LOUD: A Retrospective Look At The Weird, Wonderful World of EP/64

LOUD: A Retrospective Look At The Weird, Wonderful World of EP/64

Posted on: 04 Jul 2023

This Thursday, Bristol’s definitive, self-imploding, revolving door experimental/improv ‘band’ EP/64 will celebrate their lasting legacy at Strange Brew on Thursday night with the screening of James Hankins’ film documenting their final show in addition to performances from various collaborators. Tickets for this show can be found HERE.

 

 

Last year, we sat down with project orchestrator, Dali de Saint Paul, fellow founding member Dan Johnson and collaborators Silver Waves and Laura Phillips, just as the dust was settling on their final show together…

 

On Saturday 28 May 2022, Ephemeral Project 64 (EP/64) reached the end of its cycle after a gargantuan run of sixty-four gigs over six years, with new collaborators invited for each show.

 

The final instalment was one for Bristol’s music history books with all previous collaborators invited back for a series of improvised performances taking place over two days at the Arnolfini. The result was immense, with radical musicians and visual artists performing a constant stream of music, creating a microcosm of EP/64’s manifesto.

EP/64 (32) by Simon Holliday

 

For the project’s founder and spiritual leader, Dali de Saint Paul, ‘The Grand Final’ was a profound conclusion to an important chapter in her life: “I'm not a nostalgic person…but I freaked out on stage because I really felt like that was an important moment for us all.”

 

This is a sentiment echoed by Dali’s fellow collaborators; EP/64’s other founding member, drummer Dan Johnson said, “I knew it was going to be through the roof, but it was so much more - a universal thing.”

 

Dylan Mallett (A.K.A. Silver Waves) describes the final performance in almost transcendental terms: “I've never seen or felt the same way about any other performance, ever”, with visual artist Laura Phillips summing up the bittersweet finale as, “the sadness of the funeral but also the celebration of the wedding.”

Poster for the EP/64 Grand Final by Kinlaw

 

Dali’s infatuation with improvised music began with The Cube Orchestra in 2012, an ever-changing collective based at the Kingsdown venue. Fellow members James McPherson, Alex Jones and Harry Furniss soon invited her to join Domestic Sound Cupboard - an eight-piece jazz-oriented improv group - and they were offered a free monthly slot at The Crofters Rights, a night that would become semi-legendary in a certain scene. 

 

The genesis of EP/64 is vital to its musical narrative, in the words of Dali herself, “all these people around Domestic Sound Cupboard, they have also been around EP/64 in some way, it’s like an extended family.” Collaboration is the nucleus of the project, its beating heart, therefore, the words of those who were pivotal to its conception and continuation seem the perfect way to chronicle a vital component of Bristol’s progressive music community.

 

With Sound Cupboard being only a monthly event and a deep yearning for chaos, Dali decided to pursue a new venture, “I had this boiling thing inside of me and at some point, I was just like, I want to play more!” Inspired by a dream she had in 2013, Dali began formulating a brand-new project with a predetermined lifespan. From this moment, the wheels for EP/64 were in motion and, in 2015, she asked Dan to be involved, with the concept being to simply “play unique shows and record them”.

Still from James Hankins' film '64'

 

Dali first floated the idea to the Sound Cupboard group over falafels in 2014 and received great support from Dave Finch (a saxophonist and dear friend who sadly passed away in 2016). “Dave was a jazz sax player; the guy was 68 years old when he passed away. He knew the scene in the 70s and 80s, so he was very keen to do this kind of thing.”

 

Dave’s words of encouragement were important to Dali who recalls: “Maybe, in the beginning, I had some people kind of laughing at me when I was talking about that.” EP/64 began as a three-piece with Nick Janaway, who moved away soon after. As a two-piece, it was easier for Dali and Dan Johnson to invite collaborators and expand the “extended family”, laying the foundations for the multidisciplinary spirit of the collective – whether that be musicians such as Dylan, or visual artists like Laura Phillips of BEEF and The Brunswick Club.

 

Laura’s passion for the project is clear, “I was a punter for a very long time”, she explains, discussing her first EP/64 experience. In 2016, she recalls rushing to The Edwardian Cloakroom after a flight to catch some acts playing The Bristol Hum – a local experimental music festival. “I dragged my wheelie case up to this tiny Victorian toilet and I caught just [the] set out of the whole festival, and it was fucking amazing, oh my god”. 

Poster for EP/41

 

Laura was captivated by the “raw energy and vibes” and saw an opportunity for her audio-visual work to compliment the fierce live performance: “There's a strong historical lineage between improvisation, noise and pushing the limits of the visual field”, she says, describing the synergy between experimental music and expanded cinema. Using “samples, reels, loops” and more, Laura contributed to the construction of EP/64 as an all-encompassing musical force that hacks at every part of the audience’s senses.

 

This was an important moment to Dali, too: “When you [Laura] were first involved doing visuals it was for Women in Punk in 2018 at the Brunswick Club and that blew my mind thanks to your visuals.” 

 

EP/64 had incorporated visuals for a while, but Women in Punk signalled a radical evolution. Organised by BEEF, the event featured talks from creatives like experimental documentary-filmmaker Vivienne Dick as well as various performances and film screenings. “It was punk in filmmaking, but it also stepped on process and punk ideas, I had a 16mm projector and made a special set up for it”, says Laura. 

