Live at The Event: Preview

Streamable preview versions of the tracks from Live at The Event have been made available on the Samekhmem last.fm page.

Listen and scrobble!

While you're at it, join the Tools & Principles group.

Floor Score

This image was sent to us by an audience member at Samekhmem's performance ritual at The Event Festival. We believe that it is the 'score' for the performance... not sure what the significance of the symbols is.

Numbers

Not sure what the significance of this is, but it was found at a site thought to have previously been used by Samekhmem as a rehearsal space.

Samekhmem Hamsa

My Experience with Samekhmem

 

Last Friday evening, I attended The Event – a night of simultaneous creative expressions at various spaces across Digbeth. The programme was extensive - too much so to see all, so I started at the Western most location - Curzon Street Station - and moved east to Lombard Method. I allowed the movement of people on the streets and blind chance to suggest the route.

The first venue held my attention for a just few minutes, but was well attended. I recognised a few faces and tried to remember names to begin conversation. Without succeeding, I left and tried to determine if people were purposefully heading somewhere, which led me to Fazeley Street. Outside the Minerva Works, I saw a familiar face, but with an unusual white shape painted on his forehead. I gestured to it with a an expression of curiosity, but he was talking on his phone. Intrigued, I entered the space alone.

When we enter any new space, we very quickly look quickly for cues to know what to do there, and how to behave, or memories of how we have behaved in similar spaces. Cues beyond signs and words. I saw a laden merchandise table and a smiling someone advancing towards it. There seemed to be some interesting offerings here, some in Hebrew, but my usual strategy in this situation is to retreat in suspicion from any immediate direct help from humans. I moved quickly into the space where I could better work out where I was and what I wanted to do.

The long space was rather dark but not uncomfortably so. The room was divided in two by a transparent, red film which reached from floor to ceiling. This thin screen entirely enclosed a group of five musicians performing in a circular space, surrounded by rugs and cushions. A few people stood or sat listening quietly to some powerful (if metronomic) drumming and droning instrumentation, all on the other side of the screen. For a few minutes I watched and listened through the red haze, happily accepting my place on the near side of the screen, but wondering how it would feel on the other side.

After a few minutes of becoming acclimatised to the space, I became aware of a black curtain at the far end of the room and another in the red half of the room. What I had regarded as deliberately inaccessible perhaps had a way in after all. I approached the curtain and was gracefully shown into a small antechamber by a bearded gentleman. Inside a young woman stood inside a white circle.

She spoke to me – I listened carefully but tried to assess more about the small room as she did – a bowl of milk and a large, partially consumed loaf of bread sat on a table inside the white ring (which turned out to be salt) and large, unidentified black symbols were drawn on the floor.

While I tried to take in details of the space, I was asked to repeat half a dozen statements about the nature of the group – now identified as Samekhmem. I usually struggle to remember sequences of words longer than about 5, but these words came to mind again easily. If I hesitated at any point during the recital, a smile from the host was enough to bring the words back to mind. I also forget names immediately, especially if I don't see them written, so I determined to hold on to this one. Thinking back, I can only specifically remember that the understanding of Samekhmem as being "beyond regular thought" and the last sentence uttered: "It has always been heard by you and you will always be part of it."

Having completed this, I was invited into the salt circle and asked to break off a piece of the bread, soak it into the milk, before moving into the next room. There was a pause. "Eat the ...pap?" I asked inelegantly and she nodded. I was aware that I was quite happy to follow suggestions that I may normally avoid. Had my mother warned me not to accepting goats' milk from a stranger? Finally, a shape was painted onto my forehead – I assumed this was the mark I had seen on my friend. Curiously, when recalling this sequence of events later to people, and myself, I would often forget to include this last detail which was surely the most intimate aspect. I would see others later with this mark and only then be reminded I wearing it too.

I was ushered into the final antechamber and invited to meditate before entering the performance space, in the presence of the seed of silence - that seed enclosed in a box on the table. More of the strange symbols were drawn onto the floor. I knelt quietly and contemplated the seed.

