Barbican
Centre, London, Fri 28th June
'Landfall: Scenes From My New Novel', to give it's full title, is a
new compositon by Laurie Anderson in its European premiere. The
programme itself pointed out what an unusual combination this was. For Anderson isn't a composer or even really much of a musician. She's
more an artist and performer following her own muse, which at times
takes on the form of music. It's even described as a novel in it's
own title!
While,
for all their commisioning of scores and ceaseless boundary-pushing,
the Kronos Quartet are at root a string quartet whose business is to
perform recitals from scores. (I previously saw them in this very room, hammering at scraps at metalwhile still diligently referring to those scores.)
Given
which, what's perhaps strangest of all is that the majority of this
piece is so conventionally harmonic. However, while strident
modernists might hear those words and head for the exit door, it was
for the most part exquisite and enthralling, the sort of score where
you find yourself clinging to every note.
Anderson
sometimes joined in with the quartet on her patented violin. At
other, often overlapping, points she'd contribute electronic beats,
washes and textures. The fuzzy thumps contrasted satisfyingly against
the crystal-clear sound of the strings.
Perhaps
the only serious musical criticism was that there wasn't enough of
it! Themes and sections could pass by on speed dial, too quickly to
properly absorb. One chanting piece, with something of the widescreen
grandeur of Arabic pop, seemed to suggest at a whole new direction.
But this path was abandoned after what felt like a few strides. Nor,
at seventy-nine minutes, did the overall length seem too great,
especially by Anderson's previous endurance-pushing standards.
Anderson
also contributed some of her spoken word pieces. When I'd previously seen her at an old Brighton Festival,
the words had worked as the bones of the piece, with the ambient
music acting more as interludes. Here things were reversed, which
perhaps did not work as well. Anderson's style is not poetic but
conversational; her serene voices seduces you into believing you're
being told something quite everyday, and everything lives in the lag
as your brain catches up with your ear. The New York Times commented
her work “suggested logic while defying sense.”
However
anti-poetic words do not necessarily lend themselves to music, and I
found my brain effectively having to switch gears between the vocal
and the instrumental sections. In truth, at times those gears ground.
I couldn't help but be reminded of reading a review of Bowie's live
re-enactment of 'Low,' commenting how he'd
intercut the songs and instrumentals, despite their being separate on
record. Though the reviewer thought this an improvement, to me it
seemed like cutting chalk with cheese. Ultimately, I found myself
wishing 'Landfall' had emulated the recorded
version, and kept the spoken word sections together.
The
back projections, where software converted the notes of the quartet
into words, made for an enjoyable and intriguing extra dimension.
Though they also felt a little like an attempt to Polyfilla this
separation.
Admittedly,
it was clear why Anderson chose to pair the two up in terms of their
content. The title 'Landfall' is (at least in
part) a refrerence to her studio being flooded when Hurricane Sandy
struck New York. At one point she recounts watching her belongings
swirling in the water, and you cannot held but keep hold of that
image as the strings roll through the final movement.
Though
the storm, however mighty, is here no more than the pathetic fallacy. There's no attempt to convey its power through
musical drama, or document events as 9/11 pieces have often done. In the genre of
'modernist disaster response composition', it works more
metaphorically, more like Bryars' 'Sinking of the Titanic.'
Anderson's
world is internal, contemplative, and the flooded studio evokes the
anti-linearity of memory. Memories will break the waterline to swirl
in your mind, appearing at times to coalesce into clumps, but only
ever temporarily. Perhaps the music was supposed to itself represent
the swelling water, subsuming the landmass of the words.
But
despite caveats this work was highly effective overall. The Guardian review of the premiere in Adelade suggests it
divided the audience. From where I sat in the Barbican it won an
effusive round of applause from us.
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