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Improvisations Festival Adelaide FringeHUB February 22-24 Jon Dale and the Fringe must be commended. The organisers of this event put much work into making it as varied and exhilarating, contemplative and mind-altering as possible. Guitarists Dean Roberts and Werner Dafeldecker opened the first of three nights of the Improvisations festival at the North South Dining Room in Adelaide University's Union building. The Austrian, of improv supergroup Polwecshel, began with his Gibson SG on a tabletop. Rubbing, abrading, plucking and bowing his instrument, he even picked it up to play some rather rockist sludgy progressions. The New Zealander, meanwhile, played his Telecaster in a most primal fashion. Relying only on vibrato and reverb and a few metal appliances, he coaxed walls of drone, stop-starting his stabs on the strings to great effect. The duo played four short pieces and were visibly put off by the consistent buzz from Roberts' amplifier. Yet their collaboration exuded a playfulness that was not to be repeated. Germans Annette Krebs and Andrea Neumann, in contrast, bombarded the audience with an aural assault. The small theatre was transformed into a quadraphonic capsule as tweeting, hissing and screeching jumped from all corners of the room. Krebs' prepared guitar and army of effects bounced off Neumann's equally processed piano frame. A short quiet space gave way to a blitzkrieg to end the performance and the night. Basque Country laptop commandeer Mattin gave perhaps the most compelling performance of the festival. Sitting in the dark, wide-eyed behind his apparatus, he began with a low hum, which turned into a creaking rumble. Then, out of nowhere he stunned the transfixed audience with a gigantic blast of static-drenched noise. The complexities of the blast became more discernable as it moved forward, only to drop out unexpectedly, giving way to silence. We sat there in the dark for almost ten minutes, with nothing but the green LED on Mattin's laptop winking. Lifting the screen again, the powerful noise resumed, arcing into a high-pitched squeal, which dropped in volume again and again until but a whisper remained. Dafeldecker returned to play opposite Melbourne guitarist Arek Gulbenkoglu. This time choosing to leave his instrument on the table, Dafeldecker popped and crackled his pickups and switch selector while giving way to amorphous drones. Gulbenkoglu played the perfect foil to the Austrian's more violent approach, utilising various objects to scratch the surface of his acoustic guitar, and tickle its pickup. Oren Ambarchi virtually blew away all pre-formed ideas on how a guitar should be played. A Veritable stockpile of effects helped the Sydneysider's six-string explore a universe of sounds. So much happened on stage that I find it most difficult to say exactly what. What I can say is Oren Ambarchi put on one of the most breathtaking shows I have seen. The third and final night began with Arek Gulbenkoglu's guitar sitting alone at the front of stage. Slowly, a metallic drone rose in volume. Gulbenkoglu sat beside me in the audience while his instrument followed a twisting trajectory. Listening intently, the drone changed form ever so slightly, peaking and lifting in volume before heading back downward. Testing his audience's limits, Gulbenkoglu staged a hypnotic piece steeped in discipline. Ambarchi and Mattin returned for a marvelous duo performance. Echoing each of their sets from the night before, the guitarist and laptopper forged blistering structures that melted into one symphony of noise. Mattin's raspy thrusts of electronics and Ambarchi's assorted bleeps, clangs and wheezes tangled, bursting and colliding, bouncing and floating. As blinding as their solo sets, the maximalist collaboration contrasted Gulbenkoglu's drone piece and the improvised guitar and vocal of Dean Roberts. The largest audience of the three nights gathered quite possibly to see Roberts, veteran of Thela, White Winged Moth, solo and collaborative work. Playing in an open tuning, he set forth deconstructing the very notion of guitarist/singer in the live setting. Singing ever so softly, his voice cracked and aching, he coaxed various spellbinding sounds from his Telecaster. He began by tapping the neck of the guitar and flicking simple blues structures with his playing hand. Soon he was artfully controlling the volume with not only his selectors but with the way he touched the guitar. Thumbing it at the base of the strings, striking in with his nail, plucking sweet harmonics, the bitey din of the guitar stopped and started, chewed and spat. When Roberts changed the progressions for All Pidgins Sent To War yet retained its tender vocal melody, I was in rapture. A brave performance, soaked in romance and heartbreak, Roberts ended what was an emotionally charging three nights of music. The simplicity, the natural feel of the music and performances, is seductive, addictive. |
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