ADRENA ADRENA
"Both mind-melting and rhythmically irresistible- you can either dance wildly or gaze open-mouthed at the sphere like it's a portal to another universe, or somehow attempt both at once."
"it looked like a planet, a marble, the inside of a brain, or was filled by trapped insects and humans. The effect was transfixing, and comes highly recommended."
Patrick Glen - Loud and Quiet Magazine
“No doubt the best and most diverse band on day one was Adrena Adrena... it’s a staggeringly hypnotising live prospect. With just E-Da Kazuhisa on stage behind the drums, it’s magnificently impressive in just how captivating the performance is.”
Liam McMillen - Brightons Finest
"Continuing the theme of arresting visuals mingling with forward-thinking sounds, as the next act Adrena Adrena took to the stage an enormous moon-like orb had been suspended high in the air at the front of the venue. Japanese rock drummer E-Da Kazuhisa, his drumkit almost hidden beneath the shimmering white sphere, filled the room with complex avant-garde rhythms that ranged from jazz to punishing breaks, culminating in a wall of ear-piercing white noise."
Rachel, Jamie & Edwin - The Argus
“The act is visually intriguing before even starting, with a giant white balloon hanging above Kazuhisa’s drum kit. This planet-like screen has orbited various music and film festivals throughout 2016 and is accompanied with a DVD release featuring many of the images of a drum falling down a rocky river that were on show here. For this particular performance the ball shimmers between galactic clouds, earthly terrains, volcanic heat, and glacial iciness. The set begins nocturnal and dense, the balloon a particularly luminescent moon, but as the initial sludginess of Kazuhisa’s drumming floats through into a more electronica and jazzy percussive splash, Dickinson’s projections become magmatic and sulphurous, psychedelically cosmological, and thawed with ice. The music and visuals don’t so much flow as spin and expand like the galaxies, but as the performance comes to its close, the aforementioned images of drums rolling down an English countryside rocky stream emanate along with accompanying percussive downpours. The performance is both elemental and epic, drawing you into its transcendental rhythmic and visual orbit before landing you in the grounded and earthly realm of the physical drum hitting the rocks in the splash of a river, drawing attention to the wonder of the earth and our sensuality on it.”
William Barns-Graham - Fluid Radio
"The centre of the stage was taken up by projections which, always simple and often semi-abstract, never stole the limelight from the music. It was more like watching a trio, just one at work on different senses to the others. Pretty soon you weren't taking in the sights and sounds as separate elements at all, but hand been induced into a kind of synaesthesia. And if that seems like we're reverting to Sixties terminology like 'trip' we might as well go with it.... it felt like a trip (man), like being taken through some other reality then dumped back in ours at the end."
With a globe-shaped projection screen dominating the stage it’s immediately obvious that a ‘standard’ live band review is going to come up short. This is a situation where what is needed to capture the moment in words is an A-level or above in contemporary art or film making.
Hypnotic and mesmerising, were the visuals accompanying the soundtrack or visa versa? Whatever the case, the perfect duality of the situation demands full attention…to the point where it feels there also needs to be a tactile element to the show…the ability to reach out and touch both the colours and the beats of the drums.
Powerful stuff, with dreamy and enthralling images of waterfalls, icicles and palms unfolding before our eyes, and complex rhythms insinuating themselves deep within our ears.
Sarah-Louise Bowery - Brighton and Hove News
The crowd are greeted with an 8ft tall white orb, across which Dickinson’s projections are mapped. The natural world is a recurring theme, with fungi and slime moulds blooming across the sphere. Kazuhisa’s drums underpin the sea of electronic noise, and beneath the dances a light triggered by the percussion. Adrena Adrena are microcosmic, cramming an otherwordly performance into their short stage time.