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concert review: Garden of Memory
Jun. 22nd, 2007 08:40 amWandering around an enormous labyrinthine crypt listening to three dozen different avant-garde musicians or groups playing in tiny chapels and even smaller niche-like spaces seems less violently defamiliarizing the second year that you do it, but I still had a good time. I saw two people I knew; should have been more.
I heard a lot of quiet foghorn-like music this year. (Ingram Marshall wasn't playing, but a CD of his was for sale.) I heard the quiet but piercingly dissonant Cornelius Cardew Choir. I heard Sarah Cahill be populistly ruminative at the piano. I heard Henry Kaiser noodle with infinite slowness on his guitar. I heard a group called the Crank Ensemble, who slowly turn cranks on what look like avant-garde birdcages, while sounds like broken gears stealthily emerge. I heard a harp being played with a bow. I heard a guy who bills himself as a virtuoso whistler - he was imitating birdsong when I wandered by. I heard a group which was either a lousy high-school band or a parody of a lousy high-school band; I didn't stay long enough to try to figure out which.
I heard the William Winant Percussion Ensemble, which was my best new listen of the concert. They played a slowly mounting giant crescendo on four marching-band drums. They played a piece in which two people whacking the upturned bottoms of tin cans with sticks tried to drown out a recording of a really dull performance of Beethoven's Fifth. (Beethoven got the last word.)
But every hour on the hour, I hustled back to the Middle Chapel for another set by my favorite performer from last year, the "avant cabaret" singer-songwriter Amy X Neuburg (or Amy X Looper, as one person sitting next to me misheard her name). Unfortunately she's lost her favorite toothbrush, the one with which she sets a rhythmic loop going on her own teeth in "Every Little Stain", and the replacement doesn't have the same zippy sound, and she had continual problems as the electronic looping equipment kept frazzing out or coming mysteriously unplugged. Finally she concluded her last set with a performance of "Life Stepped In", a surreal telephone conversation with herself, with no technical glitches, and retired to a standing ovation.
I heard a lot of quiet foghorn-like music this year. (Ingram Marshall wasn't playing, but a CD of his was for sale.) I heard the quiet but piercingly dissonant Cornelius Cardew Choir. I heard Sarah Cahill be populistly ruminative at the piano. I heard Henry Kaiser noodle with infinite slowness on his guitar. I heard a group called the Crank Ensemble, who slowly turn cranks on what look like avant-garde birdcages, while sounds like broken gears stealthily emerge. I heard a harp being played with a bow. I heard a guy who bills himself as a virtuoso whistler - he was imitating birdsong when I wandered by. I heard a group which was either a lousy high-school band or a parody of a lousy high-school band; I didn't stay long enough to try to figure out which.
I heard the William Winant Percussion Ensemble, which was my best new listen of the concert. They played a slowly mounting giant crescendo on four marching-band drums. They played a piece in which two people whacking the upturned bottoms of tin cans with sticks tried to drown out a recording of a really dull performance of Beethoven's Fifth. (Beethoven got the last word.)
But every hour on the hour, I hustled back to the Middle Chapel for another set by my favorite performer from last year, the "avant cabaret" singer-songwriter Amy X Neuburg (or Amy X Looper, as one person sitting next to me misheard her name). Unfortunately she's lost her favorite toothbrush, the one with which she sets a rhythmic loop going on her own teeth in "Every Little Stain", and the replacement doesn't have the same zippy sound, and she had continual problems as the electronic looping equipment kept frazzing out or coming mysteriously unplugged. Finally she concluded her last set with a performance of "Life Stepped In", a surreal telephone conversation with herself, with no technical glitches, and retired to a standing ovation.
