Those are really the two words that best describe the feeling of last night's musical event. It was the kind of thing where, if you're into that, it was probably incredible, and if you're not, maybe once or twice a year would be okay. Maybe once. But, when in Berlin.
The concert opened with a guy on tenor sax--pretty nerdy looking white guy with glasses--who then hooked up his mic on the sax through a distortion pedal and a loop machine and proceeded to circular-breathe a very long, deafeningly loud distorted low note. Then, if you thought that was loud, he looped it and continued to blow more on top of that loop, slowly bending the pitch so that you could hear that beating in your ears that happens when two tones are barely apart from one another, but not quite distinct, just wave-interference. Then he looped that, and squawked some high notes on top of it, also distorted. This went on for about fifteen minutes, until the loops started fading out and he just held long, undistorted pitches. It was highly effective, although I'm more into quiet music.
The main act, two guys on electronics, was even weirder. One guy set up his laptop to play this basic bed of noise, ran through some filters so that it had changes in the equalization but not in the actual pitches, since there were no pitches. The other one, I guess he was playing lead, because he had a little keyboard that he smashed his hands on which played distorted samples of people screaming. This was maybe 40 minutes, ending in some sample from a German movie playing as the noise faded out, and as the lead laptop player picked up an electric guitar and instead of a pick just scraped the edge of a piece of plexiglass across the strings. I mean, if you're into that. I, at least, can only handle Unspeakable Terror for a little while before I feel like I need a bit of a break.
Forthcoming:
The East Side Gallery (Berlin Wall)
Another Country (Book Shop)
Jewish Museum (very good architecture)
Philharmonic (Tonight, Beethoven's 4th and 5th, Webern's 5 pieces for orchestra and his settings of Rilke poems)
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2 comments:
"unspeakable terror" is not a title your mother wants to see.
when i saw the title of the book shop "another country" i immediately thought of the james baldwin book. you should read it, or anything by baldwin. if you take that theory class i want you to, it would be badass.
also, i'm minoring in comparative ethnic studies. love it.
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