Foogmess has grown a wee bit bigger with each passing year, and 2012 proves no exception. In fact, the latest installment represents an ambitious leap in curation for the annual festival based in Asheville, North Carolina.
Spread-out over three days (Friday, October 19 through Sunday the 21st), the expanded roster contains an impressive breadth of experimental sounds and styles, from Southern Cosmic and metal-clad drone to cacophonous beat science and third-eye free rock.
Among the many performance highlights are Hooker Vision heavies Grant Evans and his wife Rachel (a.k.a. Motion Sickness Of Time Travel), both of whom have become local favorites in recent years. The same goes for the always incomparable (and unpredictable) Lazy Magnet, who is set to release the Acts Without Error LP on Asheville-based Bathetic Records. Then there’s Frank Baugh’s Sparkling Wide Pressure project, whose work has appeared on a variety of imprints (Digitalis, Preservation and Stunned Records among them). Also in need of mentioning is Temple Of Bon Matin: the brainchild of drummer, singer, songwriter and visionary artist Ed Wilcox, the noise-jazz-rock ensemble are authentic underground legends. BTW — if you don’t own the Temple’s Bullet In2 Mesmer’s Brain!, a sprawling mass of lo-fi space insanity released way back in 1997 on Bulb Records, then stop reading this and track down a copy; it will crack your skull wide open.
Foogmess also spotlights numerous musicians who have emerged from Asheville’s own scene. Two particular stand outs are guitarist Shane Perlowin (of avant-metal behemoths Ahleuchatistas) and the scrumptiously named Soft Opening, fresh off their appearance at last month’s Boomslang festival in Lexington, Kentucky (where they shared the stage with the likes of Weedeater and Saint Vitus). Also not to be missed is Housefire, the alias for one Luciann Waldrup. Her impressively snarling debut cassette for Headway Recordings, titled Sonic Pressure, is one of the year’s best forays into static-stained technoise.
This year Foogmess is split across a pair of downtown venues: Blackout Effectors (98 North Lexington Avenue) and Apothecary, a newly established performance space located at 39-B South Market Street. Admission is $5 per night.
For additional information, including full roster, check out Foogmess 3 on Facebook.
