vast, sprawling Drone, St. Stephens

Quite an interesting and enjoyable COTD session at St. Stephens church last night, although not particularly good one, musically (having just listened back to the MiniDiscs). The acoustics are quite problematic when there are this many of us. I'm wondering if it's time to suspend the monthly session there and stick to smaller, less echoey spaces:

Simon - laptop, electronics
James S - percussion, vocals, saz
Keith - electric guitar, fretless electric bass
James T - piano, percussion, poetry
Henry - percussion
Vaughan - vocals, guitar
me - saz, percussion

with
Mick - electric guitar, fretless electric bass
Jo - voice
Pete - voice, guitar, piano
? - voice
Peter - percussion


Simon's laptop setup - Vaughan and Jo in background
Phil Smith from the local performance art collective Wrights & Sites also came along to read some psychogeographical text as a sort of preparation for the forthcoming tEXt Festival performance in the Phoenix bar on the 14th.

Some of the music felt like it worked quite well - and I was fortunate enough to be sitting by Simon's speakers, thoroughly enjoying what he was doing with his laptop (semi-random remixes of Phil's text through a voice-synthesiser, among other things), but the overall effect on the recording is a vast, sprawling, soupy affair. Quite messy in places, large sections didn't work at all, but there are still a few good bits I shall extract.

Very nice to see James S again. It's been far too long. He only brought a shaker and his voice, but also had a go on my saz for a while. He's been living in a vehicle near Winkleigh, without a phoneline, hence not getting any of the Drone email announcements. He had to leave early to go and check out a friend's trombone-and-electronica performance (under the name "Max Crackery") at 3 Fat Fish, but seems keen to Drone again soon.

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