Summer Always Summer – Philadelphia Reflections
6.13.14 by Jamie Orlando

Despite not being familiar with any of the three artists, my eyes lit up when I saw that “Hospital Productions Presents: Clay Rendering, Lussuria, Dual Action” was hitting Philly; The half way marker for the two week Summer Always Summer tour that started in Cleveland, shot out east, and wraps up tonight in Kentucky.  Hospital Productions is of course the infamous label run by noise guru Dominick Fernow, known primarily as Prurient. This label literally has hundreds of releases and has been going strong since ‘98, so I have mad respect for them. Tickets were only $10, and the allure of a Hospital Productions merch table featuring obscure, rare, and out-of-print Hospital releases pretty much sealed the deal for me.

On Friday, the 6th of June, 2014, myself and a small posse departed our humble state of Delaware for the city of Brotherly Love, slurped down some ramen at Terakawa Ramen (incredible), and then hit the gig which was at the First Unitarian Church: Side Chapel. For those that haven’t been blessed to see a show in this location, it is pretty much exactly what it sounds like: a gothic-looking church room, adorned with ornate wood, high ceilings, pews, a piano and an upper balcony with a church organ. It’s very small, probably only seating about 50-60, but an extremely intimate and vibey place to see a show.

As soon as doors opened, we went straight to merch to try to scoop up some weird and wacky tapes. There was all kinds of stuff there, including a brand new 6 cassette box set from Vatican Shadow. Only $100. Tempting, but unless you’re a diehard fan, methinks there’s better ways to spend $100. In fact most of the rare stuff was priced accordingly to what you might pay online. $70 for a single cassette? Well, some of us are not made of money, so we went for the cheaper stuff. Snagged some Prurient, Ash Pool, Mitochondrial DNA, Lussuria and a crazy looking double C110 comp entitled “White Eye Of Winter Watching” (this one was only $5, has an amazing lineup, and looks sharp in a double-wide case.)

After merch, we assembled in our pews, and the show started shortly thereafter. Dual Action came out first, treating us to about 5 minutes of suspenseful drones, before dropping some beats on us. Lo-fi, reverb-soaked, industrial beats that is. Dude was up there jamming HARD, and he really captivated the audience. The set was short and simple, under 20 minutes, and left us wanting more.

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Next came Lussuria. His set was a bit darker and was the personal highlight of the show for me. With nothing more than a few pedals, a microphone and a sampler pad, he created rich textures, eerie drones, demented vocals, and some more of those tasty lo-fi, reverb-soaked, industrial beats. I’m sensing a theme here. Again, another short set; less than 20 minutes. He ended the set by leaving stage for about 2 minutes while the samples looped and the reverb decayed, which was a nice touch.

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Finally, Clay Rendering, the headliner, took the stage. The little I know about them is that it is a husband and wife duo of Mike Connelly and Tara Connelly. Mike is mainly known for his work in Wolf Eyes, but has a ton of other projects. This set was quite a bit different in that there were actual songs, with actual lyrics. Mike played guitar and sang, while Tara played the accordion and occasionally a keyboard. Of course, all the instruments were drenched in effects to give it somewhat of a shoegazey aura. The songs were heavy and full of emotion. More lo-fi, reverb-soaked industrial beats as well. For one short interlude, Tara went over to the church piano and played some haunting melodies. I kind of wish she had played that huge church organ. In fact, I wish ANYONE had played that thing. C’mon guys. Talk about a missed opportunity. I digress. So the Clay Rendering set was actually really good. As is the norm for a headliner, they played longer than the openers, though only for about 15 minutes longer, which makes it one of the shortest headlining sets I’ve ever seen. But you know what? Good for them. I am a fan of short sets. And for a $10 show, we still got our money’s worth.

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Being that all 3 sets were so short, we actually got out of there pretty early. Had to use some willpower to walk by the merch table again without getting more swag. The LPs were just begging me to buy them, but I exercised some restraint, and declined. For now. Kudos to all the performers, and for Hospital Productions for putting on a fine show. Hope to hear much more from this label and these artists in the future. In the meantime, please go over to https://hospitalproductions.net and buy some of their stuff. You will not be let down.

Now lets quickly talk about some of the tapes I picked up:

Lussuria – Immemorial (Hospital Productions) 2014
I was surprised to hear that this sounded a bit different from his live set. Much more atmospheric and ambient. 2 cassettes chock full of haunting drones, packaged in a paper envelope, only available on tour dates. If you can find it, grab it!

Mitochondrial DNA – Powercrash (Hospital Productions) 2012
Super harsh jams between Dominick Fernow and Mike Connelly. C10. Short and tasty.

Ash Pool – Cremation Is Irreversible (Of Crawling Shadows Records) 2012
Awesome black metal. As lo-fi as can be. Not usually my thing, but this brought a huge grin to my face when I turned it on. Clipping guitars, blast beats, thundering vocals, the whole shebang. A nice little short C10. Project between Dominick Fernow and Kris Lapke.

Mitochondrial DNA – Strawberry Sugar Zeros (Hospital Productions) 2012
Another shorty of harsh noisy jams.

Prurient – Time’s Arrow (Hydra Head Records) 2011
This is a pretty mellow one. Minimal, chill, industrial vibes. Occasional samples thrown in. A little crazier and noisier on the B side. Overall, really sick.

Various Artists – White Eye Of Winter Watching (Hospital Productions) 2011
I got this for 5 bucks, and it’s TWO C110s, with a whopping total of 52 tracks, from a whole laundry list of your favorites.

Ash Pool – For Which He Plies The Lash (Hospital Productions) 2010
Another cool black metal album by Ash Pool in similar vein. A little more variety on this one, but still sounds crappy as ever (in a good way). This one is much longer than the aforementioned.