Respite turns 10
Seasonal drone gathering takes the edge off of the holiday season
There’s no shortage of musical showcases and parties to celebrate the winter holidays in Atlanta. And while T.T. Mahony and Jeffrey Bützer’s cherished, annual rendition of Vince Guaraldi’s A Charlie Brown Christmas just hit its 10th year, 2017 also marks a decade for one the city’s most beloved experimental music traditions. Formerly known as Respite from the Cold, Respite offers a comfortable contrast to dusty standards or festive cheeriness. Rather, the annual showcase sources some of the best and brightest in Georgia’s sprawling underground for a night of droning merriment. This year, following stints at Eyedrum, First Existentialist Church, the Office, and Mammal Gallery, organizer Nathan Brown (Cave Bat) has relocated the event to Sleeping Partner Studios, Nathaniel Kiser’s home recording studio in Grant Park.
This year, rather than go big with an avant-blowout, Brown decided to reign in the party, opting for a more “a low key affair that would fall right in line with the original principle of the event, which is to create an ‘anti-festival’ of sorts.” As Brown explains, “Instead of loud music, it’s pleasing. Instead of standing shoulder to shoulder in the heat, we sit or recline sipping warm beverages while the december weather looms outside, unnoticed. Part of the ‘respite’ is a break from the stresses of the holidays.”
Still Respite X’s lineup is by no means modest, featuring seven local drone projects and even more to be announced. And while there are a few familiar faces coming back for another Respite, many have never joined in with the fun before now. As Brown explains, “the bands are...picked because they require what I think of as ‘active listening’ to appreciate, meaning they don’t give listeners typical arrangements and formulas. Because of the level of improvisation and loose structures, the listener is able to objectively interpret what they are hearing based on their own relationships with their own musical history and maybe fill in parts of it in their own heads. So it becomes interactive. I think this is why I always thought of Respite as a communal event.”
The lineup currently includes:
Dad Practice
Nathaniel Kiser and Majid Araim rifle through a grab-bag of kosmische folk musik and rustic explorations.
Duet for Theremin and Lap Steel
Trusty standby of Scott Burland (theremin) and Frank Schultz (lap steel) bask in a truly ethereal drift of sound.
Cave Bat
CL favorites emerge from their sonic grotto for a heady mix of inverted drones and freeform improvisations.
In Sonitus Lux
Serson Brannon (the Subliminator) leads this collective, culling sublimely hypnotic rhythms and percussive tones which are largely led by his Hang drum.
Brainworlds
Mason Brown (Flamingo Shadow, Hollow Stars, Jet By Day) layers organically ornate guitar melodies into a wafting cloud of blissed-out noise.
Suffer Bomb Damage
Local noise collective sifts through a handy arsenal of atonal shrapnel.
Renee Nelson and Paul Mercer
New collaborative effort of Renee Nelson (Envy, Flight of Swallows) and Paul Mercer (Ghostproject) that’s sure to to spread some aural charms.
Dubb Normal
Justin Waters juggles a looping array of oscillators and other anonymous sound generators for a dizzying display of rhythmic noise.