To spark discussion, the Walker invites local artists and critics to write overnight reviews of our performances. The ongoing Re:View series shares a diverse array of independent voices and opinions; it doesn’t reflect the views or opinions of the Walker or its curators. Today, filmmaker and writer Justin Schell shares his perspective on Thursday’s Sound Horizon concerts by Grouper. Agree or disagree? Feel free to share your thoughts in comments!

I got to the Walker a bit early for the Sound Horizon performance by Grouper (aka Liz Harris) and checked out, among other things, Abraham Cruzvillegas: The Autoconstucción Suites exhibition. On one of the walls was a quote from Buckminster Fuller (although my own research hasn’t turned up its source): “Matter should be organized by sympathy.”

That, combined with Cruzvillegas’ simultaneously overpowering and intimate structures, had me thinking about sympathetic spaces (To whom? For whom? To what?) and what makes up these spaces. The Sound Horizon series has offered a wonderful venue for such explorations in sound, held as it is in the Perlman Gallery, a space which can offer its own collaborative voices, be they sonic or visual, to an artist.

Grouper. Photo: Justin Schell

Last night’s trio of sets by Grouper marked the end of this season’s Sound Horizon series. “Grouper,” of course, is also a type of fish, but Harris’ name choice lends a different valence to what she does. It’s a clunky name, really, but her music is anything but: it has a much more intricate, almost woven, texture to it, with the digital gauze of her guitar and vocals meshing seamlessly with the pre-recorded ambiences and drones, some of which are created through loops played on a tape recorder. While the set I saw was mostly songs linked together by beds of noise that sounded like they could have been, at some point in their sonic life, water waves, Harris conceived of the performances as a triptych, moving from structure to abstraction, with the last set comprised almost entirely of tape collages.

Truth be told, