Periodolia Paranoia/VX/Charlie is Girlie/Bloodstained Blondes/Weak Ends at Commune, Liverpool

Sometimes it's good to immerse yourself in other people's obsessions. No, I'll rephrase that: it's always good to immerse yourself in other people's obsessions. And that's exactly why I was at the tiny Commune venue in Liverpool last night.

Admittedly, I was primarily there to see VX, who of course have been featured numerous times in my Dandelion Radio show and did a session for us earlier in the year which you can still hear here. But VX (kit below) was one of six acts (sadly, I got there too late to see Fledgling Swift), all of whom work in the idiom of electronic and industrial noise, or in fact any noise. The result was a skull-splitting delight.

I got there just as Weak Ends were on the floor (literally), producing a mesmerising racket from keyboards and laptops, before Bloodstained Blondes took the stage, a harsh noise extravaganza gradually fading into a news report on Kennedy's Assassination. Charlie Is Girlie (below right) was a sensation, a backdrop of a melted Frank Sinatra LP almost blending into shocking (in the best sense of the word) noise intrusions.

Then came the mighty VX, blending pitch alterations with white noise which somehow managed to crank up the noise levels still further. Then he got the drill out. Finally, Periodolia Paranoia added discordant sax and the evening, somehow, seemed complete. And yet, heading into the backstreets that Commune calls home, you knew that any future exposure to these astonishing practitioners of the art of noise will take us into still more spheres of sonic exploration and greater levels of noise terrorism.

All worth checking out. Use these links as a starting point:

https://charlieisgirlie.bandcamp.com/

https://vxmusic2.bandcamp.com/

Google is telling me the others don't appear to exist, but I can assure you they do.