok, or that I will be fine, you aren’t inside my mind.  You don’t know what I’m into, but I know that I’ll be alright.  I’ll be living my life.”

This is a conclusion found from dealing with the lowest of moods and KDubz has some strong words for young men who are really struggling about choosing life over a way out.  This is powerful and hard-hitting stuff.  Up to the minute observational commentary, on the money insights to how things are for far too many.

 

The performed set was not all heavy, the man has light-hearted, naughty-boy tunes a plenty.  He is an entertainer working in a popular music genre and he’s bloody good at it.  The music he recites his poetry over comes from producers in Poland, Switzerland and elsewhere.  A producer provides the sounds, he the lyrics.  How that all gets put together is something I am keen to learn.  Give 4 Minutes of Truth a listen.  You may not agree with it all, but then who are you to say you're right and someone else is wrong?  We are living in post-truth times and people have had enough of being lied to, manipulated and deceived.  This societal paranoia inevitably leads to distortion and a cynicism, which we know is not a good place to be. What is the reality?  What is the truth?  What is important?  What makes life worth living? Give this man some space.  Sure, be entertained by his lyrical chemistry, laugh at his wicked humour, (it’s the genre, Honey), but do listen to KDubz and get the wheels in your head turning.

I have been listening to a few old-skool hip-hop performers of late and this performance came at a good time in that respect.  KDubz does not do concept album sets, full of trite vignettes, but he delivers what he feels the room feels.  It always astounds me when people can perform such complex pieces of poetry without the lyrics to hand in front of an audience.  Believe me, when I say this guy is good value.  You can listen to hip-hop from the USA, but here is another English performance poet using hip-hop to tell us how it is here and now.

 

The evening had begun with hardwiredonline playing something of his own chilled tunes, while DJ Growler set up his kit for a classic, atmospheric set.  If you want someone to run a dance night, you should contact DJ Growler. He knows how to keep a groove going.

  

The evening was already ranking as highly memorable before the Mercy Giants duo playing electronic drums, synthesiser, with guitarist came on board.  They are a fascinating pair of musicians, generating  enthralling original tracks, blending with electric guitar, which was treated in a way reminiscent of Robert Fripp’s solo sounds of the 1970s.  Mercy Giants have two albums in the can, to which I will definitely give  listening space.   

 

The open mic ended with @_larry_rouse, who treats his set as he might for a sell-out show, regardless of the small number of people remaining in the vault.  He looks the part of a popular electric powered musician and played some sweet, swirling tunes to close the evening.

The next electronic music night will be held on Thursday 5^th March, 2026.  If you are interested at all in trying out a performance of your experimental tunes, do take that step and put yourself on the open mic list with the very approachable and encouraging Barry, when you turn up at 19:30h on 5^th March at the Rumsey Wells, 4 St Andrews Street, Norwich NR4 2AF.

 

~

 

Spencer Ide

9^th February, 2026