Monday 17 September 2018, 7.30pm
Purveyors of drifting Detroit dub and mutable ambient frameworks, Space Afrika, present the Manchester based duo at the forefront of the live experimental field. Harvesting a fresh approach to composition, laden with the broken fragments of UK bass music and offbeat junglist influences — Space Afrika embody dub techno redefined for the new age, whilst displaying a breadth of curiosities in their left-field selections, old and new.
Their sonic framework evokes images of rust and disintegrating concrete, and sensations of movement and redemption — exuding a distorted analogue soul offering escape into their overcast skies.
“Manchester duo Space Afrika reach dizzying heights with Somewhere Decent to Live, an album that fuses the hypnotic thud of dub techno with the anarchic haze of ‘ardkore and sets it against the North’s brutalist concrete backdrop. If you want to know where Burial, Bukem, and Brian Eno intersect, Somewhere Decent to Live hints at an answer while laying the groundwork for something altogether more revelatory.” – FACT
Cremation Lily is the primary project of zen zsigo. started in 2009, initial journeys through many facets of industrial music slowly and naturally shifted towards the current form - complete freedom through an emotionally responsive approach to electronics, tape manipulation, noise & ambient music.
Info on the new LP:
Vast, expansive and introspective works utilising place-specific found sound on this second Cremation Lily LP for Alter. Contemplating mortality, illness and the perennial bleakness of British winter in a seaside town we find Zen Zsigo experimenting with piano, violin, synthesiser and walkman tape players. Layering field recordings of the Hastings shoreline atop druggy, stretched out 303 basslines and snippets of spoken word there seems to be an overarching thematic of memory and reflection at play. From vignettes of crumbling glass and bittersweet drones through to sprawling, semi-rhythmical pieces (‘As a sea creature...’) it seems as if Zsigo is trawling the coast for fragments of its former glory. The end result of his study manages to echo the work of Yoran, Leyland Kirby and even Jacob Kirkegaard yet the rare moments where he lays bare his own vocal narrative seemingly transforms In England Now, Underwater into sonic diary territory. Mixing salt-water soaked cassette loops with haunting, minimalist piano motifs and warped recordings of crashing waves and bird noise an intense atmosphere of Ballard’s drowned world is evoked through sound.
In England Now, Underwater releases 10th August 2018 via Alter.
Born, raised and current of London (south), Dale Cornish has released a series of acclaimed albums for Entr’acte, including Ulex (2015 and Aqal (2017) along with releases for labels including Where To Now?, The Tapeworm. In addition to this he has done remix work for artists as diverse as Merzbow, Perc and Billie Ray Martinand collaborations with Powell, Adam Asnan and Andie Brown in addition to a regular duo with Phil Julian, memorably/horribly described as “Coil for the Trump age”.
http://dalecornish.com/
