Skip to main content

Alasdair Campbell – Counterflows Queen’s Hall Series

When electronic auteur Beatrice Dillon headlines the first of three concerts presented by the people behind the Counterflows festival of left-field music at the Queen’s Hall in Edinburgh tonight, it will mark one of the highest profile events in the city’s various underground experimental scenes. For Alasdair Campbell, former programmer of the similarly styled Le Weekend festival at the Tolbooth in Stirling before founding Counterflows with Fielding Hope of Café Oto in London, coming as it does at the end of the Queen’s Hall’s fortieth anniversary as a venue, the series is itself an experiment.

“When we said we were doing something at the Queen’s Hall, some people raised their eyebrows,” says Campbell of a connection initiated by the venue’s current head, Evan Henderson. “But there seems to be a real sense of the Queen’s Hall trying to build new audiences alongside all the other great work that they’re putting on from the folk and trad community to the classical work and some of the pop stuff. For Counterflows, that’s really refreshing, because we’re honestly not sure what sort of audience there is in Edinburgh for what we do, or if anyone will even come.”

While Campbell may be under-estimating Edinburgh audiences’ sense of adventure, tonight’s inaugural event sees both Counterflows and the Queen’s Hall score something of a coup, with Dillon’s first appearance in Scotland bridging the gap between club sounds and more insular beat-based explorations on a night focused on rhythm. Supporting her will be pianist Pat Thomas, as well as a collaboration between Rian Treanor, whose electronic rhythms here combine with artist and musician Paul Abbott. There will also be a DJ set from [Fraser, Ormston], the duo of Tim Fraser and Ailie Ormston, who previously performed at Counterflows in Glasgow.

The second concert in the series is a pre-Christmas special featuring Edinburgh double act, Usurper, whose duo of Malcy Duff and Ali Robertson have over the last decade perfected a form of goof-ball absurdism, and here present a new piece, The 3-Year-Old Hamster. Aine O’Dwyer will support with Aporcraphyl Hymnals, a festive collaboration with the Glad Scratch Choir, a community ensemble emerging from Glasgow venue the Glad Café. Opening the night will be Bill Wells, who will present a new performance, Winter Dreams, alongside Audrey Bizouerne and Danielle Price.

The final Counterflows event at the Queen’s Hall comes in the new year, and brings legendary saxophonist Joe McPhee to Edinburgh with his group, DECOY, featuring drummer Steve Noble, bassist John Edwards and keyboardist Alexander Hawkins. Also on the bill is American experimental vocalist Elaine Mitchener, who recently performed at the Jupiter Rising event at Jupiter Artland. Spreading the Counterflows Queen’s Hall series over three months rather than as a stand-alone festival is a deliberate move on Campbell and Hope’s part.

“Fielding and I talk about this a lot,” says Campbell. “I’m not that happy about the idea of all these festivals that go round the planet. We’re a little bit sceptical of that, because we don’t see what we do in that way. We see Counterflows much more as our community around Scotland, and these concerts are an extension of that.”   

While Glasgow and elsewhere have traditionally hosted high-profile experimental music and sound festivals such as Instal, Tectonics and Sonica, there has been a healthy network in Edinburgh at a more grassroots level which has created the sort of community Campbell is talking about. Over the last twenty years or so this has seen the old House of Dubois organisation promote an early gig by Godspeed You! Black Emperor at Stills Gallery, with Usurper’s Giant Tank promotional arm bringing a plethora of noise artists to Edinburgh over the last decade. More recently, Braw Gigs has promoted shows everywhere from Summerhall to the Waverley Bar, while Sonic Depicting brought the likes of David Toop to the Whitespace gallery.

In essence, the Counterflows series resembles some of the more adventurous Friday night jazz concerts promoted at the Queens Hall throughout the 1980s, when what look like kindred spirits of Counterflows such as trumpeter Don Cherry and pianists Cecil Taylor and Keith Tippett appeared. Occasional contemporary classical nights were presented around the same time by Edinburgh Contemporary Arts Trust. The venue’s current sense of rejuvenation in terms of contemporary experimentalism is heightened by composer Michael Begg’s monthly Liminal Nights series of intimate concerts.

“My history with the Queen’s Hall goes right back to when I used to run a record shop,’ says Campbell, “and we used to come through to Edinburgh in a van and sell records by all these free jazz guys at the Friday night gigs, where it seemed like you got to see a major international artist every week. Things have obviously changed since then, but what we’re trying to do with these concerts is to programme a selection of people whose work we know and like, and present it as a showcase of what Counterflows is doing. People say, why the Queen’s Hall? Well, why not?”

