Counterflows 2022 at Civic House & Glue Factory

31st March to 3rd April marked the return of Counterflows Festival to Glasgow, with Civic House and Glue Factory being chosen as key venues for this year’s edition.

On Friday 1st April the walls of the Glue Factory were rattled with intense and overflowing performances from two exciting new UK-based artists: Harrga and Petronn Sphene.

Harrga is a band formed in Bristol in 2017 by Miguel Prado and Dali de Saint Paul, with their collective name meaning ‘a burn’ in the Moroccan Darija dialect – their work is dedicated to migrants who burn their ID papers and seek asylum in Europe, utilising voice and electronics to summon a form of political and sonic radicalism.

Harrga
Glue Factory
Photo by Dawid Lakowski

Petronn Sphene, also known as Urocerus Gigas of the xeno-feminist rock duo Guttersnipe, inhabits a style called ‘no-wave rave’. Radically queer in form and content, her performances have been described as “like all of the Rotterdam Gabber records playing at the same time”.

Petronn Sphene
Glue Factory
Dawid Laskowski

After the dust had settled, Saturday 2nd April saw round two at Glue Factory and a night of rhythm, sound, structures, and words with Nat Raha, Sunik Kim, and [Ahmed].

Opening the evening was a solo set from Dr Nat Raha, an Edinburgh-based poet and activist-scholar. Her work addresses sexuality and gender, critical theory and Marxism, and contemporary poetry and poetics, through creative and critical methods.

Nat Raha
Glue Factory
Photo by Dawid Laskowski

Next up was Sunik Kim – a Korean musician, writer, and filmmaker currently based in California. Their overflowing work takes cues from free-jazz, Korean folk music, radical computer music, and countless films and texts.

Sunik Kim
Glue Factory
Photo by Dawid Laskowski

Finishing the night was [Ahmed]: the quartet of Pat Thomas, Antonin Gerbal, Joel Grip and Seymour Wright. Together they make music of heavy rhythm, repetition, and syncopation, set deep into an understanding of jazz and the obscure depths of its history.

Ahmed
Glue Factory
Photo by Dawid Laskowski

Civic House was also a key venue for Counterflows 2022, being the designated “hang-out” spot – with suitably relaxing offerings over the course of the festival including DJ sets from Max Syed-Tollan, James Marrs, Alfie Ormston, and Oliver Pitt.

Quinie & Harry Gorski Brown
Civic House
Dawid Laskowski

Counterflows 2022