Review: Damo Suzuki + Kawabata Makoto with Sound Carriers

Hooks and choruses are for weaklings. At least, this seems to be the ideology behind tonight's aural assault of sonic death, bought to you by legendary Can vocalist Damo Suzuki and Acid Mothers Temple front man Kawabata Makoto at Mr. Kyps in Poole. Performing a fully improvised set with a collective of Bournemouth based noise-mongers, this was not a night for those who think a night out at Bliss or Toko constitutes hardcore. The crowd were made up of all the local weird and wonderful freaks; AMT obsessives who travel the length of the country to see Makoto attack his cheap Strat copy with steel rods; those who saw Suzuki with Can the first time round, and those who just wanted to see what the hell was going to happen.
The night was divided into two sets, the first distinctly reminiscent of Can, with hypnotic Krautrock rhythms keeping steady pace for the assortment of musicians to bend strings and minds over. Or to just swing a mic in the air and see what happened. Occasionally it seemed to lose its way, teetering on aimless dirge, but more often than not it was psychedelia at its most unconscious and expansive. Suzuki's improvised mutterings and wailings were almost an aside to the artful musical indulgence. Makoto stretched the limits of his arsenal to vomit inducing proportions. Guitars were never meant to make those sounds, but thank fuck someone has figured out how.
If set number one ripped up the book of music conventions, then the second set sodomised it and fed the raped corpse to its Doberman. It was easily the most ear splitting and self-indulgent spectacle I have ever seen. Whereas before the sound waves were exquisitely morphed into some kind of trippy tie-die kaleidoscope pattern, they were now being crushed, compressed and scraped down a black board until they resembled the sharp edge of a bread knife.
Almost giving up on traditional instruments altogether, the most impressive being a guitarist who left his axe feeding back on the floor to concentrate on a suitcase full of synthesizers and modulators. Makoto apparently couldn't handle the free noise, leaving the stage five minutes in (later blaming it on a broken amp). After forty-five minutes of dual drumming and free noise, I was finished. 'No more!' my ears begged. I felt compelled to obey them, and luckily the set finished. Awe inspiring and brutal, but in small doses please.
There were no students at this gig, and that's just unacceptable. There must be some of you out there whose taste expands from Bournemouth's infestation of clubs. Gigs like this come once in a blue moon, and next time one's on, go.