TQ Editor John Doran will be appearing as part of Liverpool Psych Fest’s Musings In Drone conversation bill this Saturday afternoon.
Doran agreed to appear alongside Anton Newcombe of Brian Jonestown Massacre, Sacred Bones, Rob Chapman and Diggedy Derek Walmsley of The WIRE magazine, after mistakenly thinking he was accepting an offer from Liverpool Festival of Psychosis. (Which is actually held on the second Saturday of every December on the pavement outside the Krazy House on Wood Street.)
After a reading from his recent book Jolly Lad and a Q and A with Julian Marszalek, Doran will be performing a hypnotism ritual with Raz Ullah, who plays synths and electronics for Jane Weaver, as well as being one half of avant pop duo, The Art Of The Memory Palace.
As our very own Tristan Bath pointed out earlier this year, The Art Of The Memory Palace’s album This Life Is But A Passing Dream "blends the omnipresent influence of Krautrock with an uncanny sense of hooky melody and icy vocals – the beats and distant voices of Beak> mixed with the dormant psychedelic post-kraut of the still leather jacketed debut from Ultravox! … it’s incredibly well produced. The pair have a collection of vintage analogue recording equipment, and speak of painstakingly going over reel-to-reel recordings of improvisations, and "bouncing tracks back and forth, giving them an analogue vapour quality". The freewheeling improvisations behind the end products here solidly root the music in 4/4 beats, arpeggiator settings and droning chord movements, freeing the pair to explore the cosmos up above with a bag of truly addictive melodies…
"In total, it’s an incredible debut, sewing familiar elements together to make something that sounds fresh and euphoric."
Doran has performed the Hypnotism Ritual with Arabrot as the closing act of Oslo’s Only Connect festival, at Supersonic in Birmingham, in a fisherman’s chapel inside the Arctic Circle on Traena with Kristoffer Lo and in a Swedish church on Midsummer’s Eve, not to mention London performances with Grumbling Fur and Keeley Forsyth.
It should be said that Doran is not a real hypnotist and has had no official training but by the same token he has no money so there is no point in trying to sue him if it goes horribly wrong. He merely advises that if after the ritual you remember nothing but feel an overwhelming urge to buy one or more copies of his book, then you should probably go with the flow and stick your hand in your pocket.
Musings In Drone with John Doran, Julian Marszalek and Raz Ullah will take place at 3pm on Saturday 26 September at the PZYK Cinema space of the first floor PZYK Gallery @ Camp And Furnace, 67 Greenland Street, L1 0BY
