THE SECRET LIFE OF ORGANS (WITH THE
NECKS AND JAMES MCVINNIE)
Meeting House, University of
Sussex, Falmer, Fri 8th April
This tour, put on by the good folks at No-Nation, was specially arranged around venues with playable church organs.
(All those pipes not easily fitting in the back of a transit van.)
Though as things turn out the Meeting House makes for a good concert
venue in its own right.
James McVinnie's set was dominated by a
new piece emanating from Tom Jenkinson. As previously raved about here when performing under his stage
monicker Squarepusher. Jenkinson himself showed up but, without his
trademark fencing mask, I didn't recognise him until pointed out.
(When he didn't return for the second part, I sat in his seat.)
However this new work, helpfully titled
'New Work', seemed more demonstrative than
compositional, more concerned with figuring out the parameters of
what an organ can do than doing anything with them. It exhibited a
vast tonal range, but was only fitfully involving. More happily
however, this was bookended by two classic Philip Glass pieces,
including the legendary 'Mad Rush'. Which always
sounds like it could go on until the end of time, and hopefully one
day it will.
Wikipedia's favoured terms for Aussie improvisers the Necks are “experimental
jazz” or “trance jazz”. If I was to counter with “anti-jazz”,
that might seem facetious. But truth is they're from jazz backgrounds
and play jazz instruments – but have swapped the in-yer-face
freneticism for serenity. Rather than play as many chords as they can
in a minute, they take a handful and eke them out into an hour. That
being a standard time for one of their improvisations to last. If,
say, John Coltrane's squarking sax (sorry but that's the way it
sounds to me) is the soundtrack to teeming New York streets, the
Necks evoke wide open spaces. (Despite the band stemming from Sydney,
that's an image often employed on their album covers or website's home page.)
Momentum gives them a structure of
sorts. Their long improvised pieces proceed like a river, starting
out as trickles of sound which become more and more sustained. Even
when they pick up pace they won't corner but take elegant curves
along the way, always branching out into new territory but not never
invasively. In the best possible sense of the world, they meander.
(Why do we attach a negative concept to that when we even have such a
beautiful word for it?) You'll get so much movement along the course
of a piece, but without anyone actually driving it.
This was actually the second time I'd seen them swap their standard pianofor organ, and despite it working well previously it still gave me
the same worries. Their disdain for preparation is such that they
won't even decide who starts a piece. Which can give the opening part
of their sets an almost Quaker meeting feel, as they calmly stand
still waiting to be spirited into playing something. Giving the
keyboardist a mighty organ risks augmenting him and disrupting the
trio's vital equilibrium.
And indeed it did
start with the organ; Chris Abrahams playing the sort of basic
phrases musicians fill in with for sound-checks, while the others
slowly started to work around him. For a long section the organ
remained the dominant instrument, Lloyd Swanton picking individual
strings and Tony Buck dragging a drumstick across a skin.
But despite my purist instincts, it
doesn't really matter if things start from a slightly different
place. At times Abrahams would stick to Bach-like chords (or at least
what a know-nothing like me imagines Bach-like chords to be). But at
others he'd play loops or musical fragments, giving space to the
other players. The longer they play, the more involving it becomes.
The more small-scale the changes, the more focused on them you
become. This was the fourth time I've managed to see the Necks, and
they've never been less than enthralling.
The notion they've now been doing what
they do for nearly thirty years seems so befitting you'd almost have
to make it up – long duration pieces performed over a grand
timescale. Chris Abramans once said “people wonder how you can keep
going for so long, But there is an ecstatic state you can reach. If
things start happening that are really interesting, its suddenly no
effort to play”. ('The Wire' 293, July '08)
There's something time-defying about their calmly unhurried instant
compositions, so at odds with the quick-click instrant gratification
world we live in, while at the same time not at all challenging but
immersive and hugely pleasurable. It put me in mind of the old Sandy
Denny line, “I have no fear of time”.
Nothing to do with organs or this tour
at all, but a full performance of classic Necks...
MARTINS TAYLOR + SIMPSON
The Ropetackle, Shoreham, Tues
12th April
As the record shows, we in Lucid Frenzy Towers were very much
taken by Martin Simpson's previous co-headliner with Dom Flemons the
year before last. So back we went to see him in another double act at
the Ropetackle, this time with Martin Simpson. A name previously
unknown to us, but then neither had been Flemons'.
Taylor back-announces one track with
the explanation “and if you didn't recognise it, I'm a jazz
musician”, and refers to Stefan Grapelli as his old boss. Not,
needless to say, good signs. It's the stuff of musician's
music, which has about as much use as plumber's plumbing.
However... They joke at one point about
an American interviewer being unable to tell them apart, despite
Simpson having a pronounced Northern accent and Taylor a Southern.
And at times their playing could combine like their accents, Taylor's
smoothness complementing Simpson's comparative roughness.
(Comparative, please note. Simpson isn't Tom Waits.) They provide a
compelling version of the old spiritual 'Swing Low Sweet
Chariot', Simpson twanging while Taylor plucks. We call
that sort of thing “a lucid frenzy” around here.
Yet alas such peaks were not
maintained. As the night yinged and yanged back and forth between the
two styles it fell out of and back into interest, never quite gaining
any momentum. Perhaps next time Flemons will be back in town, or
Simpson will just take it solo.
Normally with the vid-clip bit I have
to say “not from Brighton”. This time, in a major break with
tradition, it's not from Shoreham...
Coming soon! More gig-going adventures...
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