Monthly Archive

It was my friend Andrew who introduced me to the music of Joanna Newsom.  He had been given a copy of The Milk Eyed Mender, and finding her voice just too much like hard work, decided to pass on it.  And pass it on to me, figuring I would listen to any old rubbish.  (I think we were en route to see something at the Jazz Café when the transfer took place.  Was it Pharoah Sanders?  The Art Ensemble of Chicago?  Granted, not terribly relevant to this review). 

I listened to it once.  Well, I say once.  It was most likely somewhere been 0.25 and 0.5 times.  Whereupon I cast the offending disc from the machine, cursing this elfin child Kate Bush creature who was trilling offensively from the speakers.  Like Andrew, I had found this oddest of voices an almighty annoyance and a completely impenetrable barrier to my enjoyment of the album.

It was my friend Bruno who reintroduced me to the music of Joanna Newsom.  I had been having this nagging feeling that I’d never really given her a proper chance for quite some time, when he put one of the tracks from The Milk Eyed Mender on a compilation he made.  Nestled amongst tracks by Julie Covington, Vetiver, Scott Walker and Vashti Bunyan was the pedal steel hued “This Side of The Blue”, and after several listens I began to hear through the voice to this beguiling work beneath, like it was a Magic Ear sound painting (just let your ears go out of focus…hear the zebra!).  It all made sense.  Going back to the original album, I found unsurprisingly that I had been missing out on an intoxicating talent.  During “The Book Of Right On” she asks if I want to run with her pack and ride on her back.  By now that was a much more appealing prospect.

So, it is against this background, of having taken around 2 years to get into her last album, that I declare her new album Ys to be less immediate than its predecessor.  Gone is any trace of a three minute conventionally-structured pop song.  In are ambitious fables and multi-section epics, ranging from seven to seventeen minutes in length, with nothing resembling a chorus.   Drag City have been brave to fund such expensive ambition and potential folly; the combined production talent of Steve Albini and Jim O’Rourke, with orchestration by ex-Beach Boys collaborator Van Dyke Parks, can’t have come cheap. 

“The meadowlark and the chim-choo-ree and the sparrow, set to the sky in a flying spree, for the sport over the pharaoh” she begins, and I am reminded of Park’s Beach Boys bust-up trigger from Smile: “Over and over the crow cries uncover the cornfield”.  The voice has been reined in slightly - while still an utterly unique instrument, it is a bit deeper, and a bit less prone to leaping around like a gazelle in a tiny Chelsea studio flat.  As Newsom wanders on through this unreal landscape, passing out her fantastic, cosmic and anthropomorphist lyrics as she goes, Parks’ arrangements scatter rose petals at her feet.  His scores are simultaneously lush and sensitive, highlighting and emphasising the metres and timbres of her voice with strings, flutes, banjo and percussion; adding drama and tension with orchestral flourishes or by dropping out to leave Newsom and her brilliant harping unadorned.

However, as wonderfully executed as it is, Ys is going to be a bit rich for some palates, like a five course meal consisting entirely of huge sticky desserts (although you know what they say – if you can’t stand the sweet, stay out of the kitsch inn).  I’m pretty sweet-toothd right now.  If either of the pack-joining or back-riding offers still stand…

Listen to an mp3 of Emily
Buy the album at Boomkat

The mincing machine starts up slowly, spluttering metallically, coughing oil over you.  You give it a minute to get going, and then you go and fetch the elephant. 

Nice elephant.  Don’t be scared. 

You truss the elephant to a crane, and swing it over the machine.  Which is a bit harder to do than it is to type.  Then you lower it down, tail end first.  The tail gets a bit caught in the machine, causing it to grind a bit.  And then the blades hit rump.

wwwwwwwwwwwwaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaawwwwwwwwwwaaaaaaaaaaaaa

It is a bit distressing.  You liked that elephant.  As elephants went, it was pretty good.  Good flappy ears.  Smiley face.  Great football player.  Still, you press on. 

The legs go through the mincer now.  And a fine set of elephantine genitals.

WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAEEEEEEEEEEEEEAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE

You note that shredded elephant makes a hell of a mess.  Don’t worry, you don’t need to do the whole elephant.  Pack a couple of bin liners full of the mince, and stick them in the boot of your car, drive into town.

Now you did bring the cannon did you?  Good.  Stuff a couple of the bin liners in there, and fire it at a bunch of tramps.

BBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAwhaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaRAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

Hear how they shout!  Watch as they fight their way out of the meat pie, get confused, and begin to fight each other, pounding each other with bloody fists until they are too exhausted to continue and fall over, seagulls descending to feast on the carnage.

Human Animal by Wolf Eyes sounds exactly like all that.

Subpop have posted an mp3 of “The Driller” here

There was a bit of nonsense before this all started.  I’ve written a nice letter to the relevant people, and posted it below.  When/if they respond, I’ll post it here too.

Anyway, it left me in a bit of a bad mood.  I doubt I’d have enjoyed Sebastian Tellier’s gallic tomfoolery in any event.  Imagine an egotistical Vincent Gallo.  Seriously.  The music was sub-cabaret, with the crowd really only giving a monkeys when he played the one they knew (“La Ritournelle”, I am informed).  He took his trousers off at one point, and I was so bored that I hoped he would get his petit monsieur out and get the whole place closed down.

Owen Pallett, or Final Fantasy as he calls himself in disappointingly geekish fashion, was thankfully more impressive as he knocked up some little symphonies out of a violin, piano, several loop/effect pedals, some red wine, and some sticky tape.  The overhead projector movies provided mirrored this layering process; quite clever I thought.  The songs tended to start with him tapping out a tricksy rhythm on violin, layering on some longer notes, and then embroidering another level of melody on top (something a bit Reichian about all of this I thought, particularly given the Cello Variations piece I wrote about a couple of weeks ago), all whilst singing and shouting into his violin.  I couldn’t make out many of the words; I did consider the possibility that they may have been the weak link.  Because otherwise he would just have been too damn talented.

Oh yes, the letter in full:

Dear Sir/Madam

Last night, I attended an event at the Scala – a performance by Final Fantasy.  I have been to your establishment on several occasions previously, and have always considered it a pretty decent concert venue.  OK, I’d maybe like a few (make that many) more toilets, and I often get lost wandering around the labyrinth-like corridors, so maybe a couple of signs for the directionally challenged would be appreciated.  Last night was different, and I would like a few answers as to why that was. 

I arrived at the venue about 15 minutes after the doors opening time as stated on my ticket – quite reasonable I thought, given that generally nothing much happens in the first half-hour, and I’d be as well using that time drinking in an establishment that didn’t try to bankrupt me by charging £3.50 for 500ml of a certain Jamaican beer.  In front of me, and stretching off a considerable way into the distance, was perhaps the longest queue I had ever seen. 

I joined the back of this monster, and stood, and stood, and stood, and shuffled a bit forward, and stood, and stood, and got pestered by a ticket tout, and stood, and shuffled a bit, and stood, and by this time I’m getting a bit cold (remember I have dressed for being inside your warm building not standing around on Grays Inn Road) and stood, and got pestered by a ticket tout, and stood, and stood, and shuffled a bit forward, and stood, and stood, and stood, and shuffled a bit forward, and put my head and hands inside my jumper because by this point I am really freezing (remember it is late October now not mid July), and stood, and shuffled a bit more, and got pestered by a ticket tout, and stood, and stood, and shuffled a bit forward, and stood, and stood, and stood, and shuffled a bit forward.

[Interestingly, a load of people were crossing over the road to the off-license where they were purchasing cans of a certain Jamaican lager at a substantial discount to that you would have been receiving had they been inside].

Do you get the idea?  I spent one hour and fifteen minutes in that queue.   I finally reached the door at about 9pm.  At which point I saw the set times on a sign by the door telling me that I had already missed the first support act, who I was really looking forward.  Brilliant.  Thanks very much for that.  I’m interested as to how they must have felt playing to an empty room - probably potentially their biggest ever crowd, and you snatched it away from them.  I bet they love you.

I finally reach the door, where the cause of the wait became apparent.  First, a huge bouncer ransacked my bag, removing my bottle of water (now why do you feel the need to do that?  I know it is not just the Scala who does this, but would you care to correct my notion that it is to force me to buy some more at your extravagant prices?)  He had a good rummage round, didn’t find anything else of interest, so turned his attention to my pockets, and had a good grab of my crotch too while he was there.  Nothing to interest him there it seemed, so I was finally deigned fit to pass into the building.  Hallelujah!

