Event Review by : Chris Wild

I recently saw a show at the PHAROAH’s Den, Dec. 27th in Riverside (About an hour drive out of Los Angeles).
The night was jammed packed with BENT sounds & noise!
A wide selection of musical styles from ethnic world instruments to homemade circuit bent devices and ???

Phog Masheen had a nice set mixing strange & unique sounds from various world instruments w/ contact mics sending the sounds through various effects and even using a muffler from an 80’s motorcycle.
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gO-g1VNUbC0[/youtube]

He was followed by a special trio featuring: DOG, a member of Caveat Emptor and Phog Masheen got to stay on stage.
I missed most of the this set due a LONG coffee line..crap!
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3tK527Ke1y8[/youtube]

Following them was an awesome set of circuit bentness from
Skin Sink….with a table full of goodies and strobe light visuals…great effects & fantastic sounds too!!!!!!!
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nrPkQxs1uus[/youtube]

Then the building was BLASTED BY ENDOMETRIUM!!! WHOA!!!
Intense barrage of sounds, noise, audio spoken samples, the house system went out 2 times but he kept on going like nothing ever happened….you could hear his bent gizmos from his table when the sound went out. He got to finish his set with the sound system working fine. You could see him just behind a row of folks with camera phones and portable cameras flashing and filming. Cool meeting him in person, we have been emailing for some time now. [youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4en2x8pALl8[/youtube]

Quickly following after that was Igor Amokian w/ guest Karen Holland (Wirehere). The set started off with the Tutankhamun theme from rare Egyptian LP (Pharoah’s Den right?) blending various percussion & drum sounds from vintage drum machines accompanied by clarinet riffs though heavy fx gave the the set a middle eastern feel. This slowly mixed into 8bit circuit bent gabber session w/ a mutated drum & fx toy and other oddities.

The night ended with a set by White Marsh….with an interesting selection of electronic devices and fx that produced some real interesting layered analog and digital tones.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cMAmS5I-HvM[/youtube]

Tawee Kiva (the Host) was spinning electronic and avant-garde records between sets, keeping the vibe flowing…..

The projector was broken or there would have been some cool visuals on a huge screen behind the stage 🙁

Overall a cool night of BENT UP Stuff!!!!!!!! GREAT sounds!!!!! cool folks!!!!!! a Great post Christmas holiday wind down just before NEW YEAR’s eve.

See some gear here:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lNs-JGtr4yQ[/youtube]