As expected, the Mute Short Circuit festival at London's Roundhouse last weekend was something really special, although a little busy in places, meaning quite a lot of people wouldn't have got to see artists they'd perhaps wished if they were performing in the smaller of the rooms being used. Due to a bit of advance planning, though, we weren't struck by this too badly, although we couldn't get into a talk being given by Gareth Jones on the Saturday morning in an 80 capacity boardroom(!!!) and missed the first few minutes of Komputer's set as the room was already full and we had to wait for people to come out. The area around where Daniel Miller and later Gudrun Gut were djing was unbearably packed on the Friday night, too, so we decided to go home before she came on.
Overall, though, it was brilliant and I reckon I certainly got my money's worth, seeing complete sets by Carter Tutti with Nik Void, NON, Richard H. Kirk, Simon Fisher Turner, The Residents, Yazoo/Erasure/The Assembly and Laibach and partial sets by Komputer, Balanescu Quartet, Nitzer Ebb, Liars, Maps/Polly Scattergood and SCUM, as well as experiencing bits of various other people dj-ing (Daniel Miller, Martin Gore and Andrew Fletcher from Depeche Mode, members of Renegade Soundwave and Kumo playing selections from Can with Irmin Schmidt on hand to discuss what he'd just selected). I think, for me, Carter Tutti with Nik Void were the absolute highlight but I also really enjoyed Simon Fisher Turner's "Dead Men Can't Run" piece (complete with its own dead man running, not running, crawling across the floor and climbing up the walls), Yazoo/Erasure and Laibach, especially their version of "Warm Leatherette". Hearing Andrew Fletcher filling the main hall with "Empire State Human" and "Lady Shave" was a bit of a thrill, too.
In light of the fact that there's far too much to write about, here's a few photographs I took. There seem to be rather a lot of Boyd Rice, though. I hope people don't start to talk!
Komputer
Carter Tutti
NON
The Residents
