Thursday September 12th 2024
The Old Nick Theatre Gainsborough
As part of WLDC Gainsborough WordFest event (click here for more details on WordFest), there will be an evening of contemporary electronic music performed by three artists who all have links to Gainsborough.
gribbles (Graham Thorpe), Duty (Dan Doughty) and Subphotic (Rebecca Denniff) all grew up in Gainsborough – and all three will be performing tracks inspired by the town and Lincolnshire.
gribbles will be starting the evening off presenting a handful of tunes incorporating excerpts of recording made in the late 1960s of Tennyson’s Lincolnshire Dialect poetry written in the 19th century.
Duty is performing a selection of music built around samples from old documentaries about the county.
Subphotic will be presenting a set of musical improvisation using her time as a girl growing up in Gainsborough as inspiration.
There will also be an audio/visual installation using generative music, extracts from Lincolnshire dialect recordings and old photos of the town/county.
It promises to be an interesting and entertaining evening.
The event is ticketed, but tickets are free and can be reserved on the Eventbrite website here –> https://bit.ly/gvtickets
There’s a bit more background in the blog post from gribbles: https://gribbles.co.uk/gainsborough-voices-saying-yes/
About the artists…
gribbles
gribbles is curating the evening, and it will be his debut live performance.
gribbles is Graham Thorpe, an amateur musician from the UK. He has been described as a “British electronic music wizard” – which makes him blush and laugh in equal measure.
Originally from Gainsborough in Lincolnshire, like many he was in a few bands in his youth, playing local gigs and getting a small following. Then, again like many, life took over and whilst still keeping his hand in, making music was put on the back burner.
He picked up music again in the late nineties with a big beat/found samples solo album that drew comparisons to Bentley Rhythm Ace, and into the 2000s doing Underworld inspired semi-improv live electronica as part of the duo Aztechnology. Aztechnology morphed into quiddity who produced music in a mix of styles from ambient, through to big thumpers – “Like Underwork and Fluke have a Warpy face-off”, as one person put it.
More recently, gribbles has been mainly working on solo projects with the odd collaboration, and has been putting out a mix of increasingly well received ambient, synthwave, electronica and EDM tunes.
He has been steadily gaining attention with music being included in two mainstream Playstation/PC games (Polybius and Moose Life) from the critically acclaimed independent software house, Llamasoft.
His track Requiem topped the most played chart on SkyLab Radio in August 2020, and ‘I Was’ was chosen for inclusion on the Hippie Drive label’s debut compilation album.
Plans for the immediate future are to continue releasing singles/EPs on Bandcamp while working on a couple of longer form projects.
https://gribbles.bandcamp.com/album/hello-e-p (More tunes using the dialect recordings)
https://gribbles.bandcamp.com
gribbles YouTube channel
Duty
Then we have one of my oldest and best friends, Dan Doughty. A really talented musician and producer, we’ve done stuff on and off for many years – but most notably was the stuff we did as Quiddity. Dan is currently putting out some beautiful electronica under the moniker Duty. He’ll be writing new material specially for the Gainsborough Voices event.
Duty is the current electronic musical project of Dan Doughty aka Kosmischeboy. Duty is inspired by Dan’s love of synthesiser driven 1980s and 1990s music and the soundtracks of John Carpenter and Tangerine Dream. Recent reviews have also drawn comparisons to the Berlin School and the work of Claudio Simonetti in Goblin.
Dan originally heralds from a small town in deepest darkest Lincolnshire in the UK. He has been making electronic music under various monikers since the mid 1990’s; initially inspired by various leftfield industrial/electronic and avant garde artists along with the 90s electronica scene in the U.K.
Dan is also a founding member of multimedia collective “Quiddity” with long time collaborator Gribbles. An electronic project described as “Fluke meet Underworld in a Warpy face off” which can also be found on the bandcamp platform here:
As well as performing his own brand of industrial dub as Kosmischeboy for a number of years Dan has also worked with other musicians both in a production role and as a performer. Under the Kosmischeboy name he has remixed a number of artists over the years, most notably German industrial music giants :Wumpscut: featuring on many of their physical and digital releases. Other collaborations include the Dan Donovan CD “The Hexx The Ghears” (Produced by Gav Monaghan at the legendary Magic Garden Studios) and the krautrock/electronica collective ProjectBlueBook. More recently, he has worked with Temple Music, Orchis and Black Tempest as a synthesist/arranger for live shows and recording sessions.
Dan has gigged regularly around the UK & Europe, including appearances at Wave Gottik Treffen Festival in Leipzig, the BMW Festival in Ghent, & UK festival appearances at Supernormal & Woolfmusic.
I’m so pleased Dan is part of this – it feels right.
https://dutymusic.bandcamp.com
https://kosmischeboy.bandcamp.com
Duty YouTube Channel
Subphotic
The final musician is really exciting. She’ll need no introduction to folks in my electronic music circle. When I found out she lived and went to school in Gainsborough when a girl was a bit of a ‘small world’ moment. But once we realised that was the case and I told her that this event was happening, she was so keen to be involved.
So I’m so very pleased to tell you that Rebecca Denniff will be playing. Rebecca is a a freelance arts professional & works in a wide range of roles that include singer, composer, music consultant, practitioner, and trainer. Rebecca has a wide range of experience in music and the arts – she is a well known Community Choir leader and runs several choirs on a weekly basis, as well as running bespoke workshops for harmony singers regionally and nationally. Her work in early years music education and music education for children and young people with SEND, with a special interest in communication difficulties and Autism, Aspergers and other Autistic Spectrum Disorders is making a read difference in those children’s lives.
Rebecca has been releasing some acclaimed music that connects with a sense of place using a variety of improvisational techniques.
She is half of the Folk Arts Development Organisation, Flash Company, alongside her partner David Owen. They run folk sessions, education projects and put on concerts and workshops in and around the Whitby area. Flash Company Arts Ltd. CIC is an arts organisation with a difference, that wants to make a difference. Their mission is to encourage other people to explore their creativity, and to build strong communities. They want to make people’s creative dreams and ambitions come true.
In short, Rebecca is a fantastic singer, composer and musician, with a unique approach to her music.
And, like Dan and me, she’s writing some new music for the event. She’ll be applying the improvisational approaches she uses in her work to her memories of her time living in Gainsborough.
I can’t wait to hear it. We’re so lucky she’s making the trip down…
https://subphotic1.bandcamp.com/
https://bonfirehill.bandcamp.com/
The Old Nick Theatre
The Old Nick is the old police station, cells and courtroom in Gainsborough. A grade II listed building, Gainsborough Theatre Company Patron Douglas Parkinson leased the venue to the company for a nominal rent back in 1979, and they transformed the premises to create a Bar, Coffee Room, Costume/Props stores and a unique 55-seater theatre-in-the-round where the courtroom had been. This is a really special place, and it’s taken some real hard work and dedication by the various teams over the years to keep it open, though some challenging times. I’ve acted in there in my youth a couple of times, and seen plenty of other performances – that theatre in the round is really special.
Having them host this night of music is a real honour. It’s going to be fab.
Reviews / Quotes
There are no reviews for Gainsborough Voices yet…
Useful Links for gribbles:
Places I’m most often around in….
Bluesky – @grahamgribbles-co-uk
Bandcamp – gribbles.bandcamp.com
Mastodon – @gr******@ma*********.uk (My antispam filter might obfuscate this – click to view!)
YouTube – @gribblesmusic
Streaming stuff…
Bandcamp | Spotify | Apple Music | Amazon | Tidal
Other links:
Facebook – @gribblesmusic
https://flow.page/gribbles