By Greggory Moore
Some musicians are looking to catch on as widely as possible, right down to finding that perfect group name and that catchy hook. None of these people were featured at {open} Saturday, as the two groups who played didn’t even bother with names, let alone “songs” or hooks. There were just five people interested in making their own sounds.
First up was the duo of Lewis Keller and Cat Lamb.
They produced three pieces of quasi-improv that really ought to get them work scoring films if they choose to go in that direction. For the first piece, Keller manned a laptop and a mixing-board-thingy-of-sorts, and much of his sonic manipulations were via two electrode-looking-things (mics?) he moved about in a way that seemed to indicate that perturbations in an electromagnetic field was involved (as it is (sans electrode-looking-things) with a theremin). The electronic static and blips he produced complemented Lamb’s violin, from which she emitted very quiet scratches, eerie whistles, and impressive glissando. The two were particularly effective when they matched tones, and it was too bad that that the speakers emitting Keller’s electronics weren’t closer together so that there was more of a blending of this and Lamb’s unamplified violin. For the second piece, Keller strapped on a guitar (that ended up sounding not much like a guitar), while Lamb womanned a bicycle wheel mounted horizontally on a tripod, to which she applied sticks, mallets, and fascicles of metallic thread (or something like that). This resulted in something you might expect to hear from traditional Japanese musicians applying technological advancement and improvization to their craft. For their last piece, Keller and Lamb returned to their original positions and created their most effective work of the evening. This was Lamb’s most phraseological playing, and much of Keller’s work consisted of taking in Lamb’s notes and feeding them back in heavily altered fashion as accompaniment to her continuing “live” work, ending up something one wouldn’t be surprised to hear from the Kronos Quartet. Although Keller and Lamb have played together in various groups, this was their first public appearance as a duo. Aside from each piece being perhaps a bit long considering its nature, this was a successful debut. Find out more about them at www.lewiskeller.com and www.catlamb.com.
Flutist/vocalist Emily Hay gets around. I have now seen her in at least four different groups, and I always come away with the same impression: if there are others doing what she’s going (and there can’t be many), she must rank very highly among them. Clearly she handles her business in terms of standard flute-playing, but it’s her strange, dynamic insufflations combined with apparently stream-of-consciousness gnomish , gibbering/singing/tittering that make her absolutely singular in my experience, singular and stellar.
Here, she has teamed up with percussionist+ Marcos Fernandes (whom I’ve also seen elsewhere) and guitarist Carey Fosse.
The three moved through a single piece lasting upwards of a half-hour (perhaps quite a bit longer; I didn’t time it), during which Fernandes used all manner of percussion (a big, thick tambourine; metallic bowls; bells and cymbals) to create, via delay-heavy effects, a cavernous backdrop replete with acoustic stalagmites jutting up in the foreground; while Fosse blazed half-illuminated pathways (this concludes the spelunking metaphor) with his guitar and various effects, including some that required little microphones taking in sound/vibration from the wood of a house piano he would kick and tap. I particularly enjoyed the first third of the piece; and although overall it seemed a little longish near the end, the journey wound about with enough variety to justify giving the momentum such free rein. These three produced a lot of sound—both over time and in a given moment—and just about all of it meshed together perfectly (the only exception being some of Fosse’s use of distortion. The trouble seemed to center around one particular pedal). As with the preceding duo, there’s no band name or Website, but you can find out more about Hay and Fernandes at www.emilyhay.com and www.marcosfernandes.com.
This was another free performance at {open}. Keep up with the goings on at accessopen.com.