Awakenings

Last Saturday it was time for the September edition of Awakenings. The electronic music event, where I performed twice before (a solo performance in 2012, and with Free Arts Lab in 2014) at the previous location in Burton-on-Trent, is now being held at Lea Hall Social Club, in Rugeley.
A smaller and more intimate venue than Paget High School.

Petter Janse and I were invited to perform here with Mäläskä last weekend.
We departed from The Netherlands on Friday morning, September 15th, took the ferry from Duinkerken, and overnighted in Folkestone, just south from Dover.

The next day we drove to Rugeley, while having a lot of heavy traffic on our way. Anyway, we were in time to get our equipment installed.

Sinewaves Light.
(Photo by Phil Booth)

The first concert, by Sinewaves Light started at 18:10, and ended at 19:00.
Mike Parrott exposed a wide variety of different touches of electronic music.
Despite the fact that the performance was technically sloppy from time to time, it contained some really good parts and themes. Very enjoyable.
The different tracks were clearly inspired by (or at least they contained clear comparisons with) the music of John Carpenter, James Horner, Vangelis, Jarre, and also featured some serious Berlin School sequences.

Infinity Curve.
(Photo by Phil Booth)

After the first break of half an hour, routiniers and frequent Awakening performers Jez Creek and Peter Challoner debuted as Infinity Curve.
Some dark and sinister ambient sound sculptures kicked off their one-hour set.
Subtle evolving and constantly emerging layers made this a very delightful and exciting listen.
After ten minutes a sequence appeared and evolved into some nice uptempo ambient.
From time to time some very subtle solo leads in the background, and also more than enough happening constantly, by means of sound effects, structures and samples.
After every following sequence part, another ambient passage made the bridge to the next sequencer sections.
Excellently balanced, great sounds, interesting layering, and brilliant sequencing. Really awesome!

Mäläskä.
(Photo by Phil Booth)

Then another 30 minutes break (in which we checked the final technical things) before Petter and I made our appearance.

We set off with some soundscapes, after which the first sequencing was done. Alternated with atmospheric passages.

A short impression from the first part of our gig can be seen here.

After a little longer than one hour we finished our set. At that point Petter suggested that I should do an encore on my own. So I started an improvised piano piece. Ending up with some more sequencing.
No idea what our output sounded like, but I will listen to the recordings within the coming days.

Unfortunately it was not the best visited edition of Awakenings ever. On the other side, many people did buy a virtual ticket, and supported the event this way. Which is much appreciated.
In any way we have had a great weekend; it was really good to be back!

Thanks to all who visited the concerts, and bought virtual tickets.
And many thanks to Phil Booth, Dave Buxton and everyone involved.