Recording: Nightmare Alley

Artist: Nightmare Alley

Song: Of Being Numerous [excerpt] [from the poem by George Oppen]

Recorded at The Tranzac's Southern Cross Lounge (SynapticCircusSundays), December 30, 2018.

Nightmare Alley - Of Being Numerous [excerpt]

For my final gig of the year, I had the honour of guest-hosting Nilan Perera's Synaptic Circus monthly, so I asked some friends to play. Given a slot to do whatever he wanted, guitarist Kurt Newman took a risk, eschewing his ususal projects to experiment with uneasy listening textures and user-unfriendly spiky dynamics — call it Haino-eque spoken word theatre. Enlisting Picastro's Liz Hysen to sing some excerpts from George Oppen's "Of Being Numerous", Newman controlled the effects on both guitar and voice for a holiday downer session lurching like an undead thespian hastily reanimated from jury-rigged leftover body parts.

[Synaptic Circus will be back at The Tranzac on Sunday, February 24th, featuring a vocal set from Paul Dutton, Christine Duncan, Liz Lima and Laura Swankey as well as a duo set from Paul Newman and Heather Saumer.]