IN C
Barbican,
London, Fri 4th Oct
(Part
of the Transcender festival of “ecstatic,
devotional and psychedelic music from across the globe”)
”In
C might not have been the first minimalist composition, nor the most
minimal, but it was certainly the most influential”
- From
the programme
Needless
to say I wasn't there for the premiere of 'In C';
1964 being before even I was born. But that may work for the best,
for it long ago passed into legend. It's like those stories about the
Sex Pistols playing the Lesser Free Trade Hall, and though few went
all who did went on to form a band. Only with 'In C'
they all formed the band there and then. With Steve Reich, Jon
Gibson, Pauline Oliveros, and Morton Subotnick
joining composer Terry Riley on stage, the audience was probably
small only because there was no-one left to be in it.
With
an intentionally unprescriptive score, it's indeterminate in length
(with performances ranging from minutes to hours), in instrumentation
(which is left entirely up to the ensemble) but also in form. Musical
pieces, just like plays, get reworked over time. There's no real way
they can't. But it often happens incrementally and unplanned, like
the weather working on a statue and slowly changing its appearance.
Whereas Riley wrote this piece precisely to morph,
in opposition to the notion there must be one definitive version as
intended by the composer.
The
enabling principle is very simple, the score consisting of a single page of musical notation plus a fewcomments. The musicians are provided with a series of
musical phrases, which each player passes through in the given order
- but lingering on each as long as he or she chooses.
Except of course that's not the way it works at all. The score is inherently an invite not to keep to the letter of the score, to bend it's rules, to do your own thing. Just listen to the other players as you do it.
Riley said himself in his comments “it is very important that performers listen very carefully to one another and this means occasionally to drop out and listen” in order to create “interaction of the players in polyrhythmic combinations that spontaneously arise between patterns. Some quite fantastic shapes will arise and disintegrate as the group moves through the piece when it is properly played.”
The
whole becomes more than the sum of its parts. The score
becomes like a stem cell, able to lend itself to highly different
versions. Yet with the heartbeat pulse at the centre of the piece,
the single note C played repeatedly, it feels like the stem cell not
just of Minimalism but of music in general. You hear just about
everything else, somewhere in its shifting textures. For example the
way the horns recall the rhapsodies of Gershwin.
People
can comment they find it hard to listen to. But, in my finest Yoda
voice, that's more to do with unlearning old ways of listening you
never even knew you had. There's no background reading to do, no
highfalutin' musical or mathematical theory to be picked up, just
that simple score. It's not something cerebral, it's something
sonorous and warm – like the feel of hot sun upon your face.
More
than early Reich or Glass, you can hear its tonal shifts and surges
and imagine its all building into something. But it's not going
anywhere. Listening to it is like watching windblown sand, which
sometimes will build up into ridges. And you can admire them while
they're there, just don't expect them to stay.
But
the problem with the above is that it doesn't really get carried away
enough. For the first time I saw this piece performed, it seemed not
just musically but even politically liberating. People don't have to
get with the programme, they're given space to do their own thing -
but within loose structures which allow them to play in accordance.
Should we ever get out of this shitty situation we're in, wage labour
and rental agreements and all the rest, maybe this could be our
international anthem. What could work better? The theme tune to a
free world, sounding different each and every time it's played.
Close
on the original's fiftieth anniversary, this fresh performance was based around the giftedly
bonkers notion to play the piece twice, two
different ensembles sounding so different from one another as to
prove its infinite flexibility. (Neither, incidentally, featuring the
man himself. I've just stuck that photo of him up top because it
looks cool.)
The
first version, masterminded by Matthew Herbert, mixed more standard
instrumentation (provided by Stargaze) with electronics and sampling
(courtesy of Herbert and buddies). Though undreamt of when the piece
was composed, when tape loops were still the freshest show in town,
sampling fits it like it was intended to all along. If the piece is
otherwise a game of Ludo with the competitiveness thrown out, players
progressing at different paces along one path, sampling makes it into
Snakes and Ladders – forever throwing things back to where they've
been, adding to the polyrhythmic combinations.
Stage
lights were dimmed, while Joshua White's psychedelic light show stole
the eye. (The genuine article from back-in-the-day California, having
previously been shone on Jefferson Airplane and the Grateful Dead.)