I am aware there was a recent incident in the Scala involving someone being shot.  This appears to have been at a so-called “Old Skool night” according to the BBC.  So it appears you had perhaps - and correct me if I am wrong here - rather less security at a really really rough night which would be frequented by a load of nefarious types, and to compensate, increased security for what was always going to be a night frequented by wimpy college kids.  What an excellent waste of your resources that was, and what a way to destroy any goodwill your clientele had towards you.

Anyway, the questions I’d like answering:

1) Where, either on my ticket or on your website or on the promoter’s website am I alerted to your new airport style security procedures?

2) How many people managed to get in for the first band, and what will be your response to a request for a proportionate refund for those who were prevented from doing so by your unpublicised procedures?

3) If this is an ongoing situation, I will not be back for any more Scala events.  There are a couple of events coming up I’d like to go to – should I bother buying tickets or not?

4) Have you given any thought to a sensible risk-based profiling of the events so as to ensure that you don’t needlessly waste your resources and really wind up a load of your customers?  I’m happy to provide a quick risk assessment for you, if that helps.  Here it is:  hip hop/r’n’b/drum and bass/old skool clubs – risk of gun crime HEIGHTENED.  Fey indie guitar-strumming or even violin-playing types – risk of gun crime LOW. Give it a try, see how you get on.

5) Seriously, what is with the water stealing thing?

I’ve published this letter online.  You have right of reply and I will be happy to post your response on-line. 

Yours sincerely

Scott McMillan

“I would climb the highest mountain, I would run through the field, only to be with yooooooou” U2

“Ain’t no mountain high enough, ain’t no valley low enough, ain’t no river wide enough to keep me from yoooooooou” Diana Ross

“Unwanted side effects while taking [high altitude medicine] Diamox include drowsiness, fatigue, or a dizzy lightheaded feeling…in some cases, individuals may suffer depression, pains in the area of the kidneys, and bloody or black tarry stooooooooooools” Geir Jenssen

Those words are printed on the cover of Geir Jenssen’s singular contribution to the field of music about mountains.  After the success of his Substrata album, he took all his royalties and blew them on a trip to Tibet in 2001 to climb the world’s sixth highest peak, Cho Oyu.  Not one to miss an opportunity, he armed himself with a minidisc recorder, microphone and shortwave radio.  Along with, I would assume, a load of mountaineering stuff like crampons and ropes, and whatever else they use.  I don’t know.  Hooks.  Warm clothes.  Sherpas. Anti-gravity devices.  And Diamox.

Five years later, he has finally opted to release the results – under his own name, to distinguish these “field recordings” from the digital explorations he has released as Biosphere.   Not that there is a lack of thematic continuity however – these pieces are in a sense an expedition to the very core of his work, both in terms of his use of such recordings to form the basis of a track (much of Dropsonde is based on these source materials), and in terms of the isolationist mood that hermetically seals you inside his albums.  With Cho Oyo, all else is stripped away, leaving you naked, shivering and very alone.

The diary that accompanies the disc is gripping, nerveless and at times surreal stuff, as Geir recounts the frosty group dynamics, intense physical trauma (headaches, sickness, dizziness, freezing cold; no tarry stools as Geir elected to forego the Diamox), and occasional misguided attempts to tune back in to the rest of the world - hearing reports of planes crashing into the World Trade Centre, a War of the Worlds style hoax was assumed. 

The recordings bring the words and pictures to life so vividly, tracking as they do the trip from the Tibetan border through basecamp, advanced basecamp, camps at 6400m, 6800m, 7100m, and 7500m before reaching the summit itself.  The compelling organic rhythms of civilisation Geir finds in Zhangmu and Tingri - local instrumentation, a cassette of traditional Tibetan music - are quickly left behind on the drive to the first camp, replaced with an eerie stillness in which the smallest of sounds become massively portentuous, at times coalescing into tiny patterns (the yak bells distort in a manner akin to the powerful ringing tones of the guitar on John Fahey’s Red Cross).  A sense of loneliness and disorientation increases as Geir ascends through the rarified atmosphere, sometimes the only sounds are of laboured breathing and a biting wind scouring the surface; this complete disconnection is broken only by the music and plane chatter picked up on the radio.  At times you feel like you are the one who should be taking the altitude sickness tablets.

Geir’s reasons for punishing himself thus are conspicuously absent from his diary.  However in doing so, he has scaled more than one peak – to the besting of the world’s sixth highest mountain can be added the fashioning of possibly his finest artistic statement.  Buy it, and buy a big coat too - you are going to need it.

