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Glasgow Implodes - Noise Annoys

13th Note, Glasgow, March 28 2009, 1pm-midnight
Nihilism and noise go fist in hand. Just take a look at the line-up of Glasgow Implodes, the fourth annual all-dayer of extreme noise terror organised by cottage industry label At War with False Noise in association with Zero Tolerance magazine. Vomir, for instance, is a Frenchman who, by placing bags over the heads of his audience while playing in pitch black at an excruciating volume, more than justifies the hype of ‘No change! No development! No music! No entertainment!’ he’s tagged with.

“He wants you to feel nothing,” Glasgow Implodes’ Al Mabon is at pains to point out. “It’s about wanting to arrive at the most extreme, most violent conclusion you can. To me that’s an extension of a punk DIY ethic, and I don’t necessarily see nihilism as a negative thing.”

Originally founded as a DIY alternative to some of the bigger experimental festivals, Glasgow Implodes comes out of a fecund Glasgow scene’s desire to get back to basics. With the likes of Skullflower, Gruel and Manchester’s Barbarians also in attendance for what sounds like an auto-destructive assault on the senses, some levity may be had by Atomized. This collaboration between Black Sun and Kylie Minoise takes 1980s disco hits as their starting point, only to render the likes of Madonna’s ‘Justify My Love’ unrecognisable. Not so much a remix, then, as tearing it limb from limb. Which all sounds novel enough, but how far can you go once you’ve taken things to the limit?

“I don’t know,” Mabon admits. “Can you go further? It’s raising questions like that which make Glasgow Implodes so fascinating.”

The List, March 2009

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