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On The Waterfront: Coastal Electronauts take off Something pretty amazing is happening down in Kent. Alan Rider investigates.

On The Waterfront: Coastal Electronauts take off

Something pretty amazing is happening down in Kent. Alan Rider investigates.

by Alan Rider, Contributing Editor
first published: January, 2025

approximate reading time: minutes

The audience are not experimental music fans as such. They're mostly local people. They typically say “I don't really like this sort of music, but I love coming here”.

Just before Christmas we reviewed the excellent 2 x CD compilation called ‘Coastal Electronauts Vol 1’ in our regular ‘Week in Music’ round up.  Only it wasn’t just another compilation, it was a collection of live recordings from a regular monthly live event currently held at the Waterfront Club in Whitstable, Kent.  Up to a dozen short sets are played each month by a collective of electronic musicians that include local artists, plus a few from further afield, with skilled projections over them.  DIY and on a human scale, it’s just the sort of local event everyone is looking for as an alternative to wallet-emptying mega concerts in arenas.  Free to enter, and with regular bar prices rather than being ripped off for fizzy liquid gold in a wobbly plastic glass, it’s no wonder each event is packed out, even by people not particularly into electronic music, but who just love the vibe.  It’s certainly something special and is the brainchild of Kent musicians Peter Coyle (aka Shape Navigator) and Sophie Sirota.

So what inspired them to start Coastal Electronauts?

Peter: “It was started up by myself and Clive Walpole (Analogue Mechanic).  Radio Four came along to my studio to do something on a project called Mrs Death I was involved in.  Clive heard it and thought here is someone into synths as well, and found me on Facebook.  When COVID lockdown came, I was asked to do a synth radio show on local Bubble Radio with Clive.  I thought it was just one show, but it ran every week for two years.  That was really good for the local synth community as we all got to know each other.  There was a really good live scene locally around The Duke pub, which put on some amazing bands.  Lee ‘Scratch’ Perry even held his 80th birthday gig there!  That shut down, but around the same time we were connecting with a lot more local synth and experimental performers. We reached out through Apple iTunes to a global audience and it was unexpectedly popular. We had always planned a meet up, and we got the opportunity in September ’22 to go into the function room in the back of the Labour Club in Whitstable.  People started to turn up and it just built from there, with me live streaming it too.”

Sophie: “I saw on YouTube or Facebook that a friend of mine, Martin Elliot, a bass player, was playing at the night. I'd heard about it, and I'd just started to kind of do some experimental electric Viola and looping stuff - this would have been March ’23 - so I went along and it was absolutely brilliant. There were loads of people there, and they were really supportive. I had expected four nerds in a room, but there were quite a lot of people. It's kind of grown from there and become more and more popular.  I brought my son along, who was 16 or 17 at the time, and he brought a few friends along as well. It just seemed to open out a bit from there, into people feeling like they could bring along whatever they liked to it. It's never been just about electronic music.”

Peter: “I mean, the EMOM (Electronic Music Open Mic) thing kind of got put into that, I suppose. And it's nice it has got that aspect to it, but it's not the only thing. “

Sophie Sirota playing violin

As sometimes happens with these things, after a while relationships with the Labour Club began to get a little frayed, and Coastal Electronauts re-located to The Waterfront.

Peter: “The Waterfront is an absolutely brilliant, amazing place overlooking the sea. It's building really nicely, and we're getting over 100 people each month.  They give us the room for nothing and there is no admission charge.  We just shake the donations bucket and people have been very willing to give some money.  That means we can give Mark, who does all the visuals and travels up from Hackney, expenses to cover his travel.  He has an act too called ‘@diz_qo'.  I did my art degree with him.  He just improvises the visuals on the night and it looks like he has made them specially.  The visuals react to the audio feed too, so they get hectic or calmer depending on the pace of the music, cut in with shots of the performers.  It’s amazing.”

Sophie “When we moved to The Waterfront, the audience base just kind of exploded. Lots of people who never even considered coming to a synth night and didn't really know what a synth was, or what experimental electronic music was, they really embraced it.  They just loved the ethos of what we're doing, which is; come along, no pressure, do what you want.

Peter Coyle a.k.a.Shape Navigator

It’s a place for musicians in Kent to have somewhere to meet like minds, do collaborations and, you know, play as well. It's not always easy to do that without a promoter or a label behind them.  The audience are not experimental music fans as such. They're mostly local people. They typically say “I don't really like this sort of music, but I love coming here”. You know, they enjoy it. They love the atmosphere, love the friendliness, love the sort of experimentation and the sounds that just happen.  It’s truly homegrown.”

Sadly, The Waterfront is having to close, so Coastal Electronauts are on the move again.  The good news is that Peter and Sophie don’t let the grass grow under their feet and have alternative plans already in hand.

Peter: “We have got something in place which hopefully is going to be really amazing. We can't actually say what it is yet, but it’s a new venue just down the road. The new venue will be better in a lot of ways, because they've got a studio and rehearsal room there as well, so we can do workshops to show people how modular synths work, or how pedals work, music theory, all the sorts of extra things that we've been wanting to do. The room and the facilities are all there. So that's going to be really brilliant.”

As if that wasn’t enough, on May 17th, they will be running a Drone Day event at the Gulbenkian in Canterbury following a sold out event last year, featuring a host of stars of the Drone scene (that’s synth drones by the way, not the flying sort!). Another CD compilation is planned soon too.

The wonderful thing about events like Coastal Electronauts is that they are putting on unpretentious nights that entertain, and even educate, without needing to fleece the punters. By setting an example that it is also possible to get up on stage and perform without excessive preparation or financial backing and outside of the corporate music biz world, they are the living embodiment of the true DIY punk ethos. Long may they continue.


Essential Information:
Find news and information about upcoming Coastal Electronauts events on their Facebook page here
Main image: Screenshot from Youtube trailer.  Other images top to bottom: Sophie Sirota, Peter Coyle (Shape Navigator)

Alan Rider
Contributing Editor

Alan Rider is a Norfolk based writer and electronic musician from Coventry, who splits his time between excavating his own musical past and feeding his growing band of hedgehogs, usually ending up combining the two. Alan also performs in Dark Electronic act Senestra and manages the indie label Adventures in Reality.


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