After the success of last year’s visit by Lincoln’s 'Weird Garden' experimental music nights to London, here’s an even bigger, enhanced version, returning to the same venue at The Cass.

Weird Garden was invented by Dex, aka Tape Noise, as part of his $ell' Story - the idea of Weird Garden is a ‘weed garden’ of less-commercially orientated plants and flora, firmly rooted in the underground of unusual genres. Weird Garden events usually take place at Decimal Place, in Lincoln but are now venturing further afield,

This special extended Weird Garden at The Cass and is again curated by Raisa Constance Watkiss, & features emerging sound & vision artists plus projections.

In the main room the artists playing are:

8.15-8.45pm FLOODLIGHTS

7.35-8.05pm MODULATOR ESP

6.55-7.25pm raxil4

6.15-6.45pm GREY FREQUENCY

5.35-6.05pm TAPE NOISE

4.55-5.25pm LAUGH MOTEL & NATHAN T DEAN

4.15-4.45pm LOOP CYCLE

3.35-4.05pm YUMAH

2.55-3.25pm SCENTED POETRY

Intervals: EXPERIMENTAL SONIC MACHINES

In the Basement there will be projections from Lincoln Tape Club. LTC started in October 2013 as a chance for people to show & play their recordings, films, videos, slides, records etc. It was inspired by a radio documentary about Derby Tape Club. It seems that when tape recorders became available, enthusiasts set up tape clubs in towns & cities, though all seem to have ended years ago. This show will run from 3.30pm to 8.45pm. The Basement artists are Raisa Watkiss and Andy Benn: a nostalgic commentary, found images, slides abandoned at car boot sales, a dialogue on social and cultural history on outdated technologies. Installations including film, slides, photography, super8 projections and sounds.

About the artists:

Raisa Constance Watkiss is a 3rd year fine art student currently at the CASS School of Art, Design & Architecture. She is a conceptual fine artist exploring non-retinal art, experimenting with methods of communicating language by asking questions about art within a post modernist world. She explores film, super 8mm projections, sounds & noise ceramics, & installation art. Her current work ‘It Is What It Is And It Ain’t What It Don’t’ explores notions of the collected artists journey, which includes ‘air from there my fractured self’, exploring ideas & communication of mental health, anxiety & poisoned air.

Andy Benn is from Lincoln. He’s a talented photographer, & a great fan of music & art, regularly visiting & photographing gigs & events. He’s been involved in Lincoln Tape Club since it began in 2013 & has a fascinating collection of slides & photographs to show.

Loop Cycle is Dan Hickin from Louth in Lincolnshire. He uses an amazing array of foot pedals & electronic devices to create ambitious, powerful music centred on his brilliant guitarwork, vocals & human beatbox skills. He seems to be gradually metamorphosing from gig to gig into an android dedicated to bringing us fantastic music.

Experimental Sonic Machines is Peter K Rollings from Lincoln. He baffled the judges on Britain’s Got Talent in 2016 with his Experimental Sonic Machines. He makes most of them from scrap materials & some are solar powered. ESM started in 2010 with abstract sounds at open mics, & has developed greatly since, now with electro-mechanical music machines playing basslines & rhythms. In his shows he metamorphoses into beings seeming to be from other worlds & times, & is joined by robot drummer Ernie. They’ll be playing during the intervals.

Jez Creek is from Nottingham & his Modulator ESP project has played many acclaimed sets at Weird Garden & elsewhere. He makes fantastic synthesiser music, using an ingenious table of synths, effects & mixers. Vast shimmering notes, sparkling chords, profound bass drones, then from this melodies can emerge & go fascinatingly rhythmic. He runs the Church Of Sound nights in Nottingham.

raxil4 is multi disciplinary sound and sculptural artist Andrew Page, specialising in analogue electronic dronescapes. He is active on the London sound art, improv and noise scenes & further afield, recently playing in a cave in Italy.

Tape Noise from Lincoln synthesises audio and spoken word, to explore themes of economy, society & environment, as an abstract narrative, audio paragraphs from his sonic novel The $ell.

Laugh Motel is Dominic Carlsson from Lincoln. Dominic uses Casio keyboards, a loop pedal, circuit-bent toys & other devices to create music that shows the influence of 80s synth pop, yet having its own unique, quirky style, & adds live vocals, stylised & slowed down.

Nathan T Dean is from Lincoln. His main endeavour is Art Isn’t Sexy which started in 2016 & is all about encouraging people to get involved in art, & is especially about the more esoteric, unusual sort of art. He does an online zine called Esoteria, & does art himself, such as a 24 hour typing performance at the X Church in Gainsborough in 2017 creating a story in one day. He’s also involved in theatre projects such as ‘B Flat’ & ‘Room Service’. At this Weird Garden he’ll be collaborating with Laugh Motel.

Grey Frequency is the ambient music project of audio & visual artist Gavin Morrow from Nottingham. Through the manipulation of found sounds & field recordings he explores themes of memory, folklore & modern mythology. Soundscapes are crafted using audio cassettes, tape players & effects pedals, creating an atmospheric blend of lo-fi ambient textures, dense drones & abstract musical passages.

Yumah is Lucy Morrow from Nottingham. She creates enchanting vocal soundscapes summoning the ghosts of lost highways, abandoned buildings and endless horizons, beautiful & hypnotic.

Floodlights is John Alexander from Doncaster. He sets cine8 projections going & alters the film as it’s going through the projectors, so that the scenes gradually distort, change into ever more abstract visions, while he creates accompanying sounds from electronic devices.

Scented Poetry is Adam James Davis from Nottingham. He does spoken word accompanied by fragrances, scents & perfumes that tie in with what he’s saying, speaking of mysterious places & times, taking the audience on an enthralling multisensory experience.

There is a Weird Garden zine, & a booklet about Weird Garden, which will be available at this event.

Link: www.tapenoise.co.uk

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