Kerridge

Church of St Thomas The Martyr

Arrive late to a noise all-dayer in a church and expect to find yourself greeted by two types of weirdos. Firstly, you’ll have the ubiquitous obscure-band-tee clad waste man, stacking it into pews, proudly proclaiming they’ve been drinking since 1PM and telling anyone who’ll listen about that time they saw ‘Sun Oh’ at ATP and then puked all over Dylan Carlson’s shoes. Then they’ll puke all over your shoes.

Secondly you will encounter drone fans.

When we arrived late to a gig that had been going since the early afternoon we had been given a pizza by a confused reprobate (type one) and encountered a man dressed entirely in Blue Harbour by M&S, hand firmly attached to chin, face a mere inch from an enormous speak stack, attempting to decipher the code (type two) within ten minutes of our entrance. Events like this can only be described as freak magnets.

Our first taste of the sinister things to come is a shadowy figure, cloaked in a hoody pumping out dense layers of noise to a back drop of glitching, fluttering visuals. This is ARHKH vs KOHM. A collaboration between GNOD’s A.P Macarte and James Robinson; a videographer with a stellar CV. The audio-visual assault they create provides a more-than-apt beginning to what will unfold into a night of techno, terror and tinnies.

Next up, Bristol’s Giant Swan lay down a blanket of heavy techno, dub chaos and incredibly textured noise. The highlight of their set – besides the mind blowing crescendos – comes in the form of a very ‘drunk’ man who has taken it upon itself to perform shamanic duties for the duo. Waving his hands above their equipment before throwing the vibe back into the audience. Before long he’s taken on front vox and has pretty much everyone, including Giant Swan, in fits of uncontrollable laughter.

Next up Ekoplekz takes the stage and pushes out insistent, rythmic techno on cheaply made table top equipment to an excited audience.

Finally it’s headliner Kerridge’s time to control the floor. Samuel Kerridge has made his way here from Berlin and between smashing his horizontal guitar and bashing out noise on his pad we see him shouting into an old, army-radio style mic. Kerridge’s aural assault sits somewhere between the industrial of old, the drone of new and the techno of the future. We’re surprised his beautiful racket doesn’t bring the roof down as he ends his set with a series of triggered, slowed down jungle breaks.

We’re not so happy we turned up late but we are hella happy we turned up in the end. Fine programming and even finer musicianship in an unusal venue.

Oh and did we mention we got a free pizza?