Second Square To None

To celebrate one year of SSTN and to capitalise on the general festive cheer / gloom we've got a special line up booked for Sunday 20th December in Twisted Pepper. It's been a good year for us, and we've got bigger (and smaller) and better things planned for 2010 - more about that further down the page. We'd like to thank all the artists who played, made artwork for us, or in any other way contributed, and the people who came to the gigs and visited the blog. Well done!

When: 3-11PM, Sunday 20th December

Where: The Twisted Pepper, 54 Middle Abbey St., Dublin 1

How Much: €ree

Why: Why not

Who:

Legion of Two

The latest Irish act to get signed to The Best Electronica Label In The World, Planet-Mu, Legion of Two consist of 2 veterans of the Irish underground, Alan O'Boyle and David Lacey. Alan is best known for his work as Decal, with releases on Planet Mu and Rotters Golf Club among others, and David has played in scores of bands and is active on the improv scene in Dublin for many years. Based on that description you might expect Legion of Two to be some sort of electro jazz crossover, but this is not the case. Slow, heavy synth bass riffs collide with stoner metal drums while scorched dronetones interweave above. Epic stuff! We've been trying to book them for months now and are delighted that they will be playing mostly new material for us on the 20th! Their album Riffs is available now from any record shop worth its salt. A recent live set they recorded for BBC 1's Mary Anne Hobbs can be listened to here: http://www.mediafire.com/?gz0tmm2uv4w
http://www.legionoftwo.com/

Cignol

When Cignol played for us at the first SSTN in November 2008, he presented the audience with a beautifully mellow blend of organic electronica. During the last ever DEAF in October we saw him play at Alphabet Set's gig in The Purty Kitchen and were blown away by the pure-jigginess of his set! We knew we had to get him to play something similar for us so we're happy to have Mr. Haddock play through Twisted Pepper's Star Wars sound system! In the meantime have a listen to his set from SSTN1...
http://soundcloud.com/sstn/live-at-second-square-to-none-30-11-08
http://www.myspace.com/cignol

ILEX

Formerly known as Fringe Holly McGowan is no stranger to Second Square to None, having been at most if not all of our events, and contributing to the Ten Second Rule. So it's about time we booked her to play! ILEX makes Sunday afternoon music - rhythms to excuse your shaking hands and feet, warm woolly tones to soothe your brain and melodies to soundtrack your movement through time. Word on the street is Holly is nearly finished her debut album, so expect to hear fresh material! To get in the mood have a listen to this net release on Alphabet Set:

http://alphabetset.net/audio/fringe/abcnet009-fringe-chairs.mp3
http://www.myspace.com/fringe1

thatboytim

Takeover Recordings boss and mixed-bag master thatboytim will be bringing his eclectic selections once more to SSTN. Currently running Takeover in new digital form, Tim is a busy man: check out the Response Unit 1 compilation that ushers Takeover into the digi-era here: http://www.junodownload.com/products/1472710-02.htm
http://www.takeoverrecordings.com/

Fran Hartnett

A veteran of the Irish techno scene, Fran has entertained many a crowd as a DJ, and is getting attention from the right places as a producer, with tracks out on Man Trap Recordings (which have been played out by Surgeon among others). For SSTN Fran will be using a drum machine in conjunction with decks, mixing a blend of the industrial end of minimal techno with electronics.

http://www.myspace.com/franhartnett

Swarm Intelligence

We're happy to have Stasis Records main dude Simon Hayes / Swarm Intelligence play for us again in a more official capacity to last time (i.e., he's on the flier!). Currently based in Berlin working as a music software developer Simon has been active on the music scene for a few years now, formerly running gigs with Stasis, and currently overseeing the development of a net label of the same name. As a DJ and producer Simon favours the complex end of IDM and broken techno, as can be heard here:

http://soundcloud.com/swarmintelligence
http://stasis-records.com/

The last of our DEAF recordings sees idiosyncratic hip-hop flavours and masterful turntablism on show from Galway group Vince MackMahon. Plundering a wide-range of source material, twisting them into seemless explorations of sample contortion, Vince MackMahon finished off the gig in style.

Nice dynamic progression in this set. Big washes of synth open it, gradually shifting to thunderous analogue percussion and pulsing blips. PMC work their big analogue gear set-up to deliver the huge warm sounds you've been waiting for.

PushMoveClick are a live analogue modular group. They use three modular synths, MPC's, home-made noises boxes, synths, effects pedals, home-made touchscreen drum machine and sequencers. They start each track fresh with no set structure so anything could happen. At DEAF part of their show was based on creating a piece using random pieces of audio which were submitted to Second Square to None for our Ten Second Rule project. All the audio was processed through the modular synths and various machines. The rest of the show was then improvised with no set rules or boundaries.

Fionn Wallace (Fyodor) has been doing a radio show on Belfield FM that showcases an eclectic mix of quality music. He has now put some of the shows online & they are well worth checking out. Tracklist & info here.