Cotton + Billawtm
Metaphysical Circus Tour 2004

Monday 19 July,
Yorkshire House, Lancaster. £3

Reviewed by Superjoy Dean

I have half an hour to write this review so no poncing around. I can write anyway (with a pen or pencil) so this "keyboard" should be a doddle.

Cotton Casin is known to most "heads" of a certain persuasion as the synth player out of brain-crushing Japanese psych-monsters Acid Mothers Temple. I like Acid Mothers Temple. They make 'Old skool' proggers like Hawkwind sound like The Eagles. They do this by combining 70s prog/psychedelic stylings with an avant-guard noise approach. This gives their music a power that hoary old fret-wankers could only dream of.

The Japanese are well known for their amazing noise music which, to coin a cliche, is very 'Zen'. or in the case of the more extreme examples such as Merzbow, can kill a pigeon.

Cotton Casino and Billawtm and Monolab know how to do a noise very well and they do it to a backdrop of fat basslines and hardcore drumming. They sing a few songs as well which are kind of eerie but the best bits for me were when they took off into all-noise rock territory.

A noise doesn't have to be piercing or like a horrible scraping noise or a screaming pig. Babies laughing is a noise, so is a waterfall. Hence noise music does not have to be unlistenable, cold and pretentious (although it often is).

I think Cotton and Billawtm and chums really feel the music they are playing and as a result it was powerful and emotionally intense. As the music built up, it became uplifting, complex and epic.

It was beautiful music that sounded like a million things playing at once, very dreamlike and sometimes quite elemental and aggressive.

Well done to them I say. When I hear all these wannabe bands churning out their faux-meaningful sixth-form poetry set to some sterile (and inept) guitar riffs and cheesy "clever bits", I feel like I've been sucked into the world of advert.

Any complaints? No.

Satori's review:

I have to say something too (How d'you think I got my name after all?). That you can create trance-dance from music we know - that you can create music from trance-dance is a totally new story. You never saw this before in your life.

A theramin is a metal rod that generates an energy field around it. The movement of objects in that field is translated into sound via a synth board. Cotton plays theramin by moving her hands and body like a minimalist wizard (or like the Japanese witch that she is) weaving the future. At times she takes/finds one clean movement - like a simple rock-step, a swing of the arms and replays it (and its sound), over and over to an increasingly complex backing from the band.

In doing so she begins to imprison one moment in time - and take it deeper and deeper into other dimensions of experience. This is bio-jamming taken to a level I've never yet seen in this country. Stay with it and it changes the brain.

(A Zen master would talk about attention, focus and relaxation. Cotton would probably call it beer and smokes. Beer and smokes are almost the 6th and 7th members of the band. But there's a lot of beer and smokes in this town and they don't play like she does.)

The synergy of the band is awesome in these times. There is a communion between Cotton + Bill that is gloriously evident in every breath they take and every sound they make. Monolab plays theramin too with a passionate energy, strength and control that is utterly beautiful. And then sometimes at the climaxes he rocks full on headbangs into the field - imagine the true sound of psych-rock direct from the head! The self-effacing Pers (how did he escape my camera) comes out on bass creating and recreating the horizons of this journey and Ed tripped the percussion with strong, solid, playful beats.

And I tell you truly, from the complex multi-layered landscape of sound, ghost shapes emerge and tell me beautiful things that I've whisted for, forever.

And sometimes it just wildly rocks and I really wanna dance.

Cotton + Billawtm
Metaphysical Circus Tour 2004

Monday 19 July,
Yorkshire House, Lancaster. £3

Reviewed by Reza Mills

It is 8.55pm and absolutely belting it down outside as I rush from my sister's car into the Yorkshire House. I meet up with Satori and we both venture on up the stairs to see if the gig has started yet, which of course it hasn't. We learn that the band aren't due on till 9.30, so we both sit down with some of Satori's friends and I have a good long chin-wag with a chap named Dean (as I believe he was called) about Black Sabbath. A man with good taste it must be said.

Eventually at around 9.20 we go up the stairs and have a brief chat with the band, where I learn original drummer Daniel Skevington has had to drop out tonight and instead a fairly youngish lad called Ed is taking his place. Ed and I have a chat about his ska-punk band that he usually plays in. I also learn that Cotton was in a Japanese Psychedelic/ experimental band called ‘The Acid Mothers Temple & the melting Paraiso U.F.O', which she quit this year. But not before appearing on the ‘Mantra of Love' album.

The band kick off at around 9.30 and it is clear that there are 5 members. Cotton Casino on Theramin, synthesizer and backing vocals, Billawtm on lead guitar and vocals, Per Gisle Galaaen on guitar/bass, Monolab on synthizer and theremin and finally the aforementioned replacement drummer Ed. At first glance it is quite interesting to note what a motley crew of characters they are. Two of the members looked like they belong in an indie band (Per and Monolab), Billawtm and Cotton look ideally suited to a psychedelic band whilst Ed the drummer is a punk with his dreadlocks, wallet-chain and baggy trousers. Not the most likely combination of people to perform together, but nonetheless I await to hear what sounds they can produce from their respective instruments.

The first song is pretty mellow and really helps to set the atmosphere. It also helps drummer Ed to get settled in and sort his drum-kit out. A deceptively slow guitar solo starts off the second song, before the band start really rocking out for the one and only time during their set, in what is by their standards a fairly standard issue rock song. One thing apparent about the band is how relatively few vocals there are and what little there is, is sung in an echoey sort of a manner.

After that brief moment of chaos, the band take a few seconds to recompose themselves no doubt in preparation for the aural onslaught ahead. Looking around the room at this brief interval, I notice that there aren't many tables and chairs, or in fact that many people around at the venue. Not entirely surprising considering it is a Monday night. The room is also quite humid too, which really adds to the unnerving and intense performance that awaits us.

After this brief respite things start to get really interesting. As the music starts to become more and more experimental, it is clear that the band couldn't give two hoots for your standard verse-chorus verse song structure. So if you were expecting Coldplay you are going to be very disappointed. It is obvious from the off that this band love their Pink Floyd, especially guitarist Billawtm who not only looks similar to Dave Gilmour, but even sounds like him as well. I was expecting him to launch into ‘Shine on you crazy diamond' at any moment. Other influences are also apparent as well such as the great Sonic Youth, Blue Cheer and Hawkwind, as well as Acid Mothers Temple for obvious reasons.

Like Sonic Youth they seem to abandon any pretence of traditional rock n'roll conventions. Instead preferring to challenge the audience with a mirage of soundscapes, feedback and noise. They seem to be pushing their instruments beyond their limits, thereby creating what can only be described as an improvisational quality to their music. They also play very loud, seemingly pushing the volume up on their amplifiers to 11 (old Spinal Tap joke there), which really creates a punishing noise that is not so kind on the ears.

It is clear that the band is making music for itself and not the audience. The songs as a result of this do tend to drag on a little bit, sometimes it seems for at least 20 minutes at a time, which means that there aren't that many songs. At last count about 7 or 8. In fact it was becoming increasingly hard at times to distinguish one song from another. There are some truly spacey and ethereal moments as well, that have an almost hypnotic quality and vibe that the band seems truly immersed and lost in. Particularly Cotton and Monolab. It made you feel you were living in the 60's and on a particularly bad Acid trip! This meant the music at times felt quite unnerving as well as fairly disorientating.

This arty approach becomes fairly mentally exhausting too as barrage after barrage of relentless noise and feedback is rammed into your skull. Make no mistake about it, this is very difficult and challenging music to listen to and you really do have to have the patience of a saint to really stick with it at times, which is probably the intention of the band. It was too much for some people who left the room, and I even caught some folks talking amongst themselves.

The majority of people however were mesmerised and couldn't seem to pull their eyes away from the stage, as they seemed to go into some sort of hypnotic trance much like the reviewer! At last with ears virtually at breaking point the band finish at around 11 to a somewhat disappointingly muted applause from what I saw as a very bewildered, confused and disorientated audience.

Even the band seemed so as they came off the stage. Especially guitarist Billawtm, who seemed to be off in his own world and not really aware of what was going on around him. Unfortunately the band for all its creativity, originality and cohesion as a unit do have limited selective appeal due to their challenging and difficult music and it is hard to see how in today's bland musical climate, they are going to remain anything other than a cult phenomenon.

Reza Mills