New Year / New Noise

Arnolfini, Bristol

It’s been one year since Howling Owl inaugurated the annual New Year / New Noise event, bringing a heady mix of angry electronics, dense guitars and warped visuals to the Arnolfini’s expansive auditorium. It felt like a statement from the label, signalling their support of Bristol’s experimentalists on a large platform. Impressively, they sold it out. Well it’s 2015 now (Happy New Year!), and they’ve done it again.

Missing the opening performance from Salope (which, intriguingly, translates as “slut” in French) was a real shame, but Wenonoah’s warped abstractions on the lineage of English folk proved to be a captivating introduction. After an unannounced performance based on rummaging through boxes of useless keepsakes and throwaway detritus in the foyer signalled the start of the interval, the amorphous group within a group that is Killing Sound took to their heaving desk of hardware back in the main performance space. The four – which on this day included Young Echo members Vessel, El Kid and Jabu – summoned dense clouds of noise, pockmarked by the sparest of rhythms and Casio keyboard melodies, while close comrade Chester espoused stream-of-conscious narratives and cubist poems on sex and despair. It was a set that challenged more than it rewarded, but one that made a lot of sense in the context of the event, resetting the tone, leaving a dark void in their wake.

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Vision Fortune followed, channelling a defiantly modern take on the disjointed, dubbed-out post-punk pioneered by the likes of Jah Wobble and Holger Czukay. Here, in the cavernous space at the Arnolfini’s heart, their loping rhythms and fuzzed textures enveloped the room in a porous stasis, guitars languishing above heads, drums circling feet, time losing grip as it passes.

It was their first gig since July of last year (they’ve been holed up finishing their new album, so fair enough) and The Naturals set had a palpable air of triumph. Maybe it was because it had been a while, maybe it was because someone was waving a massive flag the whole time, or maybe it was because the band’s aggressively experimental new direction – recently showcased with the track 2HGS – is powerful enough to justify their headliner slot.

To sell out such exploratory and forward-thinking events two years in a row is an great achievement, testament to the trust that Howling Owl’s audience has in its curation and the faith that the Arnolfini has in the lot of them. New Year / New Noise is a Venn diagram with ‘Brave Music’ at its centre.