Tidal Promotions presents: COLD SPRING AT ULU

MERZBOW / SUTCLIFFE JÜGEND / SATORI
ULU, Malet Street, London - 19th April 2008

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From Londonist: by Jo Tacon, Kai Hoffman and Dave Knapik

  On Saturday 19 April, three of Londonist's bravest aural explorers arrived at ULU to undergo some serious sonic punishment in the form of Satori, Sutcliffe Jugend and the unmistakeable king of Japanese noise, Merzbow. For fun, naturally; people are strange, as Jim Morrison once said. Whilst Time Out placed the event in their "Rock, pop & dance" section, we assume that's only because the "My Cock's On Fire" section was full. Strange is probably also a good way to begin to describe the first opening act we saw, having sadly arrived too late to see Satori; let's just say that Sutcliffe Jugend aren't going to be profiled in the Mail on Sunday any day soon. The band's sound is dislocating, alienating and profoundly unsettling, not to mention so loud that merely standing in the audience became a test of endurance.

  A power electronics project named after Peter "Yorkshire Ripper" Sutcliffe and fronted by Kevin Tomkins, Sutcliffe Jugend had no traditional rhythmic structure to speak of, with Tomkins' vitriolic vocals spitting over the harsh hiss of static and bass-heavy rumbling produced by collaborator Paul Taylor. This formidable duo made the most lo-fi and primitive black metal demos we'd ever heard sound like a Mozart sonata by comparison.

  The band began the set by layering the sound of a clarinet with a delay effect into a cacophonous mass over which Tomkins screamed, at times with two microphones. The lyrics were aggressive, with lashings of sexual hatred ("were you surprised when he wore your mother's clothes?") and violence, along with unhealthy doses of paranoia ("they're shutting it away"). We were reminded, thematically and stylistically, of extreme metallers Stalaggh, who recorded inmates in a mental asylum and used their demented howling as vocals.

  Despite (or maybe because of) being so inflammatory and filled with rage, a Sutcliffe Jugend concert would probably easily work as, say, a performance at the Tate Modern. So much of the power in their performance, however, comes from having to consume it in a rock, pop & dance context as a gig. In a gallery as an installation, it would be castrated. Because of the strong performance art aspect, the audience composition therefore wasn't a surprise—a mixture of old punks, some metalheads, arty Shoreditch types and a variety of others all wishing to experience an act that goes beyond music to something more visceral in its unpleasantness.

  Tomkins and Taylor left the stage after about an hour, but purposely left the deafening feedback loops running, giving the audience no respite, as well as giving the sound engineers a hell of a job to try and stop the noise. After a quick break where we repeatedly thanked the powers that be for the invention of decent earplugs, Merzbow took the stage.

  Merzbow's recordings and live performances envelop the listener like a sea of noise, in more recent outings punctuated by a slowed-down jackhammer-like chugging beat. Strands of violent ululations and squeals rose out of that sea like malicious waves. It was an intensely challenging listening experience that left us feeling empty and shellshocked. Our attempts to formulate descriptions of the sound yielded phrases like "the sound of the panic inside the mind of a priest who has just lost faith in God", which now that we think of it, would make an excellent Striborg song title. Masami Akita, standing over two laptops, was completely in control of the horrific aural assault he was unleashing on the audience, like a sadistic high priest of noise terror. The imagery on many of his albums explores bondage and S&M, a fascination which clearly extends to the sonic relationship he shares with his audience. If Merzbow is the punisher, then we were all masochists by not only enduring, but also paying for and enjoying this experience.

  Merzbow's set was fully instrumental in that it featured no discernible vocals. The multiple layers and forms in the noise functioned as the structure in Akita's work, comparable to brush technique in an abstract painting. At the abrupt end of the set, hands in the audience rose and clapped, accompanied by a hoarse cheer that few could actually claim to hear.

  Whilst it's hard to think of a more extreme form of music than Sutcliffe Jugend (and its infamous relative, Whitehouse), Merzbow can actually be cathartically soothing, especially live. Being crushed under a heavy noise onslaught from a massive sound system can never measure up to headphones or anything anyone sane has at home. Sutcliffe Jugend's relentless violence is terrifying and harrowing, but Merzbow's abstract noise can be anything you want it to be. The moment the sound begins is incredibly harsh, but once you overcome the initial shock, it can be a wonderful place to lose yourself. As Whitehouse's William Bennett once barked in their song "Mindphaser", "You like that, don't you?" Strangely, we do.

