In my ongoing effort to present truly tortured music on the air, the outpourings of souls in unrest, I was very proud to host these two sets by Husere Grav. Along with the natural courtesies, and perhaps even eventual camaraderie, that develop around a musical artist's appearance on the Castle, there was also a feeling that when one meets a member of one's tribe, not much talk is required. Todd Watson aka Athanor is a man of few words anyway, though as I recall, some of those words were, "Generally, I have a pretty negative view of a lot of things...." Me too, and it's not a joke, and the man (unlike myself, spilling bile all over town as I do) saved it for the performance. This is some of the darkest, most visceral shit I have ever had the pleasure of presenting on the radio. These are soundtracks to pain, frustration, and ill intentions—the "music" of haunted evil.
So-called noise being equivalent to the new jazz in many ways, once an assortment of available gear is decided upon, the quality of the performance becomes based on feeling, genuine inspiration, and access to one's own emotions. How well are you playing what you feel, into what you brought with you tonight? In the case of Husere Grav, the answer is a fuck of a lot. That is, perhaps, the WHOLE POINT of the My Castle of Quiet radio show, that the program itself be a working, a channeling of feelings, for myself and the live guests, however negative (or positive) or socially unacceptable those feelings may be. This shit has to go SOMEWHERE, or we'd all be killers.
...I'm off my soapbox now, and apologies to Todd for my using this post as a forum of sorts, but I do often wonder how many of you I'm reaching with these perhaps lofty intentions.
The two Husere Grav sets incorporate what I would call pure noise (à la Whitehouse), with aspects of psychedelia, and hypnotic, high-volume resonance. I seriously wish that I could transmit to every listener the feeling I got upon walking into that room while Todd was performing his second set—it was truly a maelstrom, and caught me by surprise—thunderingly loud, it was swirling, and it felt dangerous; nothing less than a genuine conjuration.
Expert, somnambulic session engineering by Bob Bellerue. Photo by your author and host, with manipulation by Tracy Widdess. Deepest thanks to Todd Watson.
In addition to a staggering live performance, Husere Grav is also sharing Battles, exclusively with WFMU, My Castle of Quiet and the Free Music Archive. Here are two more songs, a single's worth of material to further unlock the dark world of Husere Grav.
wow these Battles tracks are *killer* // great live set too
Posted by: Jason | September 23, 2010 at 02:32 PM
Hey, you got some video from Friday right? I had to go find Jeff C., he was lost coming from the subway. Would love to hear the last 5 minutes.
Posted by: Witchbeam | September 24, 2010 at 12:03 AM
Here's Todd's set from the following night --- http://www.vimeo.com/15115678
Posted by: WmMBerger | September 24, 2010 at 04:22 AM