Triple bill of acts from Luke Younger's Alter label.

HELM

Helm is Luke Younger - a Sound Artist and experimental musician based in London, working with a vast array of revolving instrumentation and abstract sound sources.

Younger's compositions build a dense aural landscape that touches on musique concrete, uncomfortable sound poetry, noise, and hallucinatory drones. His most last LP for the Kye label, Cryptography, presents a five-part suite of expertly rendered electro-acoustic study which uses processed piano, Casio MT-40, cymbal and broken guitar strings. Younger creates a world where these instruments morph into spectral rust, a shimmering klang swims alongside passive noise and the relationship between acoustic and electronic derived sounds forms a solid foundation. This sound is steered through a melange of fringe territories: glacial drone meditations, reconfigured gamelan clusters, and howling walls of organized feedback, all coalesced in a post-industrial fashion with a commitment to homemade exploratory zeal.



Alter Stock website

DAMIEN DUBROVNIK

Formed in 2009, Damien Dubrovnik is the Danish electronic duo of Christian Stadsgaard (Sarah’s Charity) and Loke Rahbek (Sexdrome, Var, Lust For Youth), founders of the Copenhagen based record label Posh Isolation. In their day job as label managers, Stadsgaard and Rahbek have been instrumental in establishing the city’s prolific and exciting noise / punk community and outgrowing their humble beginnings in noise / industrial culture by attracting a cult / fanatical worldwide following of obsessive record hoarders, hipster bloggers, depressive punks and industrial maniacs. Working together as Damien Dubrovnik, they have published work across 4 LPs, a handful of sought after cassette releases, compilations and notched up numerous performances throughout Europe and Scandinavia. Their third LP ‘First Burning Attraction’ was released on the Alter label in 2013 and draws explicitly from DIY minimal synth traditions and the canon of European Industrial music, resulting in the strongest manifestation of their sound so far. Consisting of 6 powerful and varied tracks, the album features more of the brooding synth parts and ominous bass throbs that dominated the highlights of previous LP ‘Europa Dagbog – Europa Diary’, yet it feels tenser and more atmospheric due to the application of new acoustic-based sound sources, primitive bass pulses and more disciplined dynamics. Rahbek’s vocals, which were previously guttural and wild, appear more restrained here giving the tracks an alluring air of ambiguity and suggestiveness – no undirected aggression, but something more thoughtful and introspective instead. 

Interview in The Quietus




JFK

Anthony di Franco (b. 1972) is a British electronic / experimental / rock / noise musician, producer, and sound designer. He has been recording and releasing music since 1986; his solo projects include JFK, AX, Ethnic Acid, and NOVATRON. He is a full time member of the legendary UK underground noise band RAMLEH, having joined the group in 1992, and was previously a member of UK noise rock legends SKULLFLOWER.

The JFK sound is a violent clash of rock, noise, power electronics and musique concrète that is at once powerful, disorientating, and exhilarating. Di Franco conceived the JFK project while still at school, releasing cassettes on labels such as Broken Flag and his own JFK imprint. These early recordings have been reissued on two albums: “Teenage Fantasy 1987-88” and “La Bas 1987-92.”

JFK reformed in 2012 to perform live at the “NEVER SAY WHEN” festival in London, and in 2013 di Franco performed live as JFK in Tokyo, alongside RAMLEH, Consumer Electronics and AX. A new full-length JFK album is currently in production and scheduled for release in 2014.

“JFK seem deformed by the first wave of avant rock coming out of the USA post-Sonic Youth but with an intense/ecstatic Industrial overload appeal that is uniquely brain-boggling... combinations of lightning strikes of bass, chainsaw fuzz, pugilistic a-temporal drum machine assaults and warped, urgent vocals – think Suicide, Chrome, the opening chords of Black Sabbath’s “Iron Man”, all reduced to insane gravities of electricity.” - David Keenan, The Wire / Volcanic Tongue