Jon and Libby

Conwy Brewery, all set up and ready to play. Just add acts...   A couple of weeks ago, we braved the Sunday drivers on the North Wales Expressway to pay a return visit Modulate TV's North Wales EMOM at Conwy Brewery, just south of Colwyn Bay. This time, I believed Marjorie the sat nav when she directed me down an unassuming single track lane, and we arrived in time and without a hitch for a diverse afternoon and early evening of live electronic music. First up, we had Jaques N' Their Box. Layers of soundscapes, industrialia, drones, chanting choirs, live sources from a small mic used percussively, and existential angst courtesy of live vocals. Etchasketch is an established EMOM performer and was also acting as host for the night. His rig consists of what looks like an IXO One controller feeding into an insanely complex modular rig with lots of live tweaking possibilities. I'm not a modular synthesist, so any modular setup looks insanely complex to me! His sound has a distin...

  Hymns For Robots is a revered EMOM-style night that everyone in the community seems to have heard of. Curated, so not quite a pure EMOM, the night is currently into its third year according to my calculations (though I may be wrong), and we were lucky enough to get a slot at HfR #40. There were only four acts this night, and each of us had a 25-minute slot to really show what we can do. So, up the M60, M61, and M6 for a couple of hours we went, and by twilight we were pulling into the car park opposite the venue for what would be gig number 25 on this strange musical odyssey of ours. First up was the curiously named GnomeFoam, complete with an excellent Ernie (or is it Bert?) raving hat. Good vibes, breakbeats and DnB were very much in evidence. He did mention to me before he went on that he sometimes gets nervous, but I think he has a great act and the audience loved it. No need for nerves when you get that kind of reaction!   Next up, we had Sylvia And I. This was a beguil...