We Can Elude Control – De La Warr Pavilion Bexhill on Sea Sat 9/6/12
It’s always an adventure to visit Bexhill’s De La Warr Pavilion, and this time, put to highly appropriate use. In among Cerith Wyn Evans’ shimmering light sculptures, the festival of electronic / industrial music attracted a small but dedicated crowd of enthusiasts, some with children in tow, to what felt like the last town in England. Gazing out to sea, the Royal Sovereign Light Tower seven miles away in the English Channel, the feeling of isolation seemed apposite to the music of Evol et al showcased today.
Your friend Scenester’s favourite music is a long way from this computer generated sound, and I admit to finding little to enjoy in the seemingly endless sets of pounding, buzzing electronic noise, accompanied by fuzzy, spidery visuals, reminiscent of dragging a magnet across a computer monitor. My opinion wasn’t shared by the skaters, shine heads and post Goths who made up the majority of the audience. They clapped, and some even danced, to the passages of white noise, stereo ping pong matches and symphonies for power drills that passed for music here.
The citizens of Bexhill on Sea, taking the air, walking their dogs and enjoying the bright sunlight of this June afternoon seemed completely oblivious to the plodding, metronomic beats that gave the De La Warr Pavilion an extraordinary heartbeat today, as no-one appeared to wander in to investigate.
It was with some relief and affection that I saw the approaching figures of Chris Carter and Cosey Fanni Tutti take the stage of the auditorium, with only a large projection screen and a wide table filled with computers to accompany them. In their sensible clothes, they cut fairly anonymous figures, and I couldn’t banish the image of them from my mind, as two Treasury ministers about to expound on quantitive easing.
Their set was comprised of working mixes of ‘Desertshore’, Throbbing Gristle’s final LP, which will get a release in its own right on Industrial Records in October 2012. With recorded vocals by, amongst others, Blixa Bargeld, Marc Almond and Cosey herself, the music soothed in its adherence to more conventional ideas about rhythm and melody. With peaceful landscapes projected onto the screen and beautiful Arabic scale sounds; this could have been a particularly louche meditation hour at a mind/body/spirit festival. Chris and Cosey reminded us how emotional and involving electronic music can be, in the right hands.
Scenester
12/6/12
