No, don’t stop…I still feel a pulse

Zero BPM (Beats Per Minute) Drone Festival

The Church Piano Bar, Redwell Street, Norwich NR1

This was less festival, more celebration.  There was the popping of corks for the ‘soft opening’ of Norwich’s latest live music venue, converting St Michael at Plea, smack in the heart of the city, from an evangelical tea, cake and event venue into a dedicated ‘quality’ jazz and blues venue.  There was also champagne metaphorically cracked open on the hull of Zero BPM (Zero Beats Per Minute) to launch an enthralling drone music mini-festival, which I hope can be expanded to be run over a couple of days in the not too distant future, whether in St Michael at Plea, or any other setting.

The Zero BPM concept is excellent.  Stimulating, challenging, provocative and food for thought and subsequent conversation.  It would be fun to have more time to talk with performers, organisers and other audience members about what has been played and heard.  The interval was a welcome and enjoyable element in the running order.  Lively debates began immediately the break was announced, such was the engagement of all attending.  As an extension of Synth East, or in its own right, Zero BPM holds great potential. I hope what we all experienced here was just a taster of what it might become.

The first good news for the organiser of Zero BPM, Martin James, was that the show sold out.  As he announced when introducing the evening, the good people of Norwich clearly have open minds and good taste when it comes to music.

Drone is part of the sound of Norwich, most pleasantly in the city centre and Gentleman’s Walk, where the sound of conversation fills the streets in a way that is less common in other English cities.  Toward the south and east of the city, around Thorpe St Andrew, Whitlingham and Trowse, where the A47 rumbles on relentlessly, the drone is more oppressive.  It is fascinating how we can hear selectively, enjoying the delights of birdsong through the background traffic, appreciating the all-encompassing chatter when sitting at The Forum, while filtering out the dull detail of any specific talk.

 

After Martin’s initial welcome, folk singer Megan Vaughan Parry joined him centre stage, with Cellist Alex Hobbs.  Electronic music is rarely a stage show, perhaps at a Fuck Buttons gig, where a rolling video display runs, or when Public Broadcasting Service run through one of their multimedia sets, but not generally.  Sitting with eyes closed, or gazing without intent around the wooden bones of the old church proves equally satisfactory in allowing the sense of hearing to predominate as the music plays.

Martin James leaning over his synth fine-tuning oscillator knobs, plugging and unplugging cables and sliding controls holds only passing interest, whereas watching Alex Hobbs drawing a bow back and forth over the cello strings is hypnotic. From my seat I could only see her bowing hand and the lower part of the cello strings, but I was captivated by the sound her steady toing and froing of the bow produced.  The opening movement of the first piece was the electronic foundation, the second led by Hobbs embroidered the fabric before about seven minutes into the music, Vaughan Parry’s voice effortlessly entered the mix at the upper end of the register.  As this first piece progressed, I became aware of being emotionally moved by the steady, firm grip of the combination of electronica, strings and human voice.  It was a grateful to live in Norwich moment, a grateful to be present in this audience moment.  The songs that followed, including an absolute gem written by Vaughan Parry, which I think is called All I Want. This song demonstrated the flexibility and power that a synth, cello, human voice combination can deliver.  Normally the song would have just an acoustic guitar accompaniment, but hearing it in this form one might never imagine it was ever conceived for a traditional folk setting. 

 

A cover of an Irish folksong, lifted from a Dublin pub jam and She Moves Through the Fair, known to have been played by Marianne Faithful, as well as Fairport Convention, was perfectly suited to the James / Hobbs drone treatment.  The slow, beat-free progression of the music was enchanting.  If The Church Piano Bar was hoping to demonstrate what is meant by ‘quality music’ here was something close to perfection, acoustically, intellectually and emotionally.

 

I could have left the church at this point totally happy with what I had experienced. I didn’t because there was the prospect hearing Mark C Sargeant, the choir Embers and two less conventional acts, Venatus and .Astridrift.

 

Mark C. Sargeant is venerated by local electronic music lovers.  Sargeant takes his guitar and composes as he goes.  The pieces he plays follow on from the experimental work of Robert Fripp, who recorded what he called Frippertronics,  music he toured in intimate venues around Europe and the USA between April and August 1979.   It seems that Sargeant prepares for one of his performances by immersing himself in similar music at home and having warmed up his musical head, he sets up his kit and become part of the equipment, listening and tuning into the emerging sound stream as he feels is right for the moment.  For just short of half an hour Sargeant led us through an improvised piece that sat beautifully with the occasion, meeting the expectations of many who had come to be droned at, in a good way, using electronic technology and wizardry.  Had Sargeant run his set on for the rest of the evening that would have been blissful.  The piece was crafted in a way that rose and fell as any classical symphony adagio movement might.  The man said nothing by way of introduction and departed to tremendous applause.  His music said all that was needed.

Embers is a community choir led by Deva O’Neill, based in Norwich. They interpret songs on their mission to “…stoke the fire of traditional folk music...” I should have counted how many choristers contributed to the performance, but all I can say was there were a lot.  Three deep, their ranks filled the stage area, but they also broke into different combinations during the set. For example, the penultimate song featured just four women choir members.

Bulgarian folk was featured in two of the numbers, Sicily in another, one came from the Appalachian Mountains and the last, a simple, powerful hymn  Lay Me Low, originated with the Shaker people.  

The tempo of the songs varied much more than we had heard in the earlier music. The Sicilian song about an old bachelor, included wonderful clapping and chanting, which played around with rhythm, and was great fun. 

 

The interval came and the opportunity to get fresh evening air was welcomed, although the old church was doing a fine job of maintaining a constant pleasant ambient temperature. What followed was, for me less interesting.  You will have to decide for yourselves if you ever have the chance to see the duo who make up Venatus (tr. “the hunted”).  Being introduced as purveyors of weirdness cannot be easy, as everyone’s idea of weird surely differs.  A bit like a funny story being set up with “Here’s a funny story for you…” expectations are raised much higher than when a slapstick incident occurs, or a when a brilliant witticism cuts through dialogue unexpectantly.  The Venatus ‘weird’ was my ‘contrived’ and I was grateful when their time was called..

The last performance of the evening was .astridrift  The set started with the singer Robyn-Astrid Comfort walking elegantly up the aisle to the stage.  She took her place in its centre and with accompaniment from Phil di Palma on drones,  found sounds and samples, embarked on a polished performance of music, aimed at being haunting and mysterious.  Musically, visually and with all the sounds blending delicately, .Astridrift filled the nave of the old place to the rafters, not in noise volume, but through sonic penetration.  The mix, the pace, were nicely combined, if a little samey in parts.

The lyrics, whispered, spoken, and sung by Comfort were essentially meaningless, so I wonder whether this intense poetic presentation might have been better using the sounds of the voice, rather than any specific words. However, Comfort and di Palma, were sympathetically attuned and to be asked to headline this evening is a tribute to their inventiveness. 

 

It had been a very hot day, so I decided to head home a little early.  Drone music can be played at different intensities and using remarkably different approaches.  Found sounds is an area of rich experiment and I would love to hear more of that aspect of drone when the next Zero BPM sets up, for surely there will be another.  This was magnificent and congratulations to all concerned for a memorable night. 

 

The Electronic Music Open Mic Night at the Rumsey Wells is on the first Thursday of each month, is where more drone music and some of the players from tonight often pop up. The event is held in the cellar of that pub, a place designed to be cool. If you are exploring making electronic music of your own, do go along and take the opportunity to try it out on an audience. There is always much to enjoy there.

 

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If you are interested, follow progress of The Church Piano Bar development of the St Michael at Plea, link here.

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