“…They [Impromptulons] have been described as sounding like a lovely ambulance ride, followed by a serious car accident, followed by another lovely ambulance ride with more accidents along the way all on medication mixed with acid.” – Half/theory
Features respected, old hats of the noise/experimental scenes, an all-star line-up tonight with members spilling off the stage, the sound-guy freaking out and myself being one of the only few people in the crowd actually visibly smiling & enjoying the performance. Weird crowd, they’re not here to fuck around apparently. Three, well two songs with a disbanded cover of Funky Town at the end. Improv ‘everybody solos, nobody solos’ rhythmic dirge with guiding horns.
Bedroom Suck Records recently reissued Kitchen’s Floor ‘Loneliness is a Dirty Mattress’ (BSR022, LP) on vinyl and tonight is the launch at The Outpost Store which is located at 5A Winn Street, just around the corner from the Zoo. It’s a very small shop so as a result it’s an intimate affair for a show: Kitchen’s Floor tonight is Matt Kennedy (acoustic guitar + vocals) and Andrew McLellan (tambourine, synthesizer keyboard. also of Cured Pink fame). They’re hold up in the far corner with most of the lights off, Matt’s got his vocals fed through a pedal and to a tiny, plastic amp and his acoustic guitar mic’d up & to an amp just right in front of me. Andrew is just beside with a tambourine in hand and then a Tonebank & pedal fed to a amp.
Kitchen’s Floor (Matt Kennedy) has been around since 2007 (feat. Alan (Impromptulons) (very early), Julia (Gutters)) with the self-released dictaphone cassette released the same year and then the s/t CDR in 2008. Later that year Glen Schenau (Per Purpose, also of then Marl Carx) joined in on bass to make an electric three-piece of which in 2009 their ‘Loneliness is a Dirty Mattress’ album was released by R.I.P Society Records (RIP005, CD). I recently found my copy of the s/t CDR again and fuck, it still holds up well but my all-time favourite song/recording is ‘Lander’ from the cassette – the whole album is a great lo-fi, noisy mess but Lander is the highlight with Matt screaming to the point his voice breaks up – listening to it, though, you feel like you’ve stumbled across a song that was never initially supposed to be publicly released on account it’s so raw, something he did for himself: All the emotions built up over time – about a girl, being frustrated, losing friends, staving off the hunger pains with stolen milk, stuck in the same fucking routine every day – exploding onto tape inside a tiny room, the microphone covered in wine and then the silence afterward & afternoon sun through the curtains: What do I do now? It’s included in tonight’s set-list along with songs from all releases. You can listen to and download both early KF releases here (along with a bunch of other stuff Matt has recorded since 2004).
Unfortunately I forgot to change the dead batteries/get new ones in time for Scraps who was supporting tonight. The Outpost still has a few copies of ‘Loneliness is a Dirty Mattress’ and a Kitchen’s Floor shirt (front showing the cover of the 7″ (sold) out on R.I.P. Society – both real cheap, too).
Old hat Joel Stern (OtherFilm, Abject Leader, Sky Needle) decidedly more playful than the last few times I’ve seen him perform solo, here with warped beats and that siren whilst taking full use of his table of custom/bent gear guided by sensitive knob twiddling transposed over a heavy-handed lesson in sulcus crochet.
Ross (Sky Needle) is hold up in the corner crouched over a mixer and one his own built-instruments: A couple of hanging, mic’d cymbals with a fan spinning it’s blade into them, fed through the mixer etc. It’s a disorientating sound particularly listening back to it on headphones as I couldn’t find the center and he gives the audience an encore so I’ve joined both here.
I’d been looking forward to seeing Brainbeau perform live for ages, stories about their busking days drew me in: Playing for anyone and the drunks with that kind of unheralded talent behind the kits? Chelsea on drums, kneeled on the ground surrounded by beaten-up thrift gear, Katie up on dual keyboards & processing. Laid-back frosty waves of off-kilter coiling rhythms infiltrating the audience as they move undfro in synchronicity to the miasma permeating from the speaker cones.
Heart Flew‘s performance tonight was fraught with equipment failure apparently but who cares, I was in my own world “…never leeeeeeave meeee, never leaaave me alonnnne”. Features members from Extrafoxx, Per Purpose, Sounds from the Ward.
Laura Hill, aka Scraps adourned with an elaborate wedding veil and in front of only a handful of people, quiet set with a new song thrown in. I haven’t been able to stop listening to this recording since.
I wasn’t going to record this one because I’ve recorded Knee Chin three times before but I was coaxed and encouraged by a punter as the set-list tonight is pretty much every song they have. I’m really glad I did record them here; I got a bit loose but the recording came out alright regardless.
Notable recordings: ‘The Evacuation of Earth’ (CDR, MYMWLY0003), ‘Transcendent Reign Inheritor’ (CDR, MYMWLY0019), ‘Fortress of Eternal Smells’ (MYMWLY0039), ‘Pinnacles Upon Aesthetes In Glorious Bows’ (MYMWLY0063), ‘Fortress’ (CS, Inverted Crux), ‘Glass Baudelaire’ (CS, Inverted Crux). This is only a small list due to all information being sketchy at best and releases were pumped out everywhere, some limited, etc. Check out Discogs below or go for a long search.
Links: Pacific Soma – MySpace // Terracid – Last.fm // A good interview back in 2006 // Terracid – Discogs // Search Foxy Digitalis ‘Terracid’ (they love this project) // It’s hard to find anything official – aside from the MySpace page there (though it looks long abandoned) – as both PS & MYMWLY has essentially been wiped from the Internet, only articles remain. It’s best to contact MYMWLY via email or something.
Media: I’ve personally only ever seen Michael perform under the Terracid moniker once and this was way back in November 2008 during the Breakdance Your Mind five-day festival (of which was spread across various venues & a park in Brisbane). Terracid performed in a shop called ‘Book Nook‘ on West End’s Boundary Street – you had to walk up a flight of stairs and down a hallway toward the back of a building block right up in an unassuming corner entrance.
The space was very small, cramped even with just 25-odd people in attendance but as a result it was also intimate and they hosted a slew of great shows in it’s limited lifetime as a ‘space’ – some of the later ASPC meetings, 6Majik9 (yet another band featuring Michael (and perhaps the most well known outside of BOTOS) performed for a couple of hours one night, The Spiders, This Imperial Can, Candlesnuffer, Jon Dale, to only name a few off the top of the brain.
Book Nook, the store, did close it’s doors & only trade online for a while but in January 2010 it relocated to Toowoomba to become a brick & mortar store yet again.
This a two-part video of Terracid performing at Book Nook, the same night also featured Breakdance the Dawn‘s head-honcho Matt Earle performing solo as Muura, Black Petal‘s Anthony Guerra (solo), and although I did miss him due to my tardiness that night I think Adam Sussman (Stasis Duo) also performed earlier on.
