If you’ve been following our regular Hyperspecific electronic music column, you’ll know we’re great followers of Jamal ‘Hieroglyphic Being’ Moss. You’ll also know we’re similarly enamoured with Mark Fell (one half of Sheffield glitch pioneers snd) whose recent work has dissected and reassembled house music into detailed club constructions, and Bristol’s Young Echo collective, the crew featuring the likes of Vessel, Kahn and recent Quietus interviewee El Kid.
Qu Junktions and Idle Hands have assembled all the above for a formidable night in Bristol’s Croft on October 13th, whose line-up looks like one of the best we’ve seen in ages (at least, if you’re a fan of forward thinking dance music).
Hieroglyphic Being will be headlining, exploring the cosmic outer reaches of house, techno, disco and jazz. His sets are renowned for combining varied selection with sudden, provocative shifts in energy, style and tempo. After we saw him at CTM earlier this year, we said: "Most interesting is his total disregard for dance music’s usual notions of tempo consistency – he regularly cuts one track straight into the next mid-bar, dropping instantly from brisk house clip to slow disco rumble. He also plays his decks’ pitch-faders like extra instruments, often slurring tempos down by 8% and distending tracks outward into grotesque versions of themselves. The whole experience is exhausting to keep up with, the consistent jolting shifts in energy leaving only devoted dancers on the floor. But it’s also hugely exciting to move to."
Mark Fell will be playing his Multistability set, based on his album of the same name, which was released through revered Berlin label Raster-Noton.
In the front room of the Croft, meanwhile, the entire Young Echo collective will be taking over the space for the night. Their regular online radio shows, which tend to stretch, unbroken, for five hours or more, should give some idea of what to expect: tracks rooted in dub and sound system culture, but drawing outwards equally for house, dubstep, garage and more esoteric noise musics.
