secession update #005

___exp week 6
___exp #2
___supporting centriphugal

|| secession update 
   02/05/00
   #005

___exp week 6

the final evening of the first exp series came to a close with a sublime piece by ross bencini. commencing with melody not unlike that of a shakuhachi, ross took the sample and carefully caressed it into a myriad of finely smoothed out grains. someone described it like he'd taken a palate knife to the sample and spread it around the room.

prior to ross's set, i mixed up a collision of sounds comprised mostly of new material from the forthcoming lost_time_accident CD, 'herd listening'. several of these pieces are based on rhythms generated out of sync on several, un-connected sequencers.

___exp #2

the first series was so well received we decided to go straight into exp #2 which commences this coming friday, 5 may. more variety in this series - from hip hop vynilism to the derelict fringes of the avant garde!

| 05 May
sq^n.ch
quockenzocker

| 12 May
Tim Catlin
acoustonaut

| 19 May
Ollie Olsen + Andrew Garton
bags...

| 26 May
Warren Burt
Soahab
Jim Knox

| 02 Jun
Future Eater
delire

| 09 Jun
nat
Dark Ambient Operators
Dale Nason + Kim Bounds

centriphugal experimental 9 - 11.30pm $6 queen street, below mercat hotel, opp victoria markets

___supporting centriphugal

anyone read, thumb through or wipe down the windows with the 23 april issue of the sunday age? you would've seen this article:

http://www.theage.com.au/news/20000423/A19178-2000Apr22.html

the article paints a nasty picture of centriphugal as the low-end of melbourne's dance club scene. the journalist went further describing centriphugal as a den of drug dealers and hopelessly out of it kids. if you've been to centriphugal and experienced what this journalist claims to have experienced i'd be very suprised.

if you were/are as outraged as i was by the article send a letter asking for an out right apology. email it to:

editorial@theage.fairfax.com.au

those of us involved with secession, the exp series and centriphugal have written the following letters:

Kim Bounds - CHROMA

CHROMA adds our support as vision mixers for centrifugal_exp: the venue offers an alternative space to galleries, for new vision media experimentation at a level not supported in many places around Melbourne. The vision mix is also often complimentary to the music as a source of stimulation, rather than the promoters relying on drugs and alcohol sales to keep the patrons there.

Perhaps the _dark_ nature experienced by the writer is because it offers a more unusual night to patrons who are not the _guaranteed a good time _party crowd. From experience, I have noticed that anyone not familiar and/or open to an environment or people that have diverted from the straight and narrow weekend brick veneer path are fearful of what is going on around them with apparent ease, and _attack / undermine _becomes the standard knee jerk reaction.

Andrew Garton - secession records

I am writing to express my dismay at the accusations made in the article, The Ecstasy Users, by Sophie Doulez, published in the Sunday Age, 23 April.

The article paints a picture of the Centriphugal night club that in my experience is completely incorrect. I am the manager and founder of Secession Records and book acts at Centriphugal between the 9 and 11.30pm slot. We are hosts to electronic works from a wide range of backgrounds performed by young enthusiasts and academic researchers alike. If Centriphugal was the den of drug abuse as described by Sophie Doulez, we would certainly not have any involvement with the venue.

I have been organising Secession evenings at Centriphugal for the past six weeks and have not seen any activity of hard drug use. I have visited Centriphugal over the past couple of years and have not been offered for purchase any form of drug.

Doulez states that Centriphugal does not "attract the party crowd." The party crowd is not what Centriphugal, in my experience, encourages. From my personal experience, it's the "party crowd" that is generally associated with the drugs referred to in Doulez's article.

Centriphugal is a break-away club offering an alternative to the glitz of club land which is one of the reasons we decided to run our experimental sound evenings there.

I would like to see an apology or at the very least an authoritative article on substance abuse in Melbourne dance clubs. I for one am very concerned at the impact Doulez's article may have on our business and our early evening activities at Centriphigal.

I had decided to run our evenings at Centriphugal because I was impressed by their support of young, experimental and very talented DJs. These people would not necessarily find a venue for their work elsewhere in Melbourne. I was also impressed by the risk they were taking by supporting our initiative which, by its nature, draws an audience interested in sound as an art form and not necessarily techno or club life.

I look forward to an informed response to this issue.

Christopher Coe - Centriphugal

Centriphugal is an underground dance club which aims entirely at bringing new music and art to the public in an unassuming and quiet manner. We do not condone excessive drug usage, but we are realistic and if people choose to use then we cannot stop them. The kind of association as described by Sophie in her article is unacceptable.

From my experience in the club and dance scene I would have to say Centriphugal would be one of the most relaxed places with a lot less drugs being ingested there than in many other places in and around Melbourne. The people come for the music and the chilled atmosphere, they come here precisely because of the fact that they are quite sick of the frenetic party/drug/club scene elsewhere, they are older, more experienced and are well educated about their music.

That is what Centriphugal is about. We do not appreciate being described as "dingy" or being the only club mentioned in the article and therefore directly associated with the excessive (or otherwise) usage of Ecstacy.

Perhaps sensationalism is what sells newspapers but I would have thought that the Age was above that. We ask for an apology.

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s e c e s s i o n records || sound information ||
        http://www.secession-records.org