Review from Sound Projector
Singing Knives are a Sheffield label doing many exciting things, including organising evdeliciouslyents and musical happenings.one such is documented on The Wet Black Poodle Transforms (SK019), a weird thing in a tasty foldout poster printed in green and black. It’s a showcase for Ludo Mich, a performance artist and film-maker from the Netherlands [he’s actually from Belgium], who turned up in the north of England in 2011 for a few dates. He was accompanied by Syed Kamran Ali from Harrapian Night Recordings, whose album The Glorious Gongs Of Hainuwele still causes night sweats when I listen to it, or even think about it. Completing the trio was Pascal Nichols, from Part Wild Horses Mane on Both Sides. The resultant meeting of minds is an exciting yet chilling episode in dark experimental mayhem.Ludo Mich growls and howls like a wounded woolly mammoth, while around him an explosion of percussion builds into an intricate forest, the entire absurdist mess growing into even more unpredictable thorns and brambles. The palpable feeling is that we’re witnessing entertainment from another world, possibly Saturn or Pluto, an effect which is greatly increased by the dank and grisly echo which drenches both of the sets (Manchester and Sheffield), which may have been produced electronically but I would prefer to hope it’s because the trio of insane wildies were performing in cavernous, underground lairs, performing for the cognoscenti alone, far from the prying eyes of hipsters, thrill seekers, and superficial magazine editors. Great!