[ATTENDED: November 30, 2018] Rattle
When I got my ticket for Protomartyr, I had not heard of opening band Rattle, a duo from Nottingham England.
When I got to the stage I saw that there were three drums kits up there. I assumed that there would be minimal time between bands playing, which was true. One thing I didn’t realize right away is that the drumset that was set up closest to me actually had two stools, one on either side of the bass drum.
It turns out that Rattle is a duo that plays exclusively drums and percussion. And they share the drum kit and cymbals. It was mesmerizing and fascinating. I especially loved near the end when each drummer hit the same cymbal.
The duo is made up of Theresa Wrigley from Fists (left) and Katharine Eira Brown from Kogumaza. Katharine sings occasionally, but mostly the band works on rhythms and overtones and what two drummers can achieve sonically. And they are not showing off with fancy rock-star drumming. 
They are slow and methodical working largely with rhythm and patience.
The songs are also quite long. They played four or five songs in their half hour and all of them were over 8 minutes, I believe. Some of them use the same rhythm pattern for two minutes before something different happens. It’s almost like drone music but for rhythm instruments.
The way that Katharine keeps the rhythm perfectly for the opening of “Signal” was really cool. And then Theresa added more drums while Katharine kept things steady.
I found myself getting totally sucked into the sound they were creating. I found myself staring at the chain on one of the cymbals, watching it bounce around. And when Katharine sang, her voice seemed to meld with the cymbal overtones to make really interesting sounds.
It was almost an experience in endurance because there were moments of monotony, but that was all part of the plan–a wholly different way to experience music. So that when Theresa did break the pattern with a cymbal crash or a series of tom hits it was regulatory.
When I listened to their songs on bandcamp, I recognized the ones they played, which was pretty cool for songs with no melody or words.
I talked to them afterwards to find out if in certain section they were actually counting out the beat between changes. There was one section where they played the same rhythm for 30-some measures before they changed it up Katharine told me that there was a lot of improv during the live show, but the songs were structured (which is how I could recognize them on bandcamp), and they communicate through gestures before switching to something new.
Two songs they definitely played were DJ and Signal.
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