Episode 2: A Special Form of Darkness

24–26 Feb 2012
In 4 weeks
Tramway, Glasgow
Performance

Abject Music

Deflag Haemorrhage/Haien Kontra
19:30–20:30 Fri 24 Feb
Tramway
 / Glasgow
Access by Festival or Day Pass
  • In front of a black curtain, Mattin speaks into a mic, Tim holds aloft drumstick
  • A hazy room, Mattin shouts into a mic, Tim Goldie holds a mixer above his head
  • B&W image of Mattin screaming into a mic
  • B&W image of Tim Goldie screaming into a mic, tongue out

About the event

Who

We think Mattin is one of the most interesting conceptual noise musicians/improvisers in Europe: his performances are intense experiences (noise-as-noise) and lucid, challenging calls to think (noise-as-concept).
We think “       ” [sic]TM Goldie might be a sort of imaginary construction, with all the habits and identifiable behaviours of a dadaist-noise-musician-improviser-performance-artist hybrid, but maybe not actually any of those things.

What

It will be loud, full on, possibly disorientating, in some senses extreme. Kicks and contemplation.

Why

An appealing tactic in Alfred Jarry’s ‘Pataphysic' was the practice of identifying a specific rule in a system, magnifying it well beyond any sensible limit, allowing this new rule to govern your behaviour, and crucially acting as if this heightened, and (to anybody familiar with the normal rules of the game) obviously deranged looking behaviour, was totally normal.
Deflag Haemorrhage/Haien Kontra try to advance noise music, free improvisation and rock by accelerating out of the other side of them; amplifying and taking deadly seriously all of those musics’ tropes (Cf.: self-expression, musicians having identifiable signature sound or moves, ideas of transgression).
It leads to an uncanny sense of confusion. Are they trying to destroy or salvage something? Could they be one of the most ferocious live noise acts around, or a necessary and ludicrous parody of ferocious noise acts? Could they be both?