This proved to be perfect staging, for there is something more to
Riley which leans more to psychedelia than other minimalists. (Fun
fact, the Who's Baba O'Riley' is part-named after
him.) But it was also practical, by the simple expedient of making it
almost impossible to check out which player was doing what, it threw
you into responding to the piece as an ensemble work.
The recent South Bank retrospective on early minimalism lacked
the all-important ritual element, and felt more of a recital. But
here I had little notion of whether the piece had gone on for minutes
or months, surely the best sign of all that it was working. It truly
lived up to the name of the festival – it was transcending.
And
then... again! This time with more adventurous instrumentation as
German electronica artist Pantha Du Prince teamed up with percussion
ensemble the Bell Laboratory. (Chiefly employing marimbas, steel
drums and hand bells.)
The
procession-like opening, with players arriving in matching aprons
dinging intonatory handbells, boded well. But unfortunately the
tragic flaw transpired early – the whole thing was to be set not to
Riley's intended steady pulse but Du Prince's crunching electronic
beats. I'd guess they were introduced as an audience-friendly
measure, the equivalent of stabilisers on a bike. But their
mechanistic marching dampened the free flow and harmonic interplay
between the players. The piece worked better if you could block them
from your attention, like a clamouring audience member. Helpfully,
there were points where they were less dominant and you could hear
what might have been.
Ironically
the encore (nothing, insofar as I could tell, to do with 'In
C') worked much better. The electronics were this time far
more integrated with players, which led to a mesmerising finale.
Though the piece bravely didn't build to a roaring crescendo but fell
away, ending as it had begin. We left the venue with the pure, clear
pealing of bells in our ears.
The
Barbican seem somewhat strict on YouTube uploads, so instead (and
as I've previously linked to the original) let's duplicate
their experiment with several versions of the classic...
Hans
Belmair's version takes it to the flutes...
...the
Salt Lake Ensemble do it with laptops (probably my personal
favourite)...
…and
finally, a version by Acid Mothers Temple...
Now,
to prove we don't just throw this show together...
ACID
MOTHERS TEMPLE + THE MELTING PARAISO UFO CLUB
Sticky
Mike's Frog Bar, Brighton, Sun 6th Oct
Only
five months after the resplendent Uneven Eleven gig and a single week after Mainliner, and we already have the return
of Kawabata
Makoto, hardest
working man not in showbiz. This time at the helm of his psychedelic
mothership - Acid Mothers Temple.
Shortly
before they took to the stage, a friend (Geoff of the ever-useful
alternative gig guide Brighton Eyeball) commented he'd been forced to miss Mainliner, but
would rather have had things the other way round. At the time, I
nodded. Mainliner were something new to seek out, at least for our
Brighton ears. While by this point Acid Mothers Temple are like old
friends. Welcome back to be sure, but something already familiar. (In
fact here's an account of one of their earlier visits.)
Luckily,
with the crazy swirling lightshow, nobody could see the egg on my
face.
Of
their various manifestations, usually based in space rock to some
degree, this was probably the most space rocky.
Like some super-concentrate, like the dark matter of space rock. With
their signature track 'Pink Lady Lemonade' they
started out with the already-known version, then bent it from all
shape. Tracks tended to start with sonic whispers, building into
sturdy yet shifting metronomic riffs, complete with intonatory
space-chant vocals and freewheeling theramin.
Not
that I am one who would make idle or spurious comparisons between
those of Japanese origin, but it reminded me much of old favourite Damo
Suzuki. (Even if there's not the same degree of
improvisation.) It's that feeling of folded time. This is clearly the
music of now, with electric and amplified
instruments. Yet at the same time it feels like the music of the
stone age, its roots in the times where shamans chanted vibrations in
caves while all assembled banged rocks. It's trance, not as a style
to explore but as a tool for altered states of consciousness.
Some
of the frenzied string-pummelling wig-outs perhaps went on a touch
too long for me, and kept things shackled to the earth instead of
heading into outer space. But what's the true measure of a good gig?
Of course, its how many times it drives you to fear for your sanity.
And I found myself afeared at multiple points, which must surely
count as good value for money. One of my favourite live bands, in
what may even have been my best sighting of them yet.
Nothing
from the Brighton gig seems to have been YouTubed, so instead this is
from neighbouring Taiwan... (Note there's also a second part.)
