Hermione Johnson, SoundOut 2013 photo Eric Pozza |
For the past two years SoundOut has taken place in the intimate confines of Theatre 3 which offers a comfortable and stimulating environment with good acoustics. You can also sit in a leafy courtyard with a cold beer and interact with audience members and performers alike, which is the kind of thing that draws me to improvised music. It’s creative democracy in action; a free exchange of sounds, ideas and concepts unmoored from the trappings of past experience. The music on offer across the two days of the festival was mostly great and some of the highlights are offered here.
Abaetetuba Collective, SoundOut 2013 photo Eric Pozza |
It was great to see percussionist Tony Buck playing two Saturday sets, one with Magda Mayas, the other with Hermione Johnson, both pianists. Buck likes to decorate his kit with an assortment of objects which when struck, stroked or rubbed in the right way, produce shimmering washes of sound, metallic sparks or splintering polyrhythms. Buck is a master of his chosen instrument and in combination with two brilliant and highly energetic pianists—perhaps inspired by the wildly inventive Marilyn Crispell and Irene Schweizer—the results were multi-coloured starbursts, particularly when that whiskey kicked in.
Magda Mayas, Tony Buck, SoundOut 2013 photo Eric Pozza |
Three performances in particular deserve mention for giving Canberra something unique. On the Saturday evening composer and violinist Jon Rose offered a loosely structured score for 27 performers where every instrument involved was given a starring role. I figured this was about as close as I was ever going to get to witnessing a full-blown group improvisation akin to the London Jazz Composers Orchestra. Composer/bassist Barry Guy has said about his 1989 piece Harmos for the LJCO that it was intended to expand “in all directions to encompass each player’s stylistic preferences…somehow the material implicitly embraces the musicians to a considerable degree without just constructing a line to blow on.” I’m guessing this was the intent of Jon Rose with his Composition for 27 artists.
Composition for 27 artists, Jon Rose, SoundOut 2013 photo Eric Pozza |
I had the pleasure of witnessing a performance on Sunday afternoon which featured Plevey in fluid, swinging motion that incorporated her clattering of stones as a sound source. Her supple movements provided a suitable momentum as stones were spread across the stage. With accompaniment from Reuben Ingalls on electronics, Luke Keanan-Brow on drums, Hermione Johnson on piano and Andrew Fedorovitch and Richard Johnson on sax and Annette Giesreigl on vocals, this made for a mesmerising and visceral set.
The same could be said of the raucous, roof-raising performance on Sunday afternoon featuring Jon Rose leading an ensemble made up of Rhys Butler on sax, Michael Norris on electronics, Adam Sussman on guitar, James Wapples on drums and Mike Majkowski on bass. At times the sound approached the ear-shattering levels of John Zorn’s earliest Naked City recordings and there was something very downtown New York about this intensely frenetic performance. This was a free-for-all in the true sense of the word.
Unlike the previous evening’s Composition for 27 Performers, Jon Rose melded into the performance rather than guiding it. The sonic collision within a small grouping was a welcome counterpoint to sparser moments across the weekend. It seemed that the louder and more intense the maelstrom became, the better it sounded, and when the crashing sheets of noise came to an abrupt halt I was going to quietly ask them to do it again.
SoundOut 2013, director Richard Johnson, Theatre 3, Canberra, Feb 2-3; http://soundout2013.blogspot.com.au/
This article first appeared as part of RT's online e-dition March 13, 2013
RealTime issue #114 April-May 2013 pg. 50
© Dan Bigna; for permission to reproduce apply to [email protected]