Listen to an mp3 of “Palung - A Yak Caravan Is Coming” here
Read Geir’s diary and see some amazing photos of the expedition here

I nearly got dumped by a girlfriend over Dream/Aktion Unit after she refused to accept that their performance at ATP that year was anything other than just some stupid noise.  I think I may have written something about this incident in another place after it happened, along the lines of “inviting someone to see Dream/Aktion Unit because they quite liked a couple of Sonic Youth songs was like inviting someone to watch Jaws because they quite like swimming in the sea”.  I on the other hand found the performance a thrilling, cathartic, and visually compelling experience.  At that time, the Unit were a quartet – Thurston Moore and Jim O’Rourke from SY, and the Paul Flaherty/Chris Corsano axis.  For their first official release Blood Shadow Rampage (recorded at Stirling’s Le Weekend festival), Jim is out, obviously, and along with a load of shlock-horror imagery we get ex-Charalambides’ Heather Leigh Murray, and the No-Neck Blues Band’s Matt Heyner, on pedal steel and bass respectively.

Blood Shadow Rampage opens with “Birth of the Ghoul” (I’m not sure I like these titles) and the instantly recognisable lazy strumming of an angularly tuned guitar, joined by surprisingly delicate sax squiggles, and arco bass drone.  Corsano and Flaherty soon lock together to drive the tension skywards, with Thurston pinging feedback all over the top like silly string.  “Tales of Entrails” (no, I’ve decided, I don’t like the titles) showpieces the reverberations of what sounds like one of drummer Chris Corsano’s saxophone mouthpiece and shower head excursions. [At this point, I am acutely aware of having written about Chris Corsano a few times this year – such as here.  And here.  And, well, here.  He probably thinks I am stalking him.  I'm not.  Well, I don't think I am.  Am I stalking him?].  An incredible solo from Flaherty starts muscularly like late period ‘Trane, and ends with impossible squeaks.  By the time of next tracks “Buried Alive And Loving It” (actually, that amused me momentarily) and “Brutal Lust” (erm… that sounds too close to rape for my liking) we have truly hit the wall of sonic scree.  We get a breather with a couple of fairly forgettable drone pieces, before the louder-than-anything closer “Here Comes The Fucking Dead” (funny! better!) which appears to have sent the crowd present away in raptures.

I reckon this must have been a great gig to be at, but something doesn’t quite transmit to record.  There is the visual element obviously – we don’t get to see Flaherty, the free jazz Santa Claus, or Thurston dry-humping his amp, or Corsano’s flailing limbs.  Then there is the dynamic of watching members of a crack improvising group studying and reacting to each other.  But more than that, the production at times (probably the product of this being a live recording) renders the bass as nothing more than a throbbing elastic band, with Corsano on occasion reduced to a workman digging in the street outside.  Flaherty and Corsano produced a killer album earlier this year (The Beloved Music).  If Dream/Aktion Unit have achieved anything more useful than ending scores of relationships, it is to help ensure these two have got their props.

Download “Buried Alive and Loving It” here
Listen to more and buy it at Boomkat here

I’ve been waiting years to catch Fennesz live. I didn’t figure on the first time being in the unlikely settings of a pub in South London.   I suppose, however, that if Touch want to organise a shindig to celebrate their birthday, they have probably earned the right to hold it in their local boozer in Balham.  The event featured a couple of the big names on their roster (Fennesz, Philip Jeck), a couple of those less well known to me (Rosy Parlane, CM von Hausswolff), and some delightfully off-kilter DJing by Jacob Kirkegaard.

I entered to the sounds of recent signing Rosy Parlane, sounds akin to bees in a blizzard on a poorly tuned radio; an unrelenting and particularly dense buzz.  I was unsurprised to discover he has previous on the Ecstatic Peace label, given some similar reference points (if different modes of transport) to such Thurston Moore favourites as Double Leopards.  A suitably meditative start to the evening.

Philip Jeck was on next, and began in sprightly fashion, shuffling a selection of distempered beats onto his turntables.  These were soon chased away by elegiac strings, buried within vinyl crackle, singing dream-like from distant brain recesses.  On occasion, sound and visuals would neatly coincide; as when Jeck dropped out the harsher sounds, with an orchid unfolding on screen to dispense music box melodies.