Still from James Hankins' film '64'

 

Dali describes her onstage state in almost spiritual terms, “You feel like there is something going on that you are not controlling, and you feel it with the audience, there is this kind of exchange going around - it is intense”. This is what makes EP/64 such a captivating act, the improvisation creates a synchronicity between both sides of the metaphoric wall – performers and audience are taking part in a one-off experience.

 

Dylan Mallet, too, speaks of the “language with each other”. “That’s why it’s so special …it is communication that you don’t have with words in the same way.” A long-time staple of Bristol’s experimental music scene, Dylan has operated as Silver Waves since 2014. He first lent his soundboard to the EP/64 cause at The Brunswick Club in 2018 for a show that he remembers fondly, “we just played on and on…it was that thing where you can’t control it”.

 

The notion of allowing yourself to lose control, to be truly free in performance, is one that Dali applies to her herself, too. “I do not prepare things because, for me, it’s fake”, she says. Her vocals are, therefore, truly spontaneous, feeding from as well as feeding the group. 

EP/64 poster

 

There is plenty of archival footage of the shows and almost all bar one being recorded, “Very bad quality for some, very good for others”, chuckles Dali before Dylan adds: “even in the ones where the quality is not the best, you can feel the energy. It wouldn’t be the same if we had seventeen mics on the drum kit and glass shields”.

 

With sixty-four shows played and around fifty collaborators involved over six years, Dali and co have taken their project to weird and wonderful spaces around Bristol and beyond. It has always felt uniquely Bristolian, however, the appeal is not something limited to the city: “People have always been excited to hear us”, explains Dan, “There's something about commitment and people recognise that sincerity and that we're not there for an ego thing”. Dylan continues, “EP/64 was always about preserving the pure essence and that's why I thought the final one was so special.”

 

And so, we are back to the sixty-fourth show. The Arnolfini proved the perfect venue, with a party atmosphere throughout both days as punters spilled in and out of the live space, lapping up the harbourside sun in between sets.

Bellies ! Split album artwork by Laura Phillips

 

The event - which was presented by The Brunswick Club and Schwet and supported by West of England Visual Arts Alliance - came about, as is the EP/64 way, through the project’s “extended family”. When the Arnolfini was initially suggested, Dali worried it was, “maybe too much”, however, it quickly became a reality. Dali describes this as demonstrative of what “a crazy idea coming from friends” can achieve, a near-perfect reflection on the project and the celebration of friendship and musical comradeship that the Arnolfini event proved to be. 

 

For those who took part in that final show, it was an incredible outpouring of emotion, grief, and pride. Dali says, “We went through a lot of shit: some people are not here anymore, and we managed to wait until this special moment to be together, gather, and create this beautiful weekend.”

 

For Dylan, watching that final set was a massive release of emotion: “I cried so much, but really with pouring tears, after watching them play and just seeing the unity in the room…that's the power of music and art”. 

EP/21 by Richard Broomhall

 

There was an impulsiveness to an EP/64 performance and their shows were always playful, the music unshackled, forged in the moment, not succumbing to the constraints of musical classification. In this respect, the manifesto of EP/64 is reminiscent of the golden age of the avant-garde - particularly Jikken Kobo, a Tokyo-based collective of artists, musicians, choreographers, and poets who operated in the 1950s.

 

American performance artist Allan Kaprow described his pioneering ‘happenings’ of the 1950s and 60s as, “something spontaneous, something that just happens to happen”. Kaprow’s statement evokes something that came up over-and-over again in our conversation, a connection that just ‘happens to happen’.

 

The kinetic synergy between artist and audience, as well as the vulnerability to open up to one another, is (according to Dali) vital, “it’s super-important because it's a kind of fight, this openness and I want that because people think they are open, but they are not”, she continues, “That's a real democracy, everybody's accepted and we build something new together and this new conversation can create something for the audience, who enter into a new way of thinking and it's important because we are not heading into a tolerant world, we have to fight.” 

Poster for the EP/64 Grand Final by BKV Industrial

 

EP/64 has been a singular social and artistic phenomenon that will live long in the hearts of Bristol’s music community. The predetermined lifespan made its urgency all the more profound and its finale all the sadder. As Dali says, EP/64 “has become something that will stay with us as long as we are here, and the archive will be as punk as the project was”.

 

Dali continues to make music with Harrga and Viridian Ensemble, Laura is involved with Viridian Ensemble and BEEF, Dan has a solo project and runs Toilet Fest and Dylan performs under his pseudonym, Silver Waves.

 

EP/64 recently released ‘EP/64-63’ Ondata Rossa on Permanent Draft label. While tapes of the performance are sold out, the recording can still be found digitally on Bandcamp HERE.

Article by:

Stanley Gray

Stan is a born and bred Bristolian, recently graduated from studying English Literature in Sheffield. His passions are music and literature and he spends the majority of his time in venues all over the city, immersing himself in Bristol’s alternative music scene. A lifelong Bristol City fan, Stan’s Saturdays are spent watching his team both home and away.