Reviews

Freq: Audio Hailstones

Bourbonese Qualk have been at the experimental music game for quite a while, so it was especially pleasing to find Simon Crab and new cohort Andy Wilson included int he line-up. Onceagain it was laptops at 30 paces as Bourbonese Qualk throbbed into action. building up a threnody of liquid samples which rose into burbling sheets of audio hailstones emerging into patterns of sound-drops of room-filling intensity.

A respite into darkly tinkling ambience of music box electronica of shimmering, disturbing aspect offset by bass warmth and a wistful sense of mordant dread followed, while the backdrop expanded out into kaleidoscopic abstraction and geometric blocks. With electronic dub tendencies emerging to make a bolder link into the groove possibilities inherent in sequenced music, the click-swathed rhythms merged up to the level of circling drones to slow-paced hypnotic effect. As the music changed, so did the visuals, with images of digital cityscapes focussing ont he windows of the different block providing a suitable accompaniment. A change of pace followed, gliding up-tempo into full-tilt delay FX spasms of whittled down, warped up noise to the degradation of the bitmaps behind.

Sound soon became disengaged into raucus judders and frenetic non-beats as virtual chaos ensued onstage, with rapid-fire pilses underpinning a drilling refrain. The conclusion came through a slow descent via looped, vaguely hip-hop rhythms and the rising swell of mid-range tones which became even noisier by stages. The end was a dense shuffle of non-swinging beats and layered deviant sound disolved finally into a breathtaking cyclone of meta-sussurus. Bourbonese Qualk put on quite a show, definitely the highlight of the gig.

Richard Fontenoy, FREQ Magazine