Rage Collective at C.F.C.C.A. reviewed by Astrid Horkheimer

Rage Collective are currently five Royal College of Art graduates; Amale Freiha Khlat, Bonnie Wong, Camila Mora Scheihing, Tamara Kametani, and Yoshi Kametani. Their exhibition, '404: Resistance in the Digital Age' is on at Manchester's Centre for Chinese Contemporary Art until the 21st July. 

I was lucky enough to experience the Rage collective's film and sound installation when it first opened in May. Their unique presentation of old footage from 1989 and contemporary pieces from today is both intelligent and impressive. 1989 was of course the year the World Wide Web was born, the Berlin Wall fell and the Tiananmen Square protests happened. '404 Resistance in the Digital Age' uses events such as these as an entry point to look at how digital platforms have been adopted as the primary means of protesting.

Bonnie Wong is the member of the collective we have to thank for both researching into Hong Kong's history and supplying the footage of China. Wong also informs us that the Chinese word for 'protest' also symbolises the hand. In her opinion, protesting began as being a physical action but now in Hong Kong, everything is happening online. "physical protests no longer work and the battleground for protesting has gone digital."

Amale Freiha Khlat's contribution to the show features footage from 1989 which has been overlayed with images from video games. The artist has explained that, as a child, playing Gameboy, Tetris and Pacman was her distraction from the war in Lebanon. She believes Tetris was invented by Russia in 89 to distract it's people from the fall of Communism.

The C.F.C.C.A has been working with artists who explore relevant global issues from different international perspectives for over 30 years. It's great that they've given Rage collective a chance to shine. The gallery is based in the heart of Manchester's Northern Quarter. The gallery is free to enter Tuesday to Sunday (10am to 5pm). '404: Resistance in the Digital Age' is well worth a visit.

Text by Astrid Horkheimer June 2019

TEN THINGS WE LOVE ABOUT HOT SAUCE PONY'S EPONYMOUS DEBUT

South London-based Hot Sauce Pony are Caroline Gilchrist (vocals), Stephen Gilchrist (bass), Anna Dodridge (drums) and Ross Davies (guitar) and after a string of acclaimed singles they've taken their raucous grungy noise and turned it into one of the albums of 2019.  John Robbins loves loads of things about it, but he's narrowed his list down to these ten...

1)THE PINK ROCK PUNK ROCK COVER

Think the Pistols' ''Never Mind The Bollocks' or the first New York Dolls album – you have to be pretty hardcore to dare to put pink on your record sleeve,  The retina scorching front cover is only reinforced by the vaguely disturbing black and white band portrait on the back, which seems to suggest the South Londoners may have gone feral  in a forest somewhere and echoes the wild eyed stares on the back of another classic LP, Captain Beefheart's 'Trout Mask Replica'.

2)WET PET SOUNDS

The band's single from last year 'What You Don't Know' is basically a marital row brought to life, and all with the band's married couple Caroline and Stephen Gilchrist shooting lines at each other.  Among a lorryload of funny lines, our favourite has to be Stephen's enraged boast: “I'm drowning your pets!”  Don't try this at home kids.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B8K0eCdNDu4

3)'HO'-DOWN SHOWDOWN

Anna Dodridge's drumming cements the whole Hot Sauce Pony sound, keeping what would otherwise be a chaotic racket (just about) on the straight and narrow,  Again, there are lots of choice moments to pick from, but the tub thumping intro to 'Ho' is as goof an example as any.

4) 'CRUMBLE'S X-RATED SIGNOFF

Caroline Gilchrist's throwaway last line to 'Crumble' -  a casual but sincere sounding “fuck you, Crumble” - never fails to make us laugh

5) CAROLINE GILCHRIST'S MYSTERIOUS LYRICS

Seemingly pieced together from snippets of subliminal musings, there's no simple way to explain what's going on, but there's no shortage of memorable lines either.

6)THAT CLASSIC STEVE ALBINI SOUND

The band have played down the role of Pixies/Nirvana knob twiddler Albini, who recorded and engineered – he never takes credit as a producer – the album at his Electrical Audio studios in Chicago.  There's no denying, however,  that the impactful, raw sound is classic Albini, a sound that will ring a pleasant bell of recognition with fans of 'Surfer Rosa and 'In Utero'.

7) THE SMALL BUT PERFECTLY FORMED 'BURNT ENDS'

It starts with a grungy warning shot of gnarly guitar and bass and it ends a mere 70 seconds or so later, ending so abruptly it can't fail to raise a smile.  Nice touch.

8) THE  CHRISTMAS HIT – SORT OF

Er, well not exactly, but 'Christmas In Prison' is an oasis of reflection and relative calm amid the squealing guitars and rhythmic thrashing going on around it,  It's got a distinctly folky flavour, with Ross Davies switching his fuzzbox for nimble finger picking while a violin weaves its way into the mix too.

9) 6/8 GREATNESS

'My Pet Hate In 6/8' certainly does what it says on the tin, with a wonderfully lopsided groove and a structure that lurches from fragility to brutality and back again pretty much without warning.

 

10) 'LOUDER' TURNS IT UP TO 11

Hot Sauce Pony's resident guitar slinger Ross Davies proves to be equally adept at evil riffing and intricate fretwork, but it's when he starts stepping on the effects pedals that his sound truly goes into orbit.  Suitably enough, the album ends   with the sound of one such climactic wigout. More like the end of a particularly rabid gig, really, rather than a carefully curated album, but we're not complaining.

'Hot Sauce Pony' by Hot Sauce Pony is out now on Brixton Hillbilly.

Text by John Robbins June 2019