Schneider TM & Christ Peel Session. BBC Maida Vale Studios, London. 17th December 2003. Brilliant pairing of Scotland’s Christ. and Germany’s Schneider TM for this, my final outing for 2003. Both offered up really unique takes on their idea of pop music. John was so impressed with Christ. that he…

Underworld Peel Seesion. BBC Maida Vale Studios, London. 10th December 2003. And so it is I close out 2003 with 2 trips to BBC Maida Vale to hang out with John Peel. First up….Underworld. Favourites of John for many years, they stood in for him when he sadly went away on his fatal holiday trip in Peru a year later. Anyway, it looks like the lads carted their entire studio for this outing. A cyclical, hypnotic performance that mutated and morphed with no let up. Saw them live a few times in massive venues, but nothing really compared to this.

Victor Gama + Max Eastley. ICA, The Mall, London. 6th December 2003. Victor Gama’s ‘Pangeia Instrumentos’ originally released in Portugal in 2000 then reissued by Aphex Twin’s Rephlex in 2003 was a total curveball from the label. A quite brilliant and unique work. It was a real thrill to hear it live at the ICA. A mix of improvised pieces and audience participation. Stylistically falling in between gamelan, minimalist composition and the void in between.

Gold Chains. ICA, The Mall, London. 4th December 2003. My slightly stalkerish attitude to all things Gold Chains (aka Topher Lafata) would continue unabated as 2003 drew to a close. A thoroughly entertaining display of showmanship with a suitably appropriate accomplice in the form of Sue Costabile. In a word: ACE! View photos on Google / Instagram

Clark / Calix. 93 Feet East, Brick Lane, London. 30th November 2003. Don’t wish to sound rude, but have absolutely no memory of this gig at all. I did think, did someone else from the Absorb (the old online blog thing I ran back in the day) crew go instead of me to review it. But no, looking at the EXIF data, all the pics were taken with my camera. And I’m stingy enough not to let anyone borrow it.

Pest. Spitz, Commercial Street, London. 28th November 2003. Yeah, Pest. Despite my aversion to a lot of the output from Ninja Tune, especially with stuff marked ‘Future Jazz’ or even god forbid ‘Trip-hop’. I did think their ‘Necessary Measures’ album was a bit of alright. Laced with a sense of British humour and was really weird in places. This outing flexed up their live skills to decent effect and resulted in a thoroughly upbeat vibe with plenty of oomph to spare.

Leafcutter John / Aki Onda / Tujiko Noriko. Spitz, Commercial Street, London. 26th November 2003. Leafcutter John had just released his incredible ‘Housebound Spirit’ album on Planet µ and was here to air it live with maximal effect. Tujiko Noriko perfected the art of torch song via MAX MSP. But if I’m honest, the real highlight was a rare performance from Aki Onda. Selecting cassettes of field recordings / experimental music and playing them back through a bank of walkmans that were then processed via delay and difussion.

Interplay 2. Spitz, Commercial Street, London. 20th November 2003. Reached out to organisers Douglas and Iris in help with identifying the artists involved at their 2-day event held in the ramshackle surroundings of the Spitz (see an older post on my tiny rant about what happened to this much-beloved venue). Anyway, this was seriously ace accessible experimental music. Props to both of them for running the much-missed Sprawl events back in the day too. None of which I visually documented but should have.

Gilles Peterson’s Future Sounds of Jazz. Royal Festival Hall, Southbank Centre, London. 18th November 2003. A packed evening of jazz, but not as we know it. Can’t remember the full line up but Matthew Herbert and his big band were the main attraction. I kinda remember him getting his band to sample the sound of cameras clicking and then creating a rhythm from that. Two Banks of Four were also in support. One member was Rob Gallagher aka Earl Zinger from Galliano. Gilles Peterson is obviously on DJ duties, but beyond that, my memory is vague. Can anyone help my fragile mind?