A few minutes, another dark curtain and I was finally on the other side of the red screen. But from here, the space of course seemed normal, and those on the other side of the screen appeared set apart and remote. I recognised a friend there and smiled at her through the haze. The music had changed to a slower pace and I settled on the mat and cushions. The members of the band had changing roles- a bass guitar may be swapped for a singing bowl or microphone, or an oboe introduced. I became aware of a large egg timer in the middle of the assembly – eggs and milk; I wondered about the significance of dairy. When the sands ran out, it signalled a change in pace of the music. I sat and listened. Sounds moved in and out of view, their shapes clearer when my eyes closed. When hearing new music I naturally try to identify a style, a theme, a cultural influence, an intention or experience my own doubts about enjoying the music, assessing it aesthetically or even just treating it all as a muted backdrop to my usual anxieties and fractured thoughts. Now, I didn't feel I needed to do this. Before entering, I imagined I might stay for a few minutes until I'd worked out what the intention or message was, then move on. Now, I realised that I wanted to stay. The latest expensive bauble at IKON or shoddy offerings of Eastside Projects could easily wait for another day. Samekhmem I repeated to myself – I didn't want to forget that name. I felt I would just hear one more minute and move on, then one more minute, then one more minute...that egg never felt quite done. I had the sensation of each successive moment being familiar for that moment alone, then seeming strange when having passed. I stopped being aware of the red screen or anything behind it.

Aspects of the performance were very close to an arrangement I had envisioned for a band I formed a year ago, but had recently been kicked out of (my experimental approach had not sat well with the classical training of the other members). I had imagined a scene with large hanging percussive weights and a selection of drone generating acoustic instruments, inside a circle.

I left some time later, my creaking muscles becoming louder in the sensory. I exited quietly, feeling I had not yet understood what Samekhmem was but that I had been it and seen that it was close to something I wanted to explore myself, for a long time. I left with the demeanour I'd assumed during the performance – one of quiet contentment and translucence.

My next engagement proved to be a strange counterbalance of the Samekhmem experience. On Floodgate, I arrived for the Supersonic festival, where (until recently) I had been expecting to be perform with my tuba group. As a gesture of goodwill, I was to remain on the guest list for free admittance. Our creative allegiance had grown sour and silent over the year, after an exciting beginning. It came as little surprise to be ejected when it happened. They were not like me. As I sought admittance as a guest of the festival, a pause and silence gave way to a feeling of quiet dread: despite my confidence, calmness and assurances to the young woman, no record of my name appeared on their papers. As my spirits ebbed, her suspicions grew. I'd kept (or forgotten about) the mark on my forehead, which seemed to cause her some concern. My insistence that I was there legitimately sounded less convincing with each iteration – even to me. I was not supposed to be there, and wasn't going to be allowed in. I was deceiving them. I was not an artiste I wasn't with the band. I had again been thrown out.

I uttered something about making some phone calls, and saw relief in the young woman's face as I moved away

I began the long, cold walk home, low and empty, wondering how this had happened. I thought of, and felt like, the last grains of sand falling through Samekhmem's egg timer. On that journey to the dry soft warmth of home, I reflected on the two spaces I had been to that evening. One had been unexpected, the other anticipated. One proved accommodating and embracing, the other hostile and judgmental. One seemingly "theirs", the other – I had believed – "mine". The values of these spaces and their boundaries melted and reversed in my perception of them. A felt red glow inside and outside me and the darkness seemed to lift. I imagined the large egg timer, grasped it and reset the sands to flow again.

Dream

I had a dream in which lightning did flash, frequencies droned and static chattered. The comforting noise came out of a strange landscape I did not recognise. A thought came ... it's from the Bible! The noise stopped. I was then at peace

Infinite

We saw into the infinite and it was good.

buz

It's follows me flows with me the buz. Sometimes it's listening to me at the same time. Speaking to me in the silent gaps between the hum. It's ticking backwards to an ultimate tone. Transferred via all other sounds. The keyboard in my head sounds it out to my mind.

STOP!

What??? No, please stop. STOP!

So it starts. This is the nature of a deep listening experience but soon my body and mind are consumed by the drone. It washes over me, cleansing. It penetrates me, oozing from my every pore. I am high, I am low…I am a blank slate again.

