Sounds Like Now
A blog by saxophonist Brian Sacawa
Archive for Experimental
January 30, 2007 at 6:49 am · Filed under Art, Baltimore, Blog: Winter 06, Experimental, Film, Improv, Music
All dressed up and no place to go? Allow me to suggest the following activities taking place this week in and around Baltimore:
+ Meet the Artist: Matthew Barney: The acclaimed artist and filmmaker best known for The Cremaster Cycle, and more recently for his collaboration with Björk in Drawing Restraint 9, will be at the Hirshhorn this Wednesday at 7pm with Guggenheim Museum curator Nancy Spector discussing the influence of Joseph Beuys‘ art on the evolution of his work. If you really can’t make it, dont worry: due to the anticipated overwhelming response, the musuem is offering a live webcast of the event.
+ Tim Feeney & Vic Rawlings: The better half of Non-Zero leads a double-life as an improviser and this Friday he comes tramping through Baltimore with fellow Boston-based musician Vic Rawlings (cello/electronics) for a 9pm set at the Red Room to make some sounds you’ve never heard before and will probably never hear again.
+ Cell Phone: Art and the Mobile Phone: Just-opened exhibit at the Contemporary Museum, featuring art created by/for small handheld devices.
January 28, 2007 at 11:51 pm · Filed under Baltimore, Blog: Winter 06, Experimental, Improv, Music, Rock
Last night was rock night at the Red Room with two extremely divergent but complimentary takes on the music. Up first was Kioku, a sax-percussion-laptop trio from NYC, performing “traditional Asian folk music within a new context of collaborative experimentation and improvisation” and more than a touch of funk and free jazz. Central to the group’s gimmick is the use of asian percussion instruments, including a taiko drum and several varieties of gongs, which were not exploited for their inherent sonic uniqueness, but rather co-opted to form a sort of colonialist drum kit. I suppose since it was a Red Room show I expected the music to be a bit more free-form and stream-of-consciousness. Instead, you got the sense that each compositional decision was carefully orchestrated and structurally predetermined. The group’s polish and refined sound was the giveaway. Yet built into that structure were opportunities for each member to elaborate and saxophonist Ali Sakkal delivered an inspired Evan Parker-esque solo interlude between sections.
If Kioku was the sound of refinement, then Needle Gun, a pubescent noise quartet from Baltimore, was the antithesis. Their sound hit you like a ton of bricks and was a beautifully rich, complex cacophony of raw energy. Needle Gun played with absolute unfettered ferocity and abandon, providing a perfect counterpoint to the evening and allowing the superlatives flow freely from my pen. It’s nice to see the kids doing something productive.
January 23, 2007 at 5:16 pm · Filed under Blog: Winter 06, Experimental, New Music, Opera
Shortly after Joan La Barbara delivered the closing line (”The old man lives in concrete”) in Robert Ashley’s new experimental opera Concrete on Sunday night, I was reminded of a favorite phrase that Don Sinta, my teacher and mentor at the University of Michigan, would produce when I had the gall to inform him that the story he had begun to tell me was, in point of fact, one that he’d related me before (although I always withheld the fact that it was routinely the fourth or fifth time I’d heard any particular story): “Just let the old man talk.” And I did. Always. Because who would forfeit the opportunity to hear such colorful stories and anecdotes from someone who’d been a part of so many important ground-breaking and history-shaping events and trends no matter times you’ve heard them before? But it wasn’t so much that we’d already heard the stories that Ashley was telling in Concrete—my metaphor falls a little flat there—as much as that’s what the opera was all about: an old man telling a few stories.
Four singers—Thomas Buckner, Jaqueline Humbert, Sam Ashley, and Joan La Barbara—sit around a card table playing with an oversized deck, gossiping, bickering, and pondering life’s imponderables in a modified brand of sprechtstimme. These ensemble episodes alternate with extended solo narratives by each singer, recounting a variety of unnamed acquaintances and instances of playing the ponies, an almost head-on car collision on a narrow mountain road, scoring and not scoring cocaine, and certain supernatural occurrences.
Mr. Ashley supplied the musical accompaniment for the opera through his computer, which if you’d read any of the press leading up to the opera’s performances, you were lead to believe was going allow for live manipulation of the singers’ voices and underlying texture, paving the way for each performance to be changeable and unique. Instead, the music throughout was more of an ambient wash that didn’t change much at all save for the few low bass grumblings and high pitched bell-like interjections that occasionally emerged from the digital drone. (N.B. More than once, these sci-fi-ish sounds scared me into thinking that I’d forgotten to turn off my cell phone.) And as for real-time manipulation, the computer’s interactivity never went past how much reverb or delay was added to or removed from each singer’s voice during their solos.
