Sonic Pieces label night @ Unitarian Church (Review)

Erik K Skodvin at the Sonic Pieces night in Cambridge, Monday 29th November 2010 was absolutely incredible. “Flare” was the framework, but he completely improvised for 45, splicing guitar, bow, laptop, loop machine and piano in dense psychotic texture. Choral voice interludes washed over the layers of analogue to digital feedback, and periodically it was as if watching a veiled spectacle: when on the pianist’s seat the keys were so submerged it transposed that guitar was being triggered; his lauded alter egos Svarte Greiner and Deaf Center (with Nest’s Otto Totland) forebodingly pressing over his shoulder, but with no ability to predict what outcome Skodvin’s personalised moniker would take. By the end it was over all too quickly.

Type’s Ryan Teague, meanwhile the main support, was joined by Gareth Davis for a showcase of works melding the saxophone virtuosity of Emanem Disc’s John Butcher with the jazzier meanderings of Matmos. The introduction of drums in the Unitarian Church was surprisingly effective, with Teague’s guitar careening like driftwood across a foreground of melodious processing and impacting key flotation. The shared classical training on their instruments provided ample space for juxtaposition, collage and chance, with nothing veering into slow-motion pastiche or noodling fixations on singular sound sources. Proof once again that technology and temperance can be beneficial if in the right hands.

The catch 22 of all this, however, is that if an audio interface goes screwball for just a second, you’re left with a crumpled palette for which to handle your performance, and no amount of visual or compensatory airbrushing is going to change that. Simon Scott, organiser of this event, certainly wasn’t in luck for the opening set, where after 20 minutes of blissful electric guitar layering into an amorphous drone, his laptop’s speaker connections went caput. Humbly apologising for the hardware malfunction, the audience nevertheless proceeded to clap, and that prompted the duo of Teague and Davis to extend the boundaries of their contribution.

What’s aforementioned also happened to Christian Fennesz in 2009, and is testament to the reliability of organic materials as a whole. Scott’s history as the longest ever drummer in British shoegaze pioneers Slowdive is well documented, and it’s a shame that he wasn’t able to expose his songwriting and non-percussive talents that he told me he had prepared especially for the 80-accommodating, intimate venue spectators. Still, all in all this was an excellent evening of engrossing soundscapes and multi-instrumental vigour, and one reason why the flame in contemporary classical, ambient and fusionist forms isn’t dimming in integrity from where I’m standing.

- Review by Mick Buckingham for Fluid Radio

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