Late starter

I was relaxed in arriving at the Orange Winter Jazz festival this year.  My first concert was the last few mid-afternoon tunes of Bungarribee.  It's a project of Gary Daley of The catholics fame.  He's collected a quartet of odd combination to play a style of chamber music influenced by jazz and classical and more.  How's this for a format: piano/accordion, various winds, cello and drums.  The names are notable: Gary with Paul Cutlan, Oliver miller and Chloe Kim.  I came in to music soft, meditative and unexpected and bass clarinet solo.  Then to finish they started with free piano-based introduction leading to a gentle and pretty 4/4 with wind melody.  This was in Holy Trinity, a cathedral with considerably live sound, pretty obvious for this performance.  Wish I'd heard more.  Then off to Chloe Kim playing a solo outing in the Uniting Church which I remember as my favourite acoustic from last year.   Chloe had played a concert of 100hours solo drums over 10 days at MONA.  She subsequently selected 28 themes and improvised as a CD.  This was her first live performance of those selected themes, 1 minute allocated to each.  I doubt I've ever attended a solo drums concert but this entranced especially with the themes listed, like Cymbal peak or Dance! or Push and pull or Garbage truck.  It was Garbage truck that first got me.  Chloe had seard a garbage truck outside during her 100 hours and took the constant pulse as an improvisatorial prompt.  You could hear that truck.  Not all the themes were so clear but they were intriguing and honest and presented with connection.  Stunningly good.  

 
Bungarribee comprises Gary Daley (piano, accordion), Paul Cutlan (flutes, saxes, clarinets), Oliver Miller (cello, electronics) and Chloe Kim (drums, percussion).  Chloe Kim (drums, percussion) played a solo gig at the Uniting Church.

Noises

James Turrell is described as the greatest artist of our time ... by some. I enjoyed some of his exhibition and admired some techniques, but I prefer Botticelli. But James and Oliver of The Noise were playing in the very echoey space of the Turrell Skyspace at the National Gallery yesterday and I enjoyed that experience. The dome itself seems strangely out-of-place to me, non-Australian, with ferns growing over (I saw them dead and dry a year or so ago) and all that water and green grass. The colours are not right. The open eye to the sky gathers some Australian colours, but seems to me to steal it for the benefit of the artist. But the techniques are perfect. The laser-levelled water edges are incredible, if the work of the builder. The sharp edged eye on the sky is also wondrous, although seems to be suffering a little now. Its edge is getting haggard and there are spots in the dome that break the sense of perfection. But perhaps the masterpiece was below me. The woman next to me observed that the concrete seats we were sitting on were heated. So it was! Comfy.

James and Ollie played for about 45 minutes. It was one mutating piece, improvisation perhaps with some guide. Mesmerising, suitable for closed eyes, I think accompanied by drones (presumably that was the purpose of the two speakers fed from a laptop under Ollie's seat). I enjoyed this, didn't find it at all stretched or straining. My android tuner told me A was the central note, moving through C, C#, D, F. Fairly tonal, although mesmeric rather than melodic, sometimes moving stepwise, sometimes making noises rather than clear tones, with backs of bows or whatever. I liked this immensely. It's new, it's even n(N)oise, but it's music of its time and apt for the space. Spacey, even. They did it very well.

James Eccles (viola) and Oliver Miller (cello) are two of The Noise and they played at the Turrell Skyspace at the National Gallery.

New noises of a string quartet

I walked in to a full Band Room for an improvising fine music ensemble. I must say I was surprised but also pleased. The band was The Noise, a string quartet that is the ensemble in residence at the ANU School of Music for 2015. We know viola James and the members have played in a string of ensembles covering baroque and classical and romantic musics, so their chops are formed in a more sedate scene. But his was improv and they did a great job. Improv out of the classical scene is mostly different from jazz improv, although there are similarities with free jazz. I can find open music of this form distant and without sense of purpose but it can also be enlivening and exciting and exhilarating. I found most of this like that. I was not the only one to prefer the first set which James said was "more accessible". Probably it was: the harmonies were whatever, the feel often minimalist with some evident melody and rhythm. Stream had rhythm and percussion and a heavy beat. Ghungroo was delightful with interacting swells played traditionally with bows. Night music was pizz and slides and bouncing bows following a conventional entrance of jazz-like cello bass line. Playground was just that: whistles and dotted crotchet rhythm and lithe violin lightly reminiscent of gypsy. The second set was an improv toying with effects, cello and viola amplified and fatter and echo-repeated, and the main work, written for The Noise for this new CD, Force fields by Alex Pozniak. James suggested similarities to Zenakis (an earlier tune was likened to Bartok). This was group attacks and decays, spaces, buzzes and taps on strings, some fabulous rising lines and unrelenting feedback to end.

This was new and challenging but also skilled and approachable music. I felt real enjoyment and enchantment rather than just intellectual stimulation, so The Noise was a pleasurable gig for me. I would love to know how the SOM Friends and others found it, but we'll know that soon enough when they play their next concert. Highly recommended for new and open ears and, at least for this concert, ear plugs were supplied (although really not needed; most films are louder these days).

The Noise are Veronique Serret (violin 1), Liisa Pallandi (violin 2), James Eccles (viola) and Oliver Miller (cello). And various effects and amplification.