Gravetemple / Russell Haswell
Café Oto; London, England

This wasn’t one of those experiments where someone senior was asked to respond to a new piece of music for questionable comedy value. But if it was, this definitely would have been a choice opportunity. After I moved back to London last year, my dad and I made a habit of going to the occasional gig together — it’s a chance for me to catch up on some of the acts he listened to in his youth, and for him to become acquainted with musicians new to the scene, relatively speaking. In fact, it was my folks’ vinyl collection that got me hooked on music in the to begin with — I recall being utterly enthralled when I was a kid, listening to Pink Floyd, David Bowie, and Grace Jones records as they spun on our haggard turntable.

Gravetemple was probably not the most sensible concert to have chosen for our most recent outing. But having said that, the generation gap may have proved almost irrelevant as Attila is closer to my old man’s age than he is my own. Where the curiosity lies is in the music the former is responsible for. The supergroup got together in 2006, and consists of metal-drone master craftsman Stephen O’Malley, prolific multi-instrumentalist Oren Ambarchi, and the former Mayhem vocalist himself, who also contributed to a number of sunn 0))) offerings. Earlier this year, the collective’s 2008 LP Ambient/Ruin got a re-release on O’Malley’s Ideologic Organ imprint, hence this triumphant reformation and mini-tour of Europe.

The gig was sold out, and as we stood outside in the evening rain, taking in the deafening sound check, we made bets on whether Café Oto would be able to maintain its license after the show. Additional speakers had been stacked up so high behind the band that the interior was almost unrecognizable. So loud was the group’s collective output that the windows rattled uncontrollably in their panes. We spied one of the ladies at the bar chalking up a sign underneath the cocktail menu: EARPLUGS. 50P.

Once the sound check came to a bludgeoning close, the doors were opened and people filled the place. Russell Haswell unveiled an arsenal of equipment at his makeshift stage — there is no elevated platform, so those at the very front were only a couple of feet away from the stacks of speakers that surrounded them. As intrigued as I was to find out what my father thought of Gravetemple, I also wanted to discover what he made of Haswell, who is renowned for exemplifying the very harshest of live noise. Whereas O’Malley and co. rely on long-form feedback, resonance and distortion set-pieces to create walls of pandemonium, Haswell builds, crumples, and shifts a range of frequencies in forcing out his unpredictably savage display.

Dad took the whole thing in stride; pint of Helle Weisse in hand, looking on curiously as Haswell approached his machines. The Coventry artist started by building a gloomy atmosphere with white noise and church bells. While the volume was felt simmering with crackle, it wasn’t fully tested until a few minutes into the set — the audience could taste the potential, and waited patiently for it to be unleashed.

A sonic magma of fierce mechanical gush hurtled out of the speakers, accompanied by blistering snaps, ruptured snares, and a screaming pulse. Each variation was jack-hammered through a coarse of frequency shifts and sporadic temp thrusts — the impact was incredible. It was one of the most fascinating noise performances I have witnessed, and my dad seemed to agree. Though he had never seen anything quite like it before, the set reminded him of the festivals he had been to in his teens; Stonehenge, Knebworth, etc. Essentially this was nothing new, but the experience had been refined and intensified, making it more powerful and captivating — Haswell was indeed spectacular.

By the time Gravetemple took to their positions, we were as close as we could get to the center in the now packed-out café. Attilah began his vocal gymnastics and for minutes at a time, the high pitched ringing of O’Malley’s guitar raced through Ambarchi’s gear. It felt like the sound was dialing directly into my nervous system and pinning me to the spot; there was nowhere to move, no means of escape. People were standing in a kind of transfixed cramp — proof that nobody had bothered with the earplugs — until the strings collided once again to create a shuddering drop; Atillah hummed and murmured and moaned at his workstation, apparently hypnotized by the aural forcefield his group were creating. The set was spellbinding; more of an addition to the Ambient/Ruin material than a reenactment of it, though the shifts in pace, mood, and style slowly emerged over the evening’s course.

So it seems the exploration of volume tolerance isn’t so fresh after all — it was very much a part of the gigs my dad had gone to as a youngster. But technology, low ceilings, and a seeming desire to break a record for noise complaints had pushed those boundaries further than either of us had ever experienced. This was the first of a two-day residency at Oto. “Would you go and see them again?” I asked as we walked back through the soaked streets. “Without a doubt, son,” was all I could make out through the tinnitus and aftershock.

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