Little note: I didn't see the gardening opera, sadly, and that part is from the description by Colin May, another Nutshaft writer and absolute expert on all things world, folk and avant-classical.
Just as a vindictive rain storm is followed in minutes by
glorious cerulean sky, Supernormal can leap from the strangest sounds
imaginable to straightforward rock. Wargs play honeyed indie in the style
of Throwing Muses at their sleepiest with some soothing pedal steel, whilst Aggressive Prefector are a no messin’ meld
of Motorhead and vintage thrash, with songs introduced in a voice that sounds
like an aged Tony the Tiger in rehab after the Frosties money has run out. College rockers St Deluxe disappoint, though, sounding like Harmacy era Sebadoh without the geeky charm. As s if there the festival’s nanotech is
trying to fix the wound of normality they cause, we walk away to find one of
the trees has sprouted crash cymbals like fungus, which children are happily
bashing.
Back in the house Liz
Muir & Caitlin Alais Callahan are trading sparse tension cues on cello
and double bass, and it’s like the Jaws
theme slowly decomposing in an abandoned potting shed. They also recite a Goethe poem over long
vertiginous lines, which drifts into a pure, delightful performance of a Scottish
folk tune: in 20 minutes, the set’s a microcosm of Supernormal’s rich variety.
At most festivals, soundbleed between stages is
infuriating. Once Supernormal has
recalibrated you, it can be exciting.
Whilst contrabassoon/low brass trio Ore
are sharing hushed, funereal tones beneath a gnarled tree, the sounds of
children playing on the nearly tyre swings, and snatches of Evil Usses rattling away on the Shed
stage make it seem all the more eerie.
They conclude with what is essentially a monstrous doom riff played on a
tuba. This is, of course, awesome; though if you hadn’t guessed, you probably
shouldn’t have read this far, anyway.
Even by Supernormal standards the tiny BEEF Octopolis
space is a hidden obscurity. Over the
weekend we witness Graham Dunning
DJing field recordings (surprisingly fascinating), Bruce McClure & Wojtek Rusin’s
opera based on readings from a gardening magazine (surprisingly sinister,
especially the terrifying phrase “Next, pesticides”), and Fouli’s Daughter, a
potted history of the foghorn continually interrupted by its own subject
(surprisingly a highlight of the weeke-PAAARAAPP!!).
Supernormal may be a cavalcade of surprises to which one
should not bring expectations, but we’d be disappointed if the bill didn’t
include at least one ruthless hardcore pummelling. Bruxa
Maria’s slamming intensity clears a path through our consciousness like a
Vogon constructor fleet, but can still turn on a sixpence at screaming harpy Gill
Dread’s hand signal. Just exhilarating.
The Vortex might provide sensory overload, but also hosts
one of the calmest, most thoughtful pieces of the festival, The Dead Rat Orchestra’s Tyburnia project, weaving folk songs
from the area around what was once London’s execution hub into a single, 80
minute tapestry, whilst a trio of crackly films are projected. Anti-capitalism rubs shoulders with William
Blake, and the South Sea Bubble bursts in the nightmarishly melting face of
Tony Blair. We intended to give this
show ten minutes; we ended up emerging blinking 80 minutes later to find that
dusk had fallen and that we’d bought a CD and book set. The evening ends with Jaxon Payne’s lithe V-drum solo, nodding towards Art Of Noise and
Kraftwerk, and Kuro’s windswept
drones and eldritch folk vistas, a paranoid British take on fractured jazz we
call Twin Peak District.
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