I perfomed a guitar-less Cicatrice set by the harbor in Portland, Oregon over the weekend. The performance was part of a noise show featuring the band Spawn from Seattle, noise acts Quivering Lip and Leather Jester, and noise grind band Trials. I had an absolute blast watching all of these amazing artists perform, and it absolutely destroyed my eardrums.
Leather Jester is a very elusive and underground noise duo who brought an impressive amount of gear to experiment with. Sonically, the performance was rhythmic and heavy on the bass. One of the artists had an old Roland drum machine linked to a series of distortion pedals that provided the backdrop for the other artists' manipulated vocals. I was quite impressed.
Quivering Lip did some really neat stuff with contact mics attached to various pieces of sheet metal from broken household appliances. He used a handmade chain flail against the sheets, and bent the pieces of metal against his bass cabinet to manipulate the tone of the feedback, which was so cool to see live. The contact mics were also handmade, and linked to distortion and delay pedals.
The noise grind band Trials gave a relentless and brutal performance. Their guitars were so extremely distorted, it sounded great. And their frontman was so animated and energetic, it really kept the energy of the night alive as the sun was setting. It was also nice to have a grind band in between all of the noise acts to break things up a bit.
It was so awesome of Spawn to invite me onto the bill, and of course to witness their music for the first time live. Bandmember Bodhi also plays guitar in Seattle hardcore band Juji Gatame who recently played a show assembled by Firing Squad Coalition, who is a booking group and friend of the label here in Portland. Spawn had live jazz drums and two pedalboards creating different oscillating sounds. Definitely a fun and unique experience.
