SO2017-4

Next day at SoundOut, part way through the late session. First up was a quintet with Luiz and a series of locals, Chloe, Sonya, Gail and Miro on bass, toy piano and other toys, vocals, electronics and trumpet. Again, this was a meeting of musicians, an experimental jam, and it started with some hesitation, leaving space to hear each other. Until Miro spelt some melody and this was cathartic. Miro later said he's a melodist. It seems to me that trumpeters are: it seems to be a function of the instrument. But here were clear notes, spacious, with some relationship one to another. Luiz picked up on this, bowing, plucking, then alternative techniques of tapping, slapping timber and strings, reaction from Sonya, with vocalisations that filled and swelled around them, again Miro's bell-like notes. Lovely. Chloe and Gail were more subdued and ambient, encompassing this with various noises of various toys on the one hand, tapping or sliding or clacking, or using electronics to meld and twist and revisit, or to add processed voice and glass clinks and pats and thumps. Luiz Gabriel Gubeissi (bass), Miro Bukovsky (trumpet), Sonya Holywell (vocal), Chloe Hobbs (toy piano, toys) and Gail Priest (electronics) performed.

Then a stunner. French pianist Frederick Blondy returned for an overwhelmingly powerful final set. this was meant to end with other performers gradually coming on stage for a collective improv, but rather it ended alone, everyone overwhelmed by the power and purpose and sweeping adequacy of it all. Again, he started under the lid, with bow hair on strings and something that looked like a stick with a can on top, a few electronic bows (?) and I expect some other tools for preparation, then moving to the keyboard for growing intensity of handfulls of notes, tone clusters, increasingly flailing and jumping at the piano, this time with rhythm, to an intensity of violence and excess. Then a stop. He seemed a little surprised at that, as we were. Some minutes then applause. My camera gave out so no pics.

After a short rest, the collective improv to finish it all for this year. Most playing their standard style, but amusingly and informatively, right in front of me, was Christian Svendsen dissembling his travel bass as in performance, formal, slow, precise, ordered. I'd wondered how it came apart and now I'd seen it. Amusing. Then a fall to quiet, a packup, a party. The end of SoundOut incarnation no.8. Hopefully to return in 2018. And congrats to Richard Johnson for his drive and effort to make this festival happen every year.

SO2017-2

I was interested to hear the next outfit, RHRR Trio out of France, a formed band rather than a meeting of performers without a shared history. RHRR are Frederick, Guylaine and Xavier, piano, vocals and clarinet. Things got seriously interesting here. This was a meeting of minds with history and that history was evident, in their responsiveness, ease, purpose, those things that develop with time together. Various piano preparations, playing under the lid, bow hair drawn across strings for drones, various implements tapping or otherwise expanding sound, later some playing on the keys, sparse and open and with ill-defined time, plinks and bells ringing in the air. At the centre, a voice of unearthly quality and inventiveness. This was really the centre for me: voice is so central to our humanity, so much a product of our core. And what voice! Unearthly, yes, with whistles and squeaks, impossible sounds to imagine from a voice, but here they were. But then animal sounds, sounds of the wilderness, like listening with open ears in a primitive environ for a first time. Approaching, retracting, mobility and movement: very expressive in body and movement, often closed fists or swaying to and from the mic with closed eyes, every movement spelling the sound. Some meaningless words, too, pleading, although language-like voice is a rarity here. And Xavier on clarinet, responding, filling, mobile too, arcs as clarinet sweeps upward, providing structure and conversation. I was hugely taken by Guylaine with her intriguing and virtuosic vocalisations, but the whole ensemble was a gem. RHRR Trio are Frederick Blondy (piano), Guylaine Cosseron (vocals) and Xavier Charles (clarinet) out of France.

Solo bass up next, from Norwegian Christian M Svendsen. Throughout, his bass playing was strong, unrelenting, physical, visual, using feet and hands and up to three bows. This performance was not different. An unyielding German bow bouncing quavers at 190bpm for about twenty minutes varying in intensity, volume, changing tone through overtones despite little movement of the left hand, a foot to stop a string for one bow while the other hand bows otherwise, another bow played from the mouth. Strange but still those unrelenting quavers at 190bpm. One bow in a back pocket, taking the bass for a walk around that Drill Hall Gallery corridor just built for this purpose, audience listening to reflections from than coffered ceiling, more distant and muffled, then a return to the stage, then polyrhythms played by two bouncing bows, perhaps 5 over four. Still, after 20 mins, those incessant quavers at 190bpm. A feat of commitment, application, strength. Is this painful? Maybe. It's certainly memorable.

Christian M Svendsen (bass) played a solo set.