If Fennesz disappointed tonight, it was only by virtue of following Jeck’s virtuosity, and by not having enough time to develop his ideas to their conclusion.  Guitar strapped on, he began by teasing out gentle drones by rubbing his knuckles down the strings and gently tapping out chords.  He played some slow, fuzzed-up melodies, which increased in intensity until he was scrubbing frantically at his instrument, washing the audience with near-MBV noise.  This would then drop away, leaving a looped fragment of guitar, which he would fuss with on his laptop, building electronic symphonies like those on Endless Summer or Venice.  “I feel like I am inside the speaker”, my companion said; “I don’t want this to end”, I replied, only for Fennesz inevitably to immediately reach the end of his allotted thirty minutes and leave me feeling both elated and frustrated.

The night left us much as it found us, with a CM von Hausswolff setting pure sine waves in relay.  One would overcome the other, only for it itself to be caught and subsumed.  The beauty was in the sections of overlap, as the two frequencies vied for superiority and, like looking through a prism, I found I could experience a world of colour by tilting my head through a range of angles.  Almost unnoticed, a pulse had developed throughout the piece, and just as it reached room-shaking proportions, a switch was flicked, and all was calm again, worlds away from the din outside. 

The inside of the room had felt like another planet all evening, strange gravities tugging at my sensation of time, alien atmospheres pressing against my skin.  Touch has now been spinning on its unique and oblique axis for a quarter of a century.  A quarter of a century in our time, that is.

There is something about Max Richter’s work that could be construed as dispassionate and sterile, but it certainly allows the listener to transfer their emotions onto it, like throwing glue, pasta and glitter at a blank canvas.  Oxymoronically, it may well be that to achieve such a result, via such pure and perfect playing and production, takes a passion beyond any I possess.

There is something about Songs From Before that makes it seem like a logical continuation of Richter’s previous work.  As before. its strong classical roots seep tentatively into a soft earth of electronics.  Like predecessor The Blue Notebooks, it is threaded together via a string of spoken word pieces; this time Robert Wyatt recitals of Haruki Murakami texts.  A perfect choice; as with the music itself, these pieces do not deal directly with emotion, merely setting up oblique urban backgrounds via Wyatt’s weary intonation.

There is something about a Saturday night in makes me a bit sad, and I realised that listening to Songs From Before on a Saturday night in was at best inadvisable (at worst, heartbreaking).  Of course I only realised this when the vibrations of “Verses” had continued to buzz around my head long after the album ended.  

There is definitely something about it.

Download mp3 of “Flowers For Yulia” here

Download mp3  of “Verses” here

And, of course, buy it at Boomkat here

After overdosing on Steve Reich last week, perhaps I am a little over-receptive right now to anything which incorporates any element of his sonic aesthetics.  The title track of Ryan Teague’s Coins and Crosses (the fully developed follow up to his Six Preludes collection) took me to that special place, with its nagging string patterns knitted to barely audible vocals.  With harpist-to-the-stars (well, Charlotte Church at least) Rhodri Davies above, and drone below, I was also reminded of Alice Coltrane’s solo Impulse! Recordings, and with that devastating one-two to my breadbasket I was floored.

Usually whenever Coins and Crosses threatens to make a run into slick Craig Armstrong territory it thankfully finds itself constrained by an electronic barbed wire fence, and a choir of heavenly voices commanding expeditious return.  The influence of the great Ennio Morricone is unmistakeable, from the chiming music boxes of “Nephesch” to the soaring vocal line of “Tableau I” which brought to my mind the scene near the start of Once Upon A Time In The West where the camera pulls up and high above the train station to reveal the town’s bustle. 

This cinematic quality is wed Part-like to a seemingly sacred bent, and if I had a soul I reckon I would have found it enriched by the soaring spirituality of the album’s emotional centrepieces “Fantasia for String Orchestra” and “Accidia”.  This dizzying orchestration lifts Coins and Crosses up and high above other electronic/classical crossover pieces, and into a field of its own.
You can listen to more (and buy the whole damn thing) at Boomkat here

This long-awaited new reel of continuous noise arrived just in time for me to test out the new gapless playback whatsit on iTunes (it works for me, although seemingly not for him).  While some of my listening has been done via this, volume turned up way past sensible, giving me the joy of trying to separate speaker crackle from window wobble from shouting neighbour (like I would have heard that!) from the sonic glories of the impressionistic masterpiece Harmony In Ultraviolet, the majority has been done using the iPod’s suddenly much more obtrusive gapful playback.

