Dubstepforum.com

St Pancras Parish Church provided a fitting backdrop for this evening’s artists; its towering ceilings and marble columns, offset by the closeness of its mezzanine galleries, combined to create a space that imparted an imposing Georgian grandeur, yet with a sense of intimacy and warmth.

First up were Old Apparatus, recent additions to Mala’s Deep Medi label, who gave a remarkably assured performance in what was only their third ever live show.

Moving effortlessly between sonic themes with subtlety and poise, sounds would emerge, shift ground, and then recombine to coalesce into something new. Distant rumbles, clicks and whirs, sinister hollow waves. The listener would at points become suddenly aware that they had with been transported from a hazy dronescape, into a track with a powerful two-step beat, without quite knowing how, like a child being lifted from a car whilst asleep.

Despite a scarcity of explicit drum loops or bass lines, the audience’s active attention was held constantly by an innate sense of musicality, a pervading sense of rhythm and sonic cohesion. In this way, Old Apparatus managed to pick out a delicate path between all-out asbtract drone, and something more akin to dubstep; by carving out this space predominantly through the interweaving and development of different textures, the possibility of melody seemed almost crass.

One of the most interesting points in set was when a cacophony of unimagined factory assembly-lines emerge, with enough rhythm to satisfy rather than jar, but with enough robot complexity to make it tantalisingly difficult for the listener to pin down whether or not it forms exactly a ‘beat’.

The music was tied together by visual projections, which were controlled live onstage. But this was not the drab Winamp-skin wallpaper that is familiar to so many electronic artists - rather, it was deployed as an extra instrument. Harsh arrays of sounds - metallic clacks, hisses, howls and clangs - suddenly swing sharply into cognitive focus, when imagery is introduced containing pistons, crank-shafts, jets of steam.

And while this example may read on paper as a rather obvious juxtaposition, its effect is powerful. This is particularly so in the case of the piston episode, because of the introduction of the image after the musical scene has already been set. It feels somewhat like a naming of your extant but unspoken thought, in the same way that Doris Lessing describes the seductive potential of your character being ‘named’ by a suitor: pinning down a vague sense that you had already been incubating but not assigned a category to, and haven’t even realised you have been incubating until this revelatory point.

These hauntological motifs of Old Apparatus operate in the same territory as a Magnus Mills creation, or the creature in Wallace and Gromit’s ‘Grand Day Out’ – the figure is unknown, does not belong to an identifiable category, yet speaks to a half-understood aesthetic sensibility that sits just on the tip of the tongue; a semi-formed childhood memory; an itch that cannot be located. Mark Fisher has described this unattainability as “The sonic equivalent of the 'corner of the retina' effect that the best ghost stories have famously achieved”. Quatermass groans emanate from the boiler room of a Ballardian nightmare; a Cronenberg photocopier stalks Jacob Epstein shadows across the derelict corridors of a Victorian workhouse.

vishes wrote:That looks sick, might be getting one then... Is the 27GBP for Europe including shipping costs btw?

jyro wrote:Also, the next Deep Medi Old Apparatus release should have little sketches of the guy with the robot head...

jyro wrote:Definitely something coming soon!

The work of a shady East London collective, it came out on Mala’s Deep Medi label and became an instant cult classic, thanks to its complex but still highly accessible synthesis of elements drawn from dubstep, hip-hop, industrial, drone and avant-electronics – imagine Mount Kimbie by way of Kevin Drumm. Interest in the group has been the further piqued by a clutch of impressive live performances that made clear their audio-visual ambition, and particularly by the short but sweet mix available to download for free from their website and apparently comprised of all their own productions.

August will see Old Apparatus unveil a new single, ‘Zebulon’. The ethereal, female-vocalled A-side and title track was one of the highlights of the aforementioned mix, while B-side ‘Hammerhand’ is a reworking of one of four untitled segments from the previous 12″, adding vocals from a London MC named Mowgli.

If OA’s debut is anything to go by, ‘Zebulon’ will be very handsomely packaged and available in limited quantities, so keep eyes and ears peeled for its arrival.

Tracklist:
A1. Zebulon
B1. Hammerhead feat. Mowgli

vishes wrote:http://www.soundsoftheuniverse.com/releases/?id=24440

10" White Label promo copies available! With audio previews.
Just ordered a copy! (Will get myself another copy of the official release because of it's gorgeous artwork.)

Oh and Zebulon sounds fucking amazing.