But you got the impression that the music wasn’t nearly as important as the text. So much so, in fact, that I felt like you needed to experience Concrete much like you’d read a novel. And the distinctive way in which each singer delivered their soliloquies—Ms. Humbert was sing-songy, Mr. Buckner’s delivery arched toward dramatic peaks, Ms. La Barbara seemed almost conversational, while Mr. Ashley’s cadence tended toward that of an auctioneer—was instrumental in sustaining a sense of diversity against a rather static sonic backdrop. Yet for me, depsite the cast’s formidable individual talents, the most interesting parts of the opera were the ensemble sections. During these vignettes the singers playfully interacted with each other in an uninterrupted din of small talk about both the mundane and extraordinary and dead-pan banter. Sam Ashley’s understated delivery was marvelously monotonous despite his quick registral changes and abrupt hitches in speech, providing the most interesting contrast and counterpoint in the entire opera. And in a piece so focused on the text, that the cast was able to articulate it so compellingly turned out to be very important indeed.
January 21, 2007 at 12:55 pm · Filed under Blog: Winter 06, Experimental, New Music, Performances, Travel
I’m off to NYC to catch the final performance of Robert Ashley’s new opera tonight at La MaMa E.T.C. Report to follow.
December 27, 2006 at 2:17 pm · Filed under Baltimore, Blog: Winter 06, Experimental, Interviews, Performances, Video
This year’s performance of Unsilent Night in Baltimore generated a great deal of interest, especially in the media. There was the CityPaper feature, the article in the Sun, and day-of morning interview on the FOX45 Morning News. FOX also saw fit to send out a mobile cameraman/reporter to film the event and produce a story for their evening newscast. The story, shown above, was shot, written, and edited by Josh Miller of FOX45.
(N.B. Clip info: Unsilent Night - FOX45 News Story on Vimeo)
December 13, 2006 at 7:02 pm · Filed under Baltimore, Blog: Fall 06, Experimental, Music, Performances, Recordings
Last Friday’s performance of Unsilent Night in Baltimore lives on! Among the throngs of participants and supporters was one of Mobtown’s most renowned experimental percussionists, Bob Wagner, who came to the event packing a recording device and a microphone on the end of a very long boomstand. Bob herocially braved frigid fingers and tired arms to document the event in sound. Bob writes:
The mic I used is a Sennheiser hypercardiod, so there is very little side sound. (Actually I was hoping for a bit more traffic and city noises.) The sound of the boomboxes is very primary. Also, the recording is a mono two track recording- both sides are identical. I did almost no editing . . . [The recording] is slightly normalized. No other effects.
Download the complete performance here.
Update: Photos from the performance are can be viewed here.
December 11, 2006 at 6:08 pm · Filed under Baltimore, Blog: Fall 06, Experimental, Performances, Video
Last Friday’s performance of Unsilent Night—Baltimore’s first annual—was a great success. Braving sub-freezing temperatures, folks came out to make it a very decent turn-out all things considered. We had an extremely diverse mass of people, including old acquaintances, new acquaintances, young, not young, and even a visit by Phil Kline’s brother, Michael, his wife Carolyn, and their two children, who each came equipped with a colorful “My First Tape-Recorder” boombox. FOX45 news cameraman/reporter Josh Miller was also on hand, following the morning’s interview on the FOX45 Morning News (more on that later) and put together a piece that ran both Friday and Sunday evening (I’ll be sure to post the clip once Josh sends me a copy). We timed the Meyerhoff crowd just right but were asked to “keep moving” as we made our second pass by the front door. Once again, a good time was had by all and judging by people’s excitement, next year’s event will be even bigger.
(N.B. Clip info: Unsilent Night - Baltimore 2006 on Vimeo.)
December 7, 2006 at 6:16 am · Filed under Baltimore, Blog: Fall 06, Experimental, Performances
Add this article in today’s Sun to yesterday’s CITYPAPER feature as the anticipation grows in advance of tomorrow night’s first annual performance of Unsilent Night in Baltimore. If you need me, I’ll be dubbing.
December 6, 2006 at 12:36 pm · Filed under Baltimore, Blog: Fall 06, Experimental, Performances
This Friday’s performance of Unsilent Night is a Baltimore CITYPAPER’s Critic’s Pick and highlighted event for the week.
November 11, 2006 at 12:40 am · Filed under Baltimore, Blog: Fall 06, Experimental, Performances
After the smashing success of Unsilent Night in Tucson, I’ve decided to bring Phil Kline’s ambient Christmas masterpiece to the streets of Baltimore. This year’s performance will take place on Friday, December 8 at 7pm. We’ll meet at the Washington Monument (600 N Charles St) near the Peabody Conservatory and will follow a route that will take us N on Charles St, W on Eager so we can wave at everybody at the City Cafe, N on Cathedral up to the Meyerhoff, which we’ll circle once or twice (N.B. there’s a BSO concert that night), continue E on Preston, and finally hanging a right onto Charles again, where we’ll finish the piece right in front of the Brewer’s Art. From there we’ll make merry and reflect on the gift we’ve given Baltimore.
Download the flyer here! And help spread the word.
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