With Harmony In Ultraviolet, Tim Hecker takes one look at the vertiginous platform constructed by Fennesz (whose Endless Summer and Venice are two of my favourite albums of the last decade, so I’m dishing out some pretty high praise here), and leaps off it for kicks into the sea, a sea which looks deceptively placid from on high, but the closer you get to it reveals an at times ferocious surface and constant trench-like musical and emotional depth.

Swimming through the noise, you can occasionally pick out recognisable elements.  A bottom end piano note rings out, decaying like surface ripple.  Guitar circles hungrily, treated until it is reduced to low growling and disconcerting whining.  More usually, the sounds are unclassifiable – what are the ominous bangs and scrapes sunk within opener “Rainbow Blood”?  And are those Jeck-like turntable string symphonies, quickly splintering under the building pressure?  Waves of rhythm infrequently crack the surface, but are quickly subsumed within irregular squall.  The album can rage with boat-breaking and face-ripping intensity one minute (the deep white noise of “Spring Heeled Jack Flies Tonight”) before leaving you adrift and becalmed the next (the minimalist resonance of the “Harmony In Blue” suite).

Via both listening methods, headphone and otherwise, I find myself ascending rapidly through various states of being, usually attaining nirvana about half a dozen tracks in (somewhere around “Dungeoneering”), which tends to render the remainder of everyday life pretty meaningless.  For all I care, North Korea could have the bomb.  For all I care, Tesco could have the bomb, or Trinny and Susanna, or even my nemesis Miles, or even my boss, who is probably wondering why my out-of-office reply is switched on and I am rocking maniacally in my chair, glazed of eye, and wide of grin.

Download mp3s of Chimeras, Radio Spiricom, and Blood Rainbow courtesy of Brainwashed and Kranky.

After the mid afternoon dance-off that was Konono No.1, I returned refreshed to take in what was for me the highlight of the Steve Reich birthday celebrations, his Music for 18 Musicians – one of my favourite pieces of music, performed by the man himself.  +17, obviously.  As if that wasn’t enough, I got another two compositions, one of which happened to be a world premiere.

The first Reich piece we are treated to in the main hall was his 2003 Cello Counterpoint, featuring eight cello parts, of which all but one are prerecorded.  The remaining part is gloriously engraved on top by Maya Beiser in front of a seven column projection of her playing the other seven.

The world premiere of Daniel Variations followed.  A four part recontextualisation of the murder of American journalist Daniel Pearl, interspersing the singing of two quotes from Pearl (one from a tape broadcast by his kidnappers, stating his name, and one supplied by a friend about Pearl’s thought son the afterlife – “I sure hope Gabriel likes my music…when the day is done) amongst two from the biblical book of Daniel, where Daniel interprets Nebuchadnezzar’s dreams (“Images upon my bed and visions frightened me”, “Let the dream fall back on the dreaded”).  These quotes resonated around my head long after the last notes died out.

Reich’s new work treats Pearl’s story without sensation – it would have been far easier to have set it amongst the entirety of that last broadcast, but we would have lost the sense of Pearl’s humanity, and of his position in the long line of captives in ceaseless violent religious struggles (I don’t really do religion, but if anyone can provide me with a bit more explanation of any subtext here, I’d love to hear it).  The work itself is really quite dark, and features prominent use of strings, with a full quartet dominating the centre of the piece.  Apparently Pearl was a violinist.  This work is a great tribute to him, and to Reich, who takes applause from the mixing desk at the end.  I sure hope Gabriel like it too.

The glittering jewel in Reich’s canon, Music For 18 Musicians, takes up the last hour, although it seems to pass in a trice.  Using skills clearly learned in a Presentation Skills for Business course, it tells us what it is going to tell us (the opening section runs through the chords to be used), then tells it to us (chord by chord), then it tells us what it has told us at the end. 

From the very first marimba notes to the last, we are held captive by its shimmering, translucent beauty, the music expanding like a gas into every crevice of the Barbican.  It is a note perfect recreation, although seeing it live affords the opportunity to admire the detail.  Such as the emphasis of symmetry: the clarinettists move their instruments towards and away from each other and the microphone as if in mirror image to create those deep vibrato notes; and the tricky piano face offs, with one player’s part mutating into the other’s.  The percussionists are a joy to watch; up to half a dozen people at any time (including Reich himself, scuttling across from the piano periodically) each with up to four mallets, banging out the most insistent of all the rhythms, as the vocalists doo doo doo and ba da ba all over the top. 