Will
this spate of great gigs ever abate? I fear I am coming to sound like
some muso equivalent of a luvvie, splattering the superlatives until
praise hits hyper-inflation and we get the ensuing inevitable crash
followed by austerity measures. But that night even the warm-up act
should get their share of accolades.
The
function of a support band is of course to be different from yet
complementary to the main act. Which Eat Lights Become Lights
succeeded at ably. (Even if I bumblingly missed the first half of
their set.) They were really summed up by their respective light
shows - Acid Mothers Temple the classic psychedelic swirl of colours,
theirs clean black-and-white op art. The deranged shamans versus the
mad scientists. They were highly Neu! influenced (thoughtheir Wikipedia page cites Kraftwerk) without ever falling
into tribute act territory. Pulsing beats propelled by two drummers,
rinky-dink synths, like being bathed in pure white light.
Now
this time there is footage from the gig. Go
figure. But first, go check 'em out...
PHYSICS
HOUSE PARTY
Sticky
Mike's Frog Bar, Brighton, Sat 12th Oct
Kudos
to the chaps from the Physics House Band to book a venue for Saturday
night, put on a whole night of music then charge us punters bugger
all. (Parties which, judging by the poster, they've now laid on three
times.) Even if it did screw with the accustomed bedtimes of us old
'uns, and most bands on the bill were of passing interest only. But
as the clock grew closer to the witching hour, and even beyond (I
didn't even know it did that), things just got better.
Local
Krautrockers AK/DK came up with a much more accomplished set then the last time I saw them, when they'd been supporting Damo
Suzuki. (Their playing with Damo should probably
be seen as a kettle of quite different fish.) Though, as ever,
improvised throughout, this time they seemed much more in the driving
seat - effortlessly in control.
It
was a set which caused me to ruminate on the distinction between
smart and quite smart people. Quite smart people are constantly
pointing out where they stand on the smartometer, doing things to
impress in case it ups their score. Which all ends up like Captain
Beefheart's dictum, “somebody's had too much to think.” Whereas
smart people are very happy not just to go stupid, but go native
while they're there. And you need to be
smart/stupid to play Krautrock, to keep up the same metronomic riff
for ten minutes at a time just because you know it to be right.
Happily for us, AK/DK are smart people.
While
Krautrock itself remains an under-rated scene to this day, for a long
while Neu! seemed one of it's most under-rated outfits. Yet, in terms
of influence on contemporary bands, it now seems their stock is
riding at an all-time high. While this is certainly something to
welcome, it doesn't seem entirely clear why it should be. As
mentioned last time I saw AK/DK, they are most likely looking
backwards at Krautrock through the filter of dance music. And Neu!s
propulsiveness lends itself to repetitive-beat-making very well
indeed. But dance music itself is now some decades old, so there must
be something else...
Not
from the night, but from the Green Door Store earlier in the year.
Still pretty smokin', I think you'll agree...
The
night's hosts, the Physics House Band topped things off. It's a
strange coincidence seeing them so soon after Mainliner,
for the two are almost opposite poles. Both are rooted in the sound
of '69, but Mainliner in the year that ended the Sixties and the
Physics boys in the one that started the Seventies. Instead of
psychedelia mixed with heavy riffing there's a heady stew of jazz,
funk, rock and prog. I thought up the description 'quantum funk' for
them then immediately felt pleased with myself, but it turns out there's already another band called that.
...which
means, of course, I should now be taking Mainliner's side. But
contradiction is the spice of life, and while I may have preferred
the Japanese noise-nauts I found myself taking to this set as well.
Smart people, sometimes they're allowed to be smart too. Just don't
go making a habit of it.
Admittedly,
I couldn't get into the whole of it. It sometimes felt like
travelling up hill and down dale, only sometimes getting lost in the
noodly thickets of the valleys. But they'd always bust out
eventually, and when they reached them the views from those hilltops
were exhilarating. I particularly enjoyed the guest trumpet sections,
which felt like the beating heart of the music, with the other
players arranged around them taking the part of the brains.
Also
not from the right night but the Green Door Store, a saxophone where
for us the trumpet stood. But damn fine coffee, for all of that...
Actually,
you can never have too much of a good thing, so let's catch a longer
clip. From last year, in that hotbed of crazy psychedelic action
Lewes...
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