Dylan Carlson, Soup Kitchen. 23rd March 2019

I’m stood in the dingy basement venue at Soup Kitchen. It’s dark, cold and on the stage that’s barely more than a single step above the audience, stands a man with long hair and a grey beard. This is Dylan Carlson, purveyor of brooding stoner rock and he’s fucking awesome. The resonance of these bass heavy dark instrumentals is the stuff of beautiful nightmares. In this cramped space, my body physically shakes, my ears beg for submission and I’m pretty sure my vision went a little blurrier than usual. It’s a far cry from last nights venue, the high church ceilings replaced with a low industrial clad aesthetic just above our heads. My colourful jumper has been replaced too, this is the sort of gig that requires regulation black attire. It’s serious business, Carlson is sometimes overshadowed by stories of being Kurt Cobain’s room mate, but that really doesn’t matter one bit tonight, tonight is all about Dylan, his menacing doom and meditative cinematic guitar vistas. We get 7 songs in just over an hour, I say songs but these are simple elegant compositions comprising solely of Dylan’s guitar distortions layering up the sound with echo and delay. It’s not for the faint hearted, but a fearsome looking yet very respectful crowd laps it up and you can hear a pin drop between songs, as we’re all stunned into some distant oblivion while Dylan retunes. The whole thing is wonderfully stripped back and pure, making total sense in Soup Kitchen and as Dylan graciously thanks the crowd, we climb the stairs back out into the night, taking a piece of Carlson’s desert fused sonic assault with us in our hearts and ringing in our ears.