Candles flickered in the darkness as Graham Lambkin stood assertively over his equipment, a glass of whiskey in his right hand and a blue shirt on his back; there was something about the scene that didn’t quite fit. But then I wasn’t sure what I should be expecting. Jason Lescalleet was sitting opposite eating a satsuma, a crumpled cardboard box over his Casio worked as a dinner plate for collecting peel and pith as Lambkin rested his glass on the table and began flicking switches on his laptop. Faces in the audience were difficult to make out, the mood snug with a cozy twist of herbal tea and stout that lingered in the air while couples shared the last of their coconut cookies, consumed throughout the course of Rhodri Davies’ amplified harp set. Sound began to seep out of the speakers, an electric barracuda caught in barbed wire, rustling, cracking, and snapping as Lescalleet returned to his reel-to-reel gear for spool manipulations.
Lambkin covered a microphone with plastic and dragged it across the edge of the surface supporting his mixing desk, some choral dirge he had been looping faded out and the collaborators continued their fiddling. Prongs, clatters, and high-pitched pulses burst out of the speakers. Folk held their hands to their ears and winced while others lovingly beamed. Lambkin finished his whiskey, draped a microphone over his shoulders, and bobbed at the buzz as it banged against the tape recorder he held with careful hands. Once the penetrating bulges peaked, the volume shrank and lit the way for aquatic sampling. The performers bowed to their audience, clapping ensued, and we vacated the premises.