Shayne Bowwnde (jp/aus), Fence, Richard Neave

Shayne Bowden is an Australian sound artist, writer and curator based in Fukuoka Japan. His practice switches between power electronics and percussion, and he has played alongside the likes of Eugene Chadbourne, Tetuzi Akiyama, Lawrence English and Acid Mothers Temple. In 2003 he founded DETERRA, an organization that has produced live shows by the likes of those listed above, and the AGAINST: Fukuoka Extreme Music Festival that has played host to noise legends, Incapacitants, Masonna and Jazkamer.

Fence is the Christchurch trinity of Into the Void’s Dave Imlay and Paul Sutherland, and fabled Flying Nun videographer and Terminals’ bass wizard, John Chrisstoffels. The formers’ guitar / turntable eruption is spliced open by the ragged glissandos and countershape drones of the latter’s Theremin and violoncello, producing a mud-crystal din that’s as rarefied as their appearances together as a cult ensemble.

Richard Neave is the Lautréamont of NZ noise. His phenomenological description of evil through sound, in critic Alex De Jonge’s words, forces his listeners to stop taking their world for granted. He shatters the complacent acceptance of the reality proposed by their cultural traditions and makes them see that reality for what it is: an unreal nightmare all the more hair-raising because the sleeper believes he is awake. Neave channels the twin infinitives of both Keiji Haino’s charged palmistry and Stephen Wright’s lethargic hilarity in one contorted Peter Townsend arc, swatting flies with decelerated, Penderecki-like precision and Harry Pussy-esque insubordination, and confusing R.L. Stine horripilation with fuzzbox Elmo tickle. Dexterous and Allergic.