The Counterflows Queen’s Hall series begins with Beatrice Dillon, Pat Thomas, Rian Treanor and Paul Abbot and [Fraser, Ormston] tonight at 7pm. Counterflows: Festival Soiree with Usurper, Aine O’Dwyer and Bill Wells takes place on December 20 at 7pm. The third Counterflows event features Joe McPhee with DECOY and Elaine Mitchener on January 1, 2020 at 7pm. All events take place at the Queen’s Hall, Edinburgh.

The Herald, November 2nd 2019.


ends

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Ron Butlin - The Sound of My Voice

When Ron Butlin saw a man who’d just asked him the time throw himself under a train on the Paris Metro, it was a turning point in how his 1987 novel, The Sound Of My Voice, would turn out. Twenty years on, Butlin’s tale of suburban family man Morris Magellan’s existential crisis and his subsequent slide into alcoholism is regarded as a lost classic. Prime material, then, for the very intimate stage adaptation which opens in the Citizens Theatre’s tiny Stalls Studio tonight. “I had this friend in London who was an alcoholic,” Butlin recalls. “He would go off to work in the civil service in the morning looking absolutely immaculate. Then at night we’d meet, and he’s get mega-blootered, then go home and continue drinking and end up in a really bad state. I remember staying over one night, and he’d emerge from his room looking immaculate again. There was this huge contrast between what was going on outside and what was going on inside.” We’re sitting in a café on Edinburgh’s south sid

Losing Touch With My Mind - Psychedelia in Britain 1986-1990

DISC 1 1. THE STONE ROSES   -  Don’t Stop 2. SPACEMEN 3   -  Losing Touch With My Mind (Demo) 3. THE MODERN ART   -  Mind Train 4. 14 ICED BEARS   -  Mother Sleep 5. RED CHAIR FADEAWAY  -  Myra 6. BIFF BANG POW!   -  Five Minutes In The Life Of Greenwood Goulding 7. THE STAIRS  -  I Remember A Day 8. THE PRISONERS  -  In From The Cold 9. THE TELESCOPES   -  Everso 10. THE SEERS   -  Psych Out 11. MAGIC MUSHROOM BAND  -  You Can Be My L-S-D 12. THE HONEY SMUGGLERS  - Smokey Ice-Cream 13. THE MOONFLOWERS  -  We Dig Your Earth 14. THE SUGAR BATTLE   -  Colliding Minds 15. GOL GAPPAS   -  Albert Parker 16. PAUL ROLAND  -  In The Opium Den 17. THE THANES  -  Days Go Slowly By 18. THEE HYPNOTICS   -  Justice In Freedom (12" Version) 1. THE STONE ROSES    Don’t Stop ( Silvertone   ORE   1989) The trip didn’t quite start here for what sounds like Waterfall played backwards on The Stone Roses’ era-defining eponymous debut album, but it sounds

Big Gold Dreams – A Story of Scottish Independent Music 1977-1989

Disc 1 1. THE REZILLOS (My Baby Does) Good Sculptures (12/77)  2. THE EXILE Hooked On You (8/77) 3. DRIVE Jerkin’ (8/77) 4. VALVES Robot Love (9/77) 5. P.V.C. 2 Put You In The Picture (10/77) 6. JOHNNY & THE SELF ABUSERS Dead Vandals (11/77) 7. BEE BEE CEE You Gotta Know Girl (11/77) 8. SUBS Gimme Your Heart (2/78) 9. SKIDS Reasons (No Bad NB 1, 4/78) 10. FINGERPRINTZ Dancing With Myself (1/79)  11. THE ZIPS Take Me Down (4/79) 12. ANOTHER PRETTY FACE All The Boys Love Carrie (5/79)  13. VISITORS Electric Heat (5/79) 14. JOLT See Saw (6/79) 15. SIMPLE MINDS Chelsea Girl (6/79) 16. SHAKE Culture Shock (7/79) 17. HEADBOYS The Shape Of Things To Come (7/79) 18. FIRE EXIT Time Wall (8/79) 19. FREEZE Paranoia (9/79) 20. FAKES Sylvia Clarke (9/79) 21. TPI She’s Too Clever For Me (10/79) 22. FUN 4 Singing In The Showers (11/79) 23. FLOWERS Confessions (12/79) 24. TV21 Playing With Fire (4/80) 25. ALEX FERGUSSON Stay With Me Tonight (1980) 1. THE REZILL