From The Wire: by Nathan Budzinski

  Opening the evening, Satori's Dark Ambient rumblings fittingly provided the spooky aural equivalent of a foyer or waiting room for the mingling crowds. Accompanied by visuals of pale skinned waifs, white haired wolves and other Gothic atmospherics, their low bass drones shuddering through the gathering audience were occasionally interesting and unsettling but somehow fell flat in the environs of ULU. Ideally, Satori would have benefited from a smaller and more personal space, their intimate, Isolationist music more suited to a domestic hi-fi, headphones, or anechoic chamber than a student union. Instead, the hypnotic nuances and expansive sonic tectonics evident in their recordings was lost, leaving the sounds to drift along politely as an unresolved soundtrack.

  Sutcliffe Jügend's histrionics provided the flipside to Satori's relative quietude and creepy stylistic. Acting out a Dionysian impulse, the ecstatic hollering of Kevin Tomkins and Paul Taylor could be more at home in the glossolalic surroundings of a cult than on campus in Bloomsbury. Driven by an idea of transcendent trangression, Sutcliffe Jügend's intelligible yelping hit the physical limits of the ULU sound sytem while also entering them into the realm of camp. One man needing three microphones made for a hilarious sight, evoking images of bathroom mirror rock fantasists, but, at the same time there was something genuinely exhilarating about Tomkins's performance. His rapid alternation between falsetto squeals and baritone yelling, inflected with a mocking and aggressive tone, was also an interesting improvisational riffing between the cartoonish and the antagonistic.

  Merzbow straddles the approaches of Satori and Sutcliffe Jügend, managing to jump between two laptops while remaining intensley engaged with his music. His set consisted of a prolonged toxic hiss that maintained a painful and physically intrusive level of volume punctuated by scrapings on a small, elecrified contraption that resembled a homemade scrap metal mandolin. The ongoing blast of grating noise blew through the crowd, creating a stunned blackness or confusion in some, while others embraced the static. A fellow near me sloshed about in a Sufi-like trance, translating the sounds into fits of animalistic gesticulations. I'm not too sure how long the performance lasted, but it was a genuinely harmful experience - not having remembered earplugs caused me to spend the next day feeling as if I was 12 feet away from the world. But this invasive harm was part of the set: Merzbow's music found a resonant frequency of the body and forced its way into the flesh, lingering there like a Dianetics engram, extending the experience long after the event.

From Musique Machine: by Roger Batty

  This was Merzbow’s first show in London for 6 years or so and my first live merz experience, with support by considerable atmospherics and sleazy/violent respectively sets fromSatori and Sutcliffe Jügend.

  First on the stage was the laptop duo of Satori who conjured up an effective dark and atmospheric shifting and morphing soundscape of beats, dark ambience and noise touches. But what really made their set enjoyable and lifted it above two guys staring in screens was the impressive, disturbing and hypnotic video project going on behind them- one particular memorable moment switched from imagers of dolls head been submerged in a water bath, to Concentration camp acid showers like footage to a baptism in a wood surrounded stream the camera following the baptism under water in a very disorientating way. With both audio and visual elements complement each other nicely.

  Next up was Sutcliffe Jügend with the lead depraved mind behind the project Kevin Tomkins up front holding two micphones together as he launched in his demented, depraved and at times darkly comical rants. With some quite simple if effective noisy electronics and single fired up guitar backing his fellow derivate Paul Taylor. The pair are certainly trying to doing something a little different and creative with-in the power electronics sound frame and at times they do succeed, but ultimately the anger and intensity of it all becomes a little one dimensional and tiresome over the sets running time.

  Lastly of course we had Merzbow who appeared on stage between his laptop and equipment desk, he started his 50 minute set with a grittier Merzbeat type chopping rhythmic beat pattern which he slowly built up layers of sound and noise around.From the outset it was clear the sound tonight was a lot more rhythmic and pulse driven really simplifying his sound from his more textured and varied work of the last few years. Tonight’s show felt like a throw back to a mix of already mentioned Merzbeat material mixed with Pulse demon/ relapse era- whether this was down to Merzbow feeling he had to create something more approachable for the 600 plus crowd or this is just his next twist in his sound is unclear, never the less for what it was it was a satisfying show. Later on in the sets proceedings he was up on his feet rip into his self made merz guitar/machine with great gusto- sending shards of burrowing noise out into the collective craniums, though it certainly wasn’t as loud or unbearable as I was expecting as I stayed quite conformable at the front for sometime

  All in all an enjoyable and varied evening noise and atmosphere from all parties involved, though I would have liked to seen Merzbow doing a more complex and textural varied set- it was certainly great to see this legend performing his art in the flesh.