We are so happy that the Séance peeps are back at The Rose Hill, their events are always abit like a dream and a ritual all at the same time – always curated beautifully with longer form meditative experimental sounds- can’t wait ! Here’s what they are saying about it :
Bringing another arcane evening of invocatory sound and song to herald the Summer Solstice, as hosted by the Séance radio programme.
As our attendees continue to attest, each of our prior Séances has been a beautiful confluence of un/like minds, singular noisemakers and pervasive bewitchment, so it thrills us to announce the following participants in the fourth Séance manifestation at the glorious Rose Hill:
Athina B.
Helmed by Séance favourites YOU&TH and Rdyer, Athina B turn found sounds, layered violin, bells, polyrhythms, harps, chants and charms into semi-improvised paeans to time and life and joy.
Linden Pomeroy
American Primitive fingerpicking as distilled in the alembic of Sussex mythologies.
Linden is a West Sussex-based guitar player blending the rhythmic drive of American Primitive fingerpicking with the haunting, folkloric landscapes of the South Downs, Linden creates a deeply immersive solo acoustic experience. Themes of occult mysteries, ghosts and esotericism are woven into his sets offering an evocative take on contemporary British fingerstyle guitar.
‘Equally informed by British folklore and the rudra veena-playing of Asad Ali Khan. It’s the work of a musician whose idiosyncrasies have a devotional, ritualistic quality.” – Bandcamp Daily
He’s performed at Lewes Psychedelic Festival in 2019 and 2023, and alongside acts such as Julia Holter, Tashi Wada, Zoff, Daisy Rickman, Buck Curran, Gwenifer Raymond, Jali Bakary Konteh and more. With releases on Ramble Records, Third Kind Records and Illuminated Paths.
“His playing is effortless and reminds us of the Hull troubadour Michael Chapman. That is high praise indeed.” – Brighton Source
UnicaZürn is comprised of long time Amal Gamal Ensemble colleagues David Knight and Stephen Thrower. David is a former an alumni of outsider luminaries Shock Headed Peters, a songwriting partner of their legendary associate Danielle Dax, and a supplier of guitar atmos for Lydia Lunch. Stephen is elsewhere one half of the mighty Cyclobe and elsewhen one third of Coil across their post-industrial golden era (from albums Scatology through to Love’s Secret Domain and encompassing Horse Rotorvator and the infamous unused soundtrack for Hellraiser). Variously blending analog synthesizer, mellotron, and electric piano with electric guitar and saxophone, live actions by this elusive duo are rare and so this gathering will be especially essential for afficionados of the hidden reverse and for lovers of exploratory, transcendent electronics.
‘You can just listen casually, of course, but you probably should start paying attention because, in amongst the evolving synthesizer strains, spreading out like bacteria on substrate, there are micro-patterns of detail and a gentle fuzzing of the edges, which has the result of making objects around you feel as if they are slightly glowing.’ Freq
As our attendees continue to attest, each of our prior Séances has been a beautiful confluence of un/like minds, singular noisemakers and pervasive bewitchment. Our very first opening act was beloved Sussex avant-folkers Sairie, whom just one song in we knew we’d be wanting on board again. It’s time, then. Central to Sairie’s unique and beautiful thing is their repertoire of remarkable interpretations of songs ancient and not so; starkly enchanting songcraft executed with an heady undertow of ivy-covered melancholy.
‘Their haunting style retains the English folk tradition nurtured by Anne Briggs and Shirley Collins.’ The Wire
The Séance was an early radio adopter of Nuclear Whale‘s maximalist electronic churn which has mutated over the subsequent two decades into a wayward cyclopean hybrid barely helmed by Jonathan Riddler and spiked with the guerilla philosphy of Kurt Vonnegut, the post-apocalyptic medeivalism of Paul Kingsnorth’s ‘The Wake’, and Riddler’s own hermetic mythologies ‘of hubris and aliens’.
‘Carpenter-esque arpeggios from the chapel organ invoke nightmare melodies that grow and envelop us in their dark embrace. A squelching Lovecraftian march…’ Spirit of Gravity
Near-weekly Séance channelings have occurred variously via the Repeater Radio and Slack City motherships since 2008. Born from a series of all-day musical pub sessions in the mid noughties and named after the 1964 Bryan Forbes film Séance on a Wet Afternoon, each show is a digressive wallow in the astral hinterlands of esoteric pop, buried soundtrack treasure, new and old electronic grot, folk musics psych and trad, freeform misshapes, arcane dub effluvium, modern composition, covetable new releases and whatever else happens to be punching their ticket at the time.
‘Thrillingly eclectic.’ The Guardian
