Shoegazey artiste Pete Kember (aka Sonic Boom) performed on March 28 as part of the electro-experimental 3-D Music Fest, held at the always rad Waldorf Hotel. Okay, technically, he performed on March 29, hitting the stage at 12:30am, after half the crowd had thinned out, deciding it needed bed and hometime… but whatevs.

Kember’s a bit of  legend, a king of the aural equivalent of the hypnagogic state. He was one half of  Spacemen 3 (along with Jason “Spaceman” Pierce, now of Spiritualized), rode solo as Spectrum (“How You Satisfy Me” was an epic early 90s track) and collaborated with feedback wizard Kevin Shields of My Bloody Valentine in the project E.A.R (Experimental Audio Research). He’s also played with Dean Wareham and Luna (I chatted with Kember about the last time I’d seen them together in London in ’95) and produced Panda Bear’s album Tomboy.

Want stoner soundscapes? He’s THE GUY. “It’s been a long time” the drawn, lone man with his boxes and knobs, said from the stage, and it has. After a DJ warm-up set that included Neu!, and that rad Anika cover of Yoko Ono’s “Yang Yang”, it was nice to trip out even further to the fuzzy wuzzy of Sonic Boom. Sorta paved the way for sleep. \m/