Seefeel
Synth East Live’s most anticipated event hit Norwich with a festival of synths, modular music, and a Q&A with John Foxx from Ultravox. But the real highlight was the night’s headliners: Magical Molten Modular Synth Adventure, Loula Yorke, and Seefeel.
NAC
Magical Molten Modular Synth Adventure opened with an intense, unpredictable blend of synth and modulation. We were instantly sucked into a shimmering vortex, tossed through a landscape of sound where the familiar dissolved into a surreal, unsettling haze. I soon found myself enveloped by shimmery Eastern motifs, ticking noises, pounding metallic drones, and explosions of wind howls.
The music had the feel of a long-lost transmission from a forgotten time, crackling and weathered by age. It started quietly, but soon the bass rumbled in, thick and heavy, grounding the sound with a solid, almost primal weight. Paulee Bow’s operatic rendition of Chris Isaak’s “Wicked Game” became one of the night’s highlights. A haunting, unexpected cover. Later tracks introduced the playful addition of tin whistle and drum machine. Here and throughout most of the gig, I just wanted to close my eyes and absorb the sound as a physical force.
Next, Loula Yorke took to the stage with her modular synthesiser set. Her performance was more deliberate, her hand hovering over the buttons like a fortune teller’s. Beeps ricocheted around the interiors of your mind, as if trapped in a chamber of mirrors. Her compositions were sparse, blending sound recordings with programmed synth lines, evoking images of alien planets and otherworldly noises.
The more you focused, the more your mind became lost in the odd whirlpool of noise, and the more you absorbed the murmurs of the crowd. There was a Mort Garson-esque quality to the sounds: some felt from another dimension, while others made the world seem slightly askew. Her performance carried a deeply feminine and tender energy, evoking feelings of growth and transformation. For me, her set was the standout of the night.
Finally, Seefeel, now pared down to just Mark Clifford and Sarah Peacock, performed tracks from their latest release Squared Roots. They created a more diffuse, celestial acoustic landscape, blending abstract textures with subtle dub-influenced rhythms. Expansive yet opaque, the music kept the audience at arm’s length.
Peacock’s vocals drifted through the haze, detached and ghostly, veiled in fog and distortion. The set carried a sharp, industrial chill, its mechanical precision occasionally softened by pulses and flickers of warmth. For all its atmosphere, their set never quite hit a feeling of transcendence that I was hoping for. There was no dramatic climax, just a constant sense of buildup. I found myself wanting more - more clarity, more catharsis. Instead, Seefeel remained elusive, slipping away just as you thought you might grasp them.
Yet, despite any lingering sense of unfulfillment, this was a Saturday night to remember. Live synth music undeniably carries an electricity recordings just can’t capture.