Ultimately, the work is like an anthill, the strongest demonstration of the power of the collective, with individual flair being suppressed, and all efforts directed towards the construction of a great whole.  Given all that, it was still impossible to deny the rightness of a behatted Reich being pushed forward, almost apologetically, from amongst his comrades, to take some extra applause.  His contribution to 20th and 21st century music is immense, and he shows no sign of stopping yet.  Many happy returns, Steve.

Soon after arriving for the start of a couple of free events as part of The Barbican’s Steve Reich birthday celebrations, I was reminded of the introduction to the first episode of Chris Morris’s nightmarish Jam, with the raver dancing furiously to a beep beep beep sound, only for the camera to pull back to show he had been frugging to the sound of his day-old baby’s life support machine.  Maybe it was the fault of the advertising materials for the free element of today’s bill, describing Konono No.1 as a Congolese “trance” outfit, but during their performance I was treated to numerous displays of the worst dancing I have ever seen.  Not on stage, I must add – some fine booty shaking up there from the female percussionist, even if one of the likembe players did his best to remain hilariously expressionless and emotionless, other than his thumbs which jabbed away frantically.

There is usually one whenever I go to a gig, and for ease of conversational reference, that person usually inherits the sobriquet “the fucking hippy”.  The kind of person who gets smashed on Heinz cream of mushroom soup before coming to a gig to show off their interpretative dance skills.  “I’m a tree, branches swaying in the wind!  I’m a cloud, tumbling along in stratospheric current!  I’m a bird, spiralling upwards in a thermal!”.  “No, you are not”, I want to say.  “You are a particularly smelly fart in a large crowd of people, and no amount of windmilling your arms around will get rid of the stench”.  There were dozens of them today, leaping and twirling about as if in a dismal marionette show.

No domestic court can overturn their license to dance (sadly), for Konono’s prescription to move is law of the highest order, some sort of ratified international treaty.  A five piece tonight, featuring two likembe (one of which being the bass) shouting at each other in morse code, rat-tat-tat snare drumming, bongos, and banging on stuff.  The crazy rhythms begin at 3.45, and continue relentlessly with only minor adaptations over the next hour, by which time the hippies have danced themselves into a tizzy, a pensioner has cast down his stick to groove wide eyed stage right, and a load of small children are rolling around on the floor having burned off a bucketful of e numbers.  In fact (and I don’t think I’ve said this about a concert before, I must be getting old) one of the most pleasing things about today was seeing a number of people who had brought young children.  Recently I was asked to produce a mix CD for my very young nephew, and Konono were one of the first things I chose to put on it, figuring their straight-to-the-feet beats and chants would be an ideal introduction (and one is definitely required, I must take any opportunity to try to guide the wee fella down an appropriate path) to music from the great beyond.

Quite what Konono had to do with Steve Reich is a bit opaque, although one could creatively extrapolate some sort of link involving African drumming, rhythm and repetition.  Bang On A Can’s subsequent performance of works by the likes of Louis Andriessen and Michael Nyman probably did more to set Reich’s contribution in context, but having chosen a stupid place to sit on the floor, and spending an hour with people saying “Excuse me!”, “Sorry!”, “Were they your fingers?”, and “I appear to have kicked you in the head”, I’m not sure I could even begin to determine whether they succeeded.

“This place has probably never been so quiet.  Thank you.”  So said the Magical Orchestra himself, Morten Qvenild, and I wondered if he had been here a few weeks ago when this place was the Keiji Haino / Chris Corsano decibel factory.  A sold-out Spitz was indeed reverentially hushed last night in its respect for the wondrous and crystalline thing that is Susanna Wallumrod’s voice.

Opinions seem pretty much divided over SATMO’s recent covers album Melody Mountain – their choice of such well known and much-covered songs (prompted, I would assume, by the success of their version of “Jolene” on debut List of Lights and Buoys) being seen either as bold or misguided.  I found myself falling into the latter camp.  Via their selection of ‘80s metal classics by the likes of AC/DC and Kiss, SATMO were in danger of setting themselves up almost as a novelty act, a la Nouvelle Vague.  Worse still, at times the wizard behind the curtain was too exposed, with SATMO’s modus operandi clearly delineated - slowing songs down way past walking pace and wringing them for all the emotion they can.

Still, owing to that voice, they just about got away with it on stage.  Their definitive Dolly Parton reading unfolded flower-like on stage, its scent of longing and heartbreak wafting under our noses, followed by the very apt “Enjoy the Silence”.  The curiously-moustached Qvenild was marvellously understated and unobtrusive all night until the moment one of his gadgets went native and started babbling incoherent garage drum breaks at us (much tweaking and unnecessary - if sweet - apologies later, they reperformed the song perfectly).  However, as Susanna’s voice leapt nimbly up the melodic ladder of Leonard Cohen via Jeff Buckley’s “Hallelujah”, I found myself looking back on the evening with some regret.  SATMO’s own writing, little evidenced here tonight other than in the first album standout “Believer”, is more than strong enough without needing the support of such overfamiliar material.

“Can you please be quiet?  I fucking mean it”.  So said Tys Tys’s Maria Laurette Friis, stymied by a curious reverse-headline strategy which saw her set begin amongst disappointing if predictable disinterest, with many men still recovering from fawning over Susanna to get their CDs signed.   And while her voice, very good as it was, was always going to suffer in comparison with her predecessor on stage, the music was strong enough to win over the chatterers before too long.

Tys Tys are unmistakeably Scandinavian.  They are 50% Supersilent (the keyboard sound, and the Arver-than-thou trumpet) to 50%, well, SATMO.  Emotive, melodic and lyrical songs would dissolve into fizzy drone - torch songs got torched.  Trumpeter Gunnar Halle is the star, sampling and looping his breathy brass, laying inventive foundations for the others to build upon, and coming back when the work is complete to knock it down with waves of electrical noise.  A couple of such codas were the most thrilling sections of sound we had encountered all night, their static charge illuminating the room with bright white.  Tys Tys showed the benefits of complete unfamiliarity, defying the odds to score an unexpected away win.

I think I would have been about 7 when I was first taught in primary school about the existence of Denmark.   My memories of that week are that it wasn’t all that different from any other - playing with Lego and running around pretending to be Vikings was pretty standard behaviour.  We may have all wanted to be Liverpool penalty expert Jan Molby when we played football at lunchtime instead of Aberdeen cup final king Eric Black, but that didn’t last long.  There was the sandwich day though which, like some sort of apple to my youthful Eve, taught me the meaning of shame.

We learned that apart from all that raping, pillaging, and claiming the most ludicrously inhospitable of countries for their empire, Britain Denmark also make these fancy open-topped sandwiches, and we each had to bring to class whatever ingredients our parents could cobble together to make our smorgasbord.  I think our teacher, knowing that to most of the class a sandwich probably meant white pan loaf and jam, may have gone into town to find some more suitable Danish ingredients, like regional meats and cheeses we would have struggled to identify even as food. 

I may have started my construction project with good intentions, maybe some bread, some butter and a layer of ham, but something pinged in the back of my head, and like a time lapse movie of the construction of that there Swiss Re Gherkin, my sandwich began to stretch inexorably towards the classroom ceiling.  I have very little recollection of what I was putting in there, but it was certainly nothing from my satchel.  Beetroot was definitely involved.  I know Primula was being used as concrete.  Using my poorly developed aesthetic skills I folded some salami into quarters and pinned it to the sandwich with cocktail sticks for decorative purposes.  This wasn’t enough though to keep the thing from looking a bit Leaning Tower, so applying unsound architectural theory I took another slice of bread and pinned it to the top, thereby closing my open sandwich.

By this time most of the class had gathered round, partly out of fascination, partly because I had stolen their food.  They were just in time to see my sandwich collapse all over the table, and me, in a fit of childlike petulance, smash it to pieces with a couple of forks, spraying food all over the class like a mincing machine, until the teacher dragged me away, crying.

It was years later before I learned that the key to a good sandwich is not in the number of fillings.  It is in the bread.

Yo La Tengo’s brilliantly-titled new album has half-learned this lesson.  In between two fat slices of gloriously inflated guitar epic (wholemeal, thick crust, full of seeds) are songs of so many styles that you would think the sandwich would come crashing down.  Given the choice, I may not have wanted some of the sweeter or grislier layers in the middle, but even after picking those out, I’m still left with a pretty fine and filling sandwich.

Download mp3s from the matador website here and here