Louisville Experimental Music Nights
Oct. 5th, 2025 09:50 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ateolfOkay, back to Louisville Experimental Music Nights! Blanket Swimming was there, she goes by Thea now. Good to see her after a while! We also traded some merch and I got Thea Maloney: The Jewel in the Creek. Blanket Swimming was on the lineup from the beginning though there were several cancellations. One of them ended up having Belly Full of Stars as a replacement so I was super excited to be reunited with both of them (and it was going to turn out that I was sandwiched between their sets which is fun!).
Okay, first up was Emery Miles and her set was just phenomenal. She mostly played saxophone run through a laptop (max/msp) and there was also some pennywhistle and vocals and clapping but mostly saxophone. Next up was Tender Mercy and he did a very minimal, very spare, slowcore songs (pretty short songs for how slow they are! but maybe it's all relative and they seemed short 'cuz I'm at an experimental music festival expecting thirty minute blocks of sound?) with guitar and vocals. Anyway, it was really good. I picked up some merch from him: a t-shirt and some cds: Tender Mercy: The Veil Falls, Tender Mercy: Live at Chapel of St. Philip Neri, and v/a: Doodlehound XV (the last is a comp he's on that he threw in...also, Chapel of St. Philip Neri is what Woodbine Chamber was called up until maybe last year or so? that's what it was called when Low played there!). Next was Blanket Swimming and she was phenomenal as always, just a really deep mixture of soothing ambience and intensity. Then I played! It was okay! All my stuff worked which is great. And seeing how the power in the building can be slightly wonky (if the overhead lights are on, guitar amps hum) as it's a very old building (it was completed in 1898!), I was very glad I did replace the power supply in spite of the HUGE pain in the ass it's all been (but I can't fucking imagine getting there and having that case powering off after all that traveling and shit). I based my set around two samples, one for each half. I probably talked about them but first is a tribute to Louisville in general (a really goofy tribute) where I sequenced the notes of Slint's "Breadcrumb Trail" in Impulse Tracker with a baseball-bat-crack sample. The second half is me playing (more or less) the guitar part of Low's "Condescend". I thought of that after I realized that live album was recorded there, so I had to pay tribute to that while I was paying tribute. Of course, they're both run through the Morphagene and chopped up and pitched all around so the original sources of inspiration are in no way discernible. Anyway, I was getting to something with this. In the middle I switched to the second sample and then I got flustered because I wasn't hearing it. Previously, I'd noticed it wasn't quite as loud as the first sample, so I figured it was a volume issue and I messed up all my levels by turning up the mixer I was plugged into and then all my sounds down on the modular side (as I'd already turned up the sample's channel) but I'm still not hearing it. After a little bit of time, just a few minutes, I remembered that the samples were being triggered by an on/off switch, the same switch I'd been using to turn the on and off the whole first half of the set. Just switching to the next sample made my brain forget this very basic thing. So then I got it going but volume levels were a little touch and go from that point. Oh well, sometimes me fucking up could add a good layer of chaos? Eh, whatever, what's done is done! Okay, after me was Belly Full of Stars and she was just great as always! Then it was Wayne Robert Thomas and he played guitar and it was very minimal, very soft and pretty and droney. Good stuff! Last it was Verity Pariah, who got added on VERY last minute, literally the day of the show (one of the artists had their equipment break right before). He was really good. His main instrument was this drum synth and he used it very interesting ways. He had these industrial sound collages going and a lot of what he did with the drum synth was cool and blown-out synth sounding. Really good stuff. Yes! Everyone was great! It was a cool festival and I'm happy I had a little vacation and got to play it too. I also met Kensaku who I know from online (friends of friends) but never got to meet in person so that was cool. He lives in Louisville and plays as Sinister Senile. I'd made those shirts "for" this trip and I didn't sell any (though I did sell a little bit of other merch) though that's fine as now I can fully peddle them to locals at a couple of upcoming shows that are lined up.
I woke up this morning and didn't really dawdle around. I hit the road and just made a stop in Nashville again to go to the Riverside Grillshack and get another fucking delicious burger! Then I got home and got to see Mary Beth after days of not seeing Mary Beth! Woohoo! We sat outside a little bit drinking champagne (was gotten ready for our anniversary but with the other things we did we didn't get around to it, so it was a back-together celebration) out on the deck and we were joined by Peanut who was very friendly and cuddly. As always, I'm SURE I'm forgetting a bunch of stuff, but maybe I'll remember it later. For now, that's what I've got!
Okay, first up was Emery Miles and her set was just phenomenal. She mostly played saxophone run through a laptop (max/msp) and there was also some pennywhistle and vocals and clapping but mostly saxophone. Next up was Tender Mercy and he did a very minimal, very spare, slowcore songs (pretty short songs for how slow they are! but maybe it's all relative and they seemed short 'cuz I'm at an experimental music festival expecting thirty minute blocks of sound?) with guitar and vocals. Anyway, it was really good. I picked up some merch from him: a t-shirt and some cds: Tender Mercy: The Veil Falls, Tender Mercy: Live at Chapel of St. Philip Neri, and v/a: Doodlehound XV (the last is a comp he's on that he threw in...also, Chapel of St. Philip Neri is what Woodbine Chamber was called up until maybe last year or so? that's what it was called when Low played there!). Next was Blanket Swimming and she was phenomenal as always, just a really deep mixture of soothing ambience and intensity. Then I played! It was okay! All my stuff worked which is great. And seeing how the power in the building can be slightly wonky (if the overhead lights are on, guitar amps hum) as it's a very old building (it was completed in 1898!), I was very glad I did replace the power supply in spite of the HUGE pain in the ass it's all been (but I can't fucking imagine getting there and having that case powering off after all that traveling and shit). I based my set around two samples, one for each half. I probably talked about them but first is a tribute to Louisville in general (a really goofy tribute) where I sequenced the notes of Slint's "Breadcrumb Trail" in Impulse Tracker with a baseball-bat-crack sample. The second half is me playing (more or less) the guitar part of Low's "Condescend". I thought of that after I realized that live album was recorded there, so I had to pay tribute to that while I was paying tribute. Of course, they're both run through the Morphagene and chopped up and pitched all around so the original sources of inspiration are in no way discernible. Anyway, I was getting to something with this. In the middle I switched to the second sample and then I got flustered because I wasn't hearing it. Previously, I'd noticed it wasn't quite as loud as the first sample, so I figured it was a volume issue and I messed up all my levels by turning up the mixer I was plugged into and then all my sounds down on the modular side (as I'd already turned up the sample's channel) but I'm still not hearing it. After a little bit of time, just a few minutes, I remembered that the samples were being triggered by an on/off switch, the same switch I'd been using to turn the on and off the whole first half of the set. Just switching to the next sample made my brain forget this very basic thing. So then I got it going but volume levels were a little touch and go from that point. Oh well, sometimes me fucking up could add a good layer of chaos? Eh, whatever, what's done is done! Okay, after me was Belly Full of Stars and she was just great as always! Then it was Wayne Robert Thomas and he played guitar and it was very minimal, very soft and pretty and droney. Good stuff! Last it was Verity Pariah, who got added on VERY last minute, literally the day of the show (one of the artists had their equipment break right before). He was really good. His main instrument was this drum synth and he used it very interesting ways. He had these industrial sound collages going and a lot of what he did with the drum synth was cool and blown-out synth sounding. Really good stuff. Yes! Everyone was great! It was a cool festival and I'm happy I had a little vacation and got to play it too. I also met Kensaku who I know from online (friends of friends) but never got to meet in person so that was cool. He lives in Louisville and plays as Sinister Senile. I'd made those shirts "for" this trip and I didn't sell any (though I did sell a little bit of other merch) though that's fine as now I can fully peddle them to locals at a couple of upcoming shows that are lined up.
I woke up this morning and didn't really dawdle around. I hit the road and just made a stop in Nashville again to go to the Riverside Grillshack and get another fucking delicious burger! Then I got home and got to see Mary Beth after days of not seeing Mary Beth! Woohoo! We sat outside a little bit drinking champagne (was gotten ready for our anniversary but with the other things we did we didn't get around to it, so it was a back-together celebration) out on the deck and we were joined by Peanut who was very friendly and cuddly. As always, I'm SURE I'm forgetting a bunch of stuff, but maybe I'll remember it later. For now, that's what I've got!
