Reflections

B.AIT WEST I
Saturday 1st February, 2025

Ben Miles aka HUGE DISCO

Brentford. Yes, Brentford. Watermans Park Business Centre. By the Thames. Early February.. It’s cold outside. It’s cold inside. The heating went off years ago when the computers left the building. The van is parked up. Michael, one of the curators, is helping me load a trolley. The light fades. Others arrive. The dress code seems to be black, utilitarian. They wheel in cases and haul backpacks like their flight has been called. Gate now open. Hardwood double doors are wedged wide to allow access. A new kind of personnel will occupy this two - storey, red brick corporate mausoleum tonight. Friends, strangers, students, practitioners – all artists, gathering from all corners. We each find a space inside: three floors, large rooms, corridors, small offices. Thin carpet over concrete. Ceiling lights. The bogs aren’t great, but they work. We plug in, set up. We find ways to connect: power, audio, light... glances, greetings, offers of help.

At what point does it start, this evening of experimental audio-visual art? Perhaps when the first sound is heard from the first oscillator; when the earliest image appears, giving life to the white office walls which for so long have absorbed and radiated nothing. When these rooms begin to wake from a long, cold stasis and voids become worlds. Perhaps it only truly begins when the audience starts to arrive. Big coats, carrier bags of beers – it’s bring your own. For everyone - exhibitors and viewers alike - and in every sense, it’s Bring Your Own.

Part gig, part exhibition, we wander through this space like we’ve stumbled across an indoor market from the faerie kingdom. A dancer hangs off the steel banister of a stairwell whilst the sound of dripping water emanates from the horn of a loud hailer above. Small groups sit on the floor in semi darkness, seeming to warm themselves around banks of flickering diodes, tweaking, talking, laughing, as sound radiates from somewhere within them. It’s like a squat party in deep space. A cellist sits in conversation with a laptop. A man in late middle age (there were a few) toils over what looks like a flea market stall of obsolete dictaphones, surrounded by a sea of cassette tapes on the floor, sound everywhere. A corridor twitches with a single, harsh, random strobe. Standing in the centre of a large room, someone spins an elongated wooden barrel on its axis. Strings are attached vertically along its sides and bowed as it turns by a kneeling accomplice. No electronics here. It’s pure, ancient acoustic drone trance music - all harmonics, para-tones and dynamics.

All the while people are curious, engaged, or just hanging out in this office party/nightclub/gallery from somewhere. There’s a dj set after the show. Artists and audience converge in one room. Some dance, some watch. It’s an intimate, open, diverse and free crowd. However this has happened, and however it will end, it’s a unique night. A testament to the resilience of art, to the adaptability of those who make it.

This night, February 1st, falls at the time of year associated with creation, light, maternity and the beginnings of spring. However you choose to name it: Imbolc, Candlemass, the feast of Brigid, it’s the perfect time of year to make stuff in the dark.

Listen to HUGE DISCO'S B.AIT WEST II 2026 mix on Soundcloud (linked below)

B.AIT WEST - Keep West London Experimental
XYZ Studios Brentford
40A High Street, Brentford TW8 0DS