Sunday 22 November 2009

@ THE SOUTHBANK CENTRE // The Clore Ballroom, Royal Festival Hall, 3-7 FREE ENTRY

As part of the London Jazz Festival, Trouble Tune has rounded up a line-up of dubstep producers and jazz improvisers to play alongside one another. Bass Clef and Geiom will be performing with members of the London Improvisers orchestra – pretty much unmissable considering it’s free.

It takes place at The Clore Ballroom (the Royal Festival Hall), the largest ballroom space in the UK, which for one day will transform into a huge dancefloor and meeting ground for dancehall, dubstep and electronic music, live musicians and digital art.

Taking influence from Chicago progressive-minimalist group Tortoise, performing in the Royal Festival Hall the same evening, this is a set of futuristic fusion that acknowledges its rich roots and the artists that paved the way for an event such as this.

To coincide with the release of his new album ‘May the Bridges I Burn Light the Way’, UK producer and multi-instrumentalist Bass Clef (Ralph Cumbers) will perform a special set in collaboration with guests from the London Improvisers Orchestra, including bassist John Edwards, Japanese multi-instrumentalist Kenichi Iwasa, and legendary pedal steel guitarist BJ Cole, led and conducted Shabaka Hutchings and Jason Yarde, two of the most exciting horn players in UK improvised music today.

Also performing in collaboration with the live musicians, will be dubstep artist and founder of the Berkane Sol label Geiom, whose track ‘Reminissin’ (featuring Marita), released last year, became a dubplate favourite, with remixes by Kode9, Shackleton and Skream.

Geiom improvises music for the dancefloor from his distinctive Atari-driven old school hardware, mixing the intricate with minimal and melodically involved textures. He has recently remixed Shackleton, D1, Clouds, Brackles and Shortstuff and has also been in the studio with Appleblim – the pair created the ‘Shreds’/'Flame Tree’ 12″ which has been in great demand since its release in March 2009.

Laurie ‘Appleblim’ Osborne will also be DJing on the day, having just recently finished curating ‘Volume 6′ of Tempa’s prestigious Dubstep Allstars series.

The show will also feature two sets by electronic music pioneers Matt Yee-King and Click Nilson, who demonstrate a practice called ‘live-coding’ which uses a computer software programme to write and manipulate sound, visuals and, in this example, live dance performance.

London pop-up exhibition company the Tilt Collective, have also been commissioned to curate and perform a series of sound/visual works using Southbank Centre’s floor-to-ceiling multi-media installation ‘ScreenPlay’.

First came Soundspecies, an act built around four multi-instrumentalist brothers. The Keens –Henry, Olly, Barney and Nathanial– dominated the stage, joined by Ben Hadwen (flute and baritone sax), Adam Hughes on Moog and Rhodes and Adam Betts drumming. Collectively they could hold the record for the longest legs in musical history, however such trivialities distract from the amazing music. The ease with which they coherently express their influences –dub, techno, jazz and all kinds of African rhythms– is staggering. No element is watered down in order to work as a whole; each makes the complete compositions enhanced. Two instrumental openers (including the cracking ‘Star Wars’) generated movement and applause from the growing numbers, brother Barney’s vocals then spruced up their set showing some psychedelic innards. For their final song, Ayanna Witter-Johnson joined the gents harmonising with Barney supremely in ‘Waiting for the Sun’. A wonderful song, Deborah Jordan provides the female tones to the version on the Soundspecies LP (coming soon on Burnt Progress), this rendition with Ayanna worked awesomely and will hopefully make it onto the RBMA archives as previous Broad Casting sessions have done.

Bass Clef was the second live act: bushy-bearded and wearing a lovely t-shirt symbolically showing his name. A unique combination of CDJ, mixing desk, theramin, whistle, mic and trombone (!), he continuously filled silences using one of the array of items to hand. Remarkably engaging his one-man show generated some ridiculous low-end surges to test the Cargo speaker cones and provoked plenty of dancing.

Headlining, Buraka Som Sistema took their place, initially as a 3-piece with Lil’ John flanked by DJ Riot (drums & laptop) & Fred (kit drums). Emcees, Kalaf & Conductor, entered to assist in hyping up the now rammed room. The final member, Blaya appeared sporadically to display her first-rate dancing, emphatically shaking her rump. Buraka’s mixture of Kuduro, electro and dub-stepping heaviness was terrific, appreciated by the large number of lusophones in the crowd and excitable locals. In the many times I’ve been to Cargo, I’ve never seen the place with such a rave atmosphere. Buraka’s energy and party songs caused sweaty mayhem and smiles galore. And what an ovation! An encore was inevitable and amusingly came swiftly due to the locked dressing room. Some “new shit” from their forthcoming Black Diamond album was the reward with ‘Te Ro Za’ furthering the excitement with another unprecedented moment whereby Kalaf instructed the crowd to “get low down” and so we did. The entire room kneeled or squatted awaiting the countdown. 1,2,3,4 and up we all leapt, roaring to the banging track. My sore knees were soon forgotten. Having first heard of Buraka via Lusofonia: a (R)Evolução, the dancefloor hysteria shown in that RBMA-funded documentary seems to occur when and wherever they perform. Definitely an act to check live, they’re back in the UK later in the year.

Whispers of pre-show doubt on the lack ‘big-names’ in the line-up were put to bed. The buzzing atmosphere and quality of performances is further evidence of Karen P’s willingness to support all kind of artists, looking outside set scenes for new music. Broad Casting is filling the gap left by the excellently curated and highly-memorable Independent Mix nights, who’ll be next on the bill?

Thanks to Gawain Hewitt for the photos.