https://electronicmusicopenmic.com/
Alan Dearling reports from a seven act EMOM mini-festival in Calderdale
A bit of background:
This is what I found on the EMOM site:
“The first EMOM event took place in early 2017 in Manchester. Since then the nights have taken off across the United Kingdom and also in Australia. The concept of these nights is simple, they provide a meeting and performance space for electronic musicians of all styles and persuasions. A typical night could include everything from techno through to experimental and ambient music, from chiptune through to live coding and looping, field recording and industrial. The choice of technology is also wide ranging; lap tops, iPads and mobile phones are welcome, as are drum machines, synths, groove boxes, sequencers, samplers, modular set ups, keyboards, DJ decks, and analogue and digital devices of all kinds.”
“The beginnings of the EMOM movement was like turning over a stone and finding this whole new world of music-making underneath. You have to understand that at this time acoustic singer songwriters and indie bands were the mainstream order of the day. Of course electronic music was everywhere too, but there was little in the way of grass roots happenings or opportunity to develop the craft. Playing live was a real challenge for electronic musicians.” Excerpt from ‘Electronic Music Travels’ by Martin Christie.
Looking at the EMOM site it seems that up to a couple of dozen EMOM events are taking place across the UK each month. I guess it varies at different times of the year.
The Live EMOM event at The Bandstand in Todmorden Centre Vale Park
I was there for the full four hours, but have decided to focus on three of the acts who captured my musical attention and interest. It was presided over by the inimitable Dave Walker (who performed as mho and also provided his LD PA, which produced a great ambient and bass vibe to the event).
Collectively, a diverse range of performers used electronics: DJs/mixers/electronic poets and punks/world music samplers and ravers through techno into trance, with touches of ‘theatre’ too.
Analogue Electronic Whatever
Now we know where this eccentric performance artist got his name!
“Analogue, electronic, whatever it happens to be, I simply love and adore literally every aspect of making music”– John Lydon
Video from the Weirdsville Festival 2024 (Kicks off with his track ‘Hole’):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PdSCnSyq_cs
This was a lot of theatrical fun. Soaring synths and vocorder vocals. Very much a performance art-school poetry slam, careering into electronic experimental music. The whole show reminded me of the quirky, disjointed movements and contortions synonymous with Jonathan Richman and David Byrne. Stand outs included, ‘Know who your friends are’ and ‘Space Boys/Space Girls’.
Oooodles of tuneful moments, sing-alongs and weirdness as in ‘Mickey’s on Drugs’ – his ode to the USA! And, of course, he has a wonderfully angular, jerky, nerdy stage presence
The Dots
From 2023, Live demo (wonderfully blues and bizarre): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uy9QZZeb5Gk
“Electronic blues duo Dots fuse cigar box guitar, wailing harmonica, and modular synths into their self-defined genre, Bluestronica. Wireless and wild, they bring vintage grit and raw electric energy to every stage, blurring the line between performer and crowd.”
They are a duo who switch instruments, and produce a rich mix of blues, rock, electronica and choppy rhythms, provocative stances, musical risk-takers, offering lively, energetic fun. A full-on stage act, Old Skool and New, successfully combined. Plenty of their own material and some old favourites like Booker T and the MGs’ ‘Green Onions’ boogified, ‘Telstar’, a segued, ‘Iko Iko/Red River Rock’, and their own take on the ‘Old Grey Whistle Test’ theme instrumental, ‘Stone Fox Chase’. A real crowd-pleaser.
Bluestronica showreel: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5uUZnBc3Bws&list=RD5uUZnBc3Bws&start_radio=1
https://www.iamseeingdots.co.uk/
mho
(Conductivity, the reciprocal of ohm in reverse!!!)
Featuring Dave Walker who is an electronic music producer and artist known for tuneful, melodic, and spiritual electronic sounds. It is expansive music, a melange of world sounds, samples and live mixes. Some beautiful moments. It is often more like classical modern jazz rather than electronica.
mho conjures up enveloping soundscapes. I will certainly listen more to Dave’s musical creations as back-drops to my working spaces. When Fat Boy Slim began, he was sampling old traditional blues tracks. Dave is doing something similar with ‘world’ samples and added layers of vocals and synths. It’s tribal at times, evoking African skies and vocals and sounds from around the planet.
Here’s ‘Static Display’: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gx10bGqcnkU
And, try checking out the Lhamo/mho remix of ‘Jingo/Jango on Bandcamp.
The event also featured, The Naked Raver (a kind of female freestyle gospel/blues singing ranter), and DJs, Martin Beech, Wonky Chris Colling and The Junta.
Rather fortuitously, I did attend the EMOM gathering with my cameras. Back on the 26th August I had spotted that the event was taking place ‘Today at 12.30’. So, I thought I had missed it. But actually the August post was actually an advance notice for the event on the 13th September.
