Eumig – Live Recordings 2018

Live recordings within the ambient and experimental music scene aren’t as widely available as I believe they should be. Before the dominance of YouTube, the ‘live album’ and bootleg recordings of the artists I admired were often of more interest than the studio recordings. There are a lot of artists residing in our niche area of music that do not perform in a live context for a plethora of reasons, but when I’m given the chance to hear the raw and unmediated efforts of a musician without the comforts of another take, I’m excited.

Emuig is the experimental outlet of Nick Dawson; the musician from Southend-on-Seawho does a stellar job hosting the Otherwires radio show alongside James Green. Eumig’s ‘Live Recordings 2018’ consists of six excerpts that reveal the improvised approach to experimental music captured during live performances.

‘Levitation’, ‘Molecules Forming’, and ‘Waves Crashing in an Analog Beach’ were recorded at Hadleigh Old Fire Station, an arts and cultural hub situated in Handleigh, Essex. The sound of the performance space is evident; beginning with the shuffling of the audience before synthesised sounds fill the room. Eumig’s performance translates well into a retrospective listening experience; the long-form drones, undulating through gentle rises, intense peaks, and relieved descends, ending in applause.

The second selection of recordings were gathered at Control Voltage II (The Railway Hotel, Southend-on-Sea).‘In the Shadow of the Graf’ builds upon gentle foundations; a dreamy approach to synthesised textures expressing the subtle deviations of analogue equipment. The abstracted and manipulated drums of ‘Kidney Stones’ provide an interlude of sorts, bridging the gap to the darker sounds of ‘Glacier’, wherein the sounds of controlled malfunction and dissonance take on a life of their own.

‘Live Recordings 2018’ offers a unique opportunity for the listener to hear the improvised works of Eumig as they unfold, alive and authentic.

Eumig – ‘Live Recordings 2018’ is available as a digital download via the artist’s own Bandcamp page.