SoundOut 2025-1

There are 4 SoundOut sessions and 3 workshops, but it's a busy weekend so I can just get to one session.  Unfortunate, as it's a big year with a slew of internationals, even a whole band from France, as well as our locals and others.  My session was no.3, Saturday evening.  I walked in to hear a rising clamour from tenor, alto, soprano saxes, guitar and drums while visual artist Locust Jones made black on white painting against a wall, sometimes with his nose.   Several of these musicians were from Hubbub, that French group, along with an Italian soprano saxist and SoundOut director Richard Johnson.  LJ also had a series of large-scaled politically-themed painting in the main gallery and they were fascinating.  Then Great Waitress+ with clarinet, piano and accordion. I felt this was strongly led by Magda Mayes, Berlin pianist, with apt harmonies from Laura Altman on clarinet and a light wash of colour and presence from Monica Brooks on accordion.

Locust Jones (visual artist) performed visual arts with musical accopaniment from Jean-Luc Guionnet (alto, France), Gianni Mimmo (soprano, Italy), Jean-Sebastien Mariage (?, guitar, France), Edward Perraud (drums, France) and Richard John son (tenor).  Great Waitress+ comprised Laura Altman (clarinet), Monica Brooks (accordion) and Magda Mayas (piano, Berlin). 

Out 2

It's SoundOut day 2 and I got to the evening session. Both days have been evening sessions for me. I arrived as Brigit, Millie, Pierre-Yves and Richard were about to play. The nature of this event is a mix of people who play together regularly and interactions with new others. It makes it interesting for all and is the essence of the collective nature of the event. Then into Superimpose featuring Berliners Christian and Mattias, drums and trombone. This is energy and noise with some tones and considerable chops. I was particularly impressed by Matthias with his rapid flap tonguing which served a real rhythmic purpose and Christian is clearly sharp on stick techniques. But it was my house-guests who opened new doors for me in this contemporary experimental music: Hannah on flute and Brodie on trombone. They played noise, slapped keys and dismantled instruments and smacking sounds at various times but they were virtuosic in tonal and atonal note play and it made up, perhaps, most of their performances: beautiful tones; unexpected intervals; suggestions of melody and rhythms; intriguing harmonies, implied or otherwise, tonal or otherwise. It's an area where I feel more comfortable. Hannah's appearance was firstly with piccolo playing a rapidly moving birdsong. Brodie took a busily firm control with virtuosic noteplay against Marlene's sympathetic and glorious bass clarinet tones before playing with noises and a CD mute and a return to tones. I mentioned this to Hannah and her comment: that's how we were trained. I guess others have similar training. Certainly Marlene who played bass clarinet with Brodie had a similar approach and perhaps Laura and Millie. There were times Jim played this way, too, and Pierre-Yves. I heard snippets from Clayton the day before. Tonality/atonality is powerful amongst the noise plays. It expands and beautifies, at least to my ears. I felt it in Lenny's drumming too: not tonality but relatively some standard rhythmic concepts. Then ongoing to Jim inviting Millie, Matthias and Birgit to his solo spot. I was amused to watch their discussions beforehand and the synchronising of watches. They were to pass back and forth, Jim to others, every 60sec. Then Brodie and Marlene leading into the final Collective improv. The final group improv is always a feature as this one was. Richard was particularly pleased. Then the pack ups and partying that is essential to such an event. SO2019 was another challenge for the ears but also a diversion into C20th atonality and the mix was great. It's not often we get such a gathering of experimentals in Canberra. Hopefully Richard will manage to revisit it as an 11th anniversary next year for this one was a great success.

SoundOut 2019 final day 2 was at the Drill Hall Gallery. Performers at the evening session were Superimpose featuring Christien Marien (drums) and Matthias Muller (trombone); Birgit Uhler (trumpet), Millie Watson (piano), Pierre-Yves Martel (viola da gamba), Richard Johnson (wind), Hannah Reardon-Smith (flute), Laura Altman (clarinet), Lenny Preston (drums), Rhys Butler (alto), Jim Denley (flute) with others, Brodie McAlister (trombone) and Marlene Radice (bass clarinet) and the SoundOut Collective.

Many Prophets as one

When I saw pics of The Prophets, before they performed at the Gods, I naturally thought of Sun Ra. It’s an obvious connection given the zany presence and the madcap costumes that make both bands such unique theatrical shows. But I’ve seen Sun Ra at Villa Celimontana many years back, and the music is quite different. And I’m not sure that The Prophets lay any claim to outlandish origins, although they did mention connections to Mali and Ethiopia and the music clearly talks with a language out of Africa. There’s also jazz and rock there, so this is exotic and international but not extraterrestrial.

The individual components of their performance are not unique, but the whole is clearly unconventional: two drummers; four alto saxes (actually 3 altos and a C-melody sax - a new one on me and apparently an instrument that hasn’t been produced for many years); no bass (although I think they sometime use one); occasional vibes; invitations to the audience to join in on homemade wind instruments; no clearly defined, individualistic solos; occasional duets or smaller ensembles, including a drum duet). And the costumes, of course. As I said, the music spoke of Africa. Apparently some of the band had travelled to Mali and one tune was Ethiopian. So the music was riff-like passages that morphed in a minimalist way over time, with moving contrapuntal lines from various saxes and polyrhythms from drums and others. I thought I counted lots of threes (triplet feels and lines in 6s or 12s) and lots of riffs that seemed front-loaded (is there a musical term for this?) with shorter notes on the beat and on the accent, and longer notes following. This all made it not swing and not relaxed, more jumpy and perhaps African. But then I remember fours from drums so there were polyrhythms happening and gently changing. There were solos, but they were not obvious, singular, ecstatic events. These were squeaks and squeals, unimposing, flittering over the grooves. The one piece with vibes just confirmed the African connections with the lilting grooves of tuned percussion. It got a little odder with the invitational piece. This was three melodicas, a fog-like wooden horn, two drums and about 10 wind instruments made with holey hose, straws, balloons and rubber bands that were played by invited audience. Congrats to Jono Lake who took to his instrument with considerable rhythmic confidence, which is what the piece needed. In the spirit of Prophetic anonymity, I’ve nothing particularly to say about the individual musicians. The masks created the anonymity and the music confirmed it. This was a zany presentation and rough around the edges, but lively and fresh and I loved it.

Given the masks and the instrumentation it’s hard to know who’s who, but The Prophets were Peter Farrer (C-melody sax), Dale Gorfinkel (alto, vibes), Marcus Whale (alto, sitting in for Sam Dobson), Laura Altman (alto), Finn Ryan (drums) and James Waples (drums).