Zeroth 2012

I am at here then. Pushed my way past the strange crowds to the front. It's hard to see here. The grey smoke is thick. On stage it looks like four armoured knights wearing hard light chain mail suits sat on horses made of fire, but it's a black cloud swirling around them now. I can hear whispers building into layers, I can't tell where they come from. They get louder and louder, hundreds of whispers now, all played at once. The edges on everything start to loose focus. A thick grey blur spreading across my field of vision, turning into multi coloured static feedback flickering across my eyes. Then, the sound of a diamond forming under pressure deep in a boiling volcano starts blasting out from a pyramid shaped speaker. Some buzzing bare green light bulbs drop from the ceiling. The cloaked eyes appear and signal to one another in secret blinks, each one punctuated with the sound of backwards lighting bolts played deafeningly loud. The cloaked eyes have inverted crystal monochrome rainbow smiles. They chatter their teeth in time to the pulse of the bands heartbeat. They are wearing masks but the masks are really them. Safe only under the green light. The stage lights start to get brighter and suddenly the band start to transform into every band that has or will ever exist, flickering through all styles and eras of time. They play every musical instrument that will ever be made in a special pluck blow hit strum press motion that passes through every dimension at once. They start picking up the hidden sub note underlying the macro structure of the universe. Gently lifting the music out of it's prison. A triangular gate opens and the drones wheel in the modified chair with the sacred fragment floating in the centre. The music rises even further. The fragment rotates, then starts shuffling into all possible elements. A hooded hologram beats it from a distance with long unknown metal sticks. Each strike creates a different sound. The air around it changes colour each time. Horned things flicker into existence and fly or crawl away turning back into sound waves after a few seconds of startled being. It's filling the room with something now. Every one's telephone is going off. When you answer it's more music speaking in time to the drum beat. It gets hard to stand, feeling more and more dizzy. It's my head now, the instrument is my head. Any movement makes a sound. I blink a startled choir. My thoughts transforming. My breathing peeled back and floating off in coloured layers of sound. Eyeball sound waves. Easy. Tune fragment into self, back in the birth room of the pin men. A hexagon interrupts the centre of the room folding those standing on it into another world for a few seconds. It's all triangles coming out of the stage again. We are right here now I think to myself, this is where we are now, this now, this now is the future and this is what we have. We have more future now than we can imagine.

Flowing Meat

Time crawls, becomes heavy, the air is thick with it.
We are pinned to the ground by its overwhelming weight.
Our eyes are glazed, seeing into eternity.
A lava flow, endlessly delayed as it seeps over us, never quite drowning us.
We are but meat, heavy, leaden meat.
The sound vibrates through us, merging us into its awe.
Everything almost, almost, almost stops.

The Holy

The blood... The knives... The screaming...
The knives... My god, the Holy Knives

PSFA

Review of...

(samekhmem) walked onto the stage in a way that suggested eternal loneliness but when they began making sounds (loosely translated as music) their eyes shone like marmalade. A wall of dust could be seen leaving their collective mouth. This dissipated and left a void about the size of a small wall of dust. Somewhere outside a dog was eating some grass.

Somebody lost a shoe. Somebody began chewing on an imaginary wall. Chaos was nowhere to be found and… breeze blocks/hotdogs (delete as appropriate) were in short supply. The aforementioned dog was sick and then ate some more grass. (samekhmem) said something about blue pallets. All in all a riveting spectacle to be missed by all who cannot stand riveting spectacles involving (all of the above).

AMAAMAAS

Torch light

Azazel

An anonymous person sent this image to the Tools & Principles email claiming this to be a "future visioning" of the cover of a Samekhmem album called Azazel. We contacted Trojan Goat records to see if this was true, and they stated that "there were no plans for a Samekhmem album called Azazel".

However, note the use of the word "were"... watch this space.

Like the moth to the Eternal Drone

future wuhn (part 2)

First Samekhmem gig ever?

Joshua's army marched around the city of Jericho once every day for six days with the seven priests carrying ram's horns in front of the ark blowing their horns. The walls collapsed.

Is this the first ever documented Samekhmem performance? The elements are there: procession, the drone (of horns), and the ark of silence.

Does anyone know of an earlier Samekhmem gig? This one sounds awesome

Diagram

I found this while trying to find a back door into the Trojan Goat website. I think it might be a diagram for a new Samekhmem number... Possibly called Matter and Memory. Watch this space

Samekhmem - Redcar Church of Glue, 44th June, Year Gamma

You have to wonder if unsuspecting punters arriving at Samekhmem’s live shows should have warnings from the Government Health Sphere beamed into their skullplexes before entering the show. Any number of vital organs seem to come under threat during their 25-timeblock set and, possibly due to rumoured connections with important personnel within The Eternal Coalition, nobody seems to have tried to stop them.
Those present might come out wiser, weaker people, but this still turns out to be a unique experience which, at points, makes the son et lumiere eye-poppingness of Katie Price’s 130th birthday celebrations look like a tacky firework display in comparison.
The enigmatic trio’s avowed intention is to force fans to listen to the music rather than focus on their physical forms by obscuring them with dazzlingly bright light-suits which induce pain in the naked eye if gazed upon directly.
“It’s quite hot in the suits,” Drone 1 Sam said in a rare interview with Technocore fanzine Killerwatt recently. “But it helps create an atmosphere of anxiety and discomfort on stage, to match the emotions we wish to create with our music. We want people to feel pleasure, but with an edge of unease. Like tripping on a cocktail of Glee and Snore tablets, perhaps, where you always feel you could tip over into a comedown of paranoia and cold sweats at any moment."
The cognoscenti turn up wearing power-goggles and pale, light deflecting suits, but when the Sam, Ekh and Mem materialize, hovering a few feet above the stage, there is still a palpable sense of apprehension in this mid-sized venue.

They play only one, 25-timeblock track tonight – they play a different single track at each show – and it is simply entitled 'Pink Sigh'. Initially, it tickles our cochleas with lush, glossy major chords sliding blissfully around on a soft featherbed of somnambulant nonsense chanting. The gentle rumble of Burundi drums suggests distant danger and, just as we are getting comfortable, we detect beneath the surface melody a repetitious, hypnotic sequence of three whistles, a pink noise mantra reminiscent of the semi- discordant whistling moog riff that underpins the ancient Maceo & The Macks classic Cross The Tracks. Gradually that becomes more prominent within the sonic maelstrom, before another layer of emotion is released. Bursting out of the mix, we hear a sample of a child’s cry – culled, I can exclusively reveal, from Ekh’s two-year-old when she had a spork confiscated this morning. There is a pause after that initial cry of dismay, as the child catches her breath, which causes us to calm once more, before we are startled by the second, guttural tsunami of anguish. Each time it repeats, the unbearable tension builds again, yet the release of energy following it is impossibly cathartic.
Increasingly, at around the 15-timeblock mark, some members of the audience complain of feeling unwell, and veterans of previous Samekhmem shows offer reassurance, urging them to ‘embrace the fear’. Finally, the central mantra is played in an upwardly changing key, causing a feeling of rising tension until, as the higher registers are reached, people gasp for breath and their limbs tingle and shake with orgasmic intensity. There is no encore. How could there be? Physically, mentally and emotionally, we are all spent.
Anybody who, since the Eternal Coalition’s ban on procreation, has been deprived of that much-mythologised feeling of what sex is like, well, just open your orifices and enjoy.

Arts Appreciation Facilitator BS3588 J Sharp

'Found' Diagram

I found this old diagram in the Tools and Principles filing cabinet. I grabbed it off the stage at Samekhmem's last year's woodland gig in the Forest of Dean. I'm not entirely sure how to read it, but I think it might be the stage notes or score for 'Light of the secret fire', but I cannot confirm that for sure.

Oouroboros VII

My defining memory of seeing Samekhmem perform was the second time I saw them; I had some idea of what to expect but nothing prepared me for their rendition of the track which I was later to discover was titled Ouroboros VII.
Starting with a subliminal pulsing drone the room shook and trembled. Gradually a piercing fuzz became audible, whipping around the room and in and out of focus. Something like a Shepard tone seemed to rise and fall at the same time, infinitely. People all around me in the crowd were sinking to their knees, clutching their ears or clawing at their faces. I stood transfixed, brain reeling, the dimensions of the room indefinable and changing. Suddenly spastic rhythms collapsed into the space, relentless and slippery, the floor felt to be rising and pulsing. Almost silence, then a sudden Leviathan scream, disembodied agonised voices.
I don't remember how I got out, how I got home. Rumours that the air had been spiked ran in the underground press. I've had a skin condition ever since.

Shape of Things to Come

Despite their name spelling the Hebrew word for ‘drug’ (‘sam’), Samechmem cannot be described according to the journalistic paradigm that posits band x on drug y as the future sound of anything. Drugs would be too disorientating to allow for the kind of technical rhythms they insist on producing manually, despite having at their disposal the technology to make them digitally. At the end of the industrial age, Throbbing Gristle suggested that we needed to find a way to dance to the Tesco Disco. Samechmem continue the post industrial project by drawing their drones not from a mystical beyond, but from the inaudible hum of mobile phone masts and fibre optic cables. Rumours of the elaborate diagrams they employ in their lengthy composition sessions have abounded. But there is nothing spurious about the way in which their sound transcribes pictorial forms into tonal frequencies, borrowing from the Brechtian structures of Baptist hape note singing, which designates the names of notes as they are being emitted. That the religion to which Samechmem’s music corresponds has yet to congregate should by no means be an obstacle to total devotion.

Goatdaw

Goatspew

Cloaked Mem

New Trojan Goat Animation

I see Trojan Goat have got a new animated logo on their last.fm page, it's pretty cool:



I can spot some symbols for things like planets, Sun, Moon etc. as well as a spiral but there are a few I don't recognise, any ideas?

Not yet broadcasting

I was looking for future drone band Samekhmem and came across this:

Transmission from the future to the past seems to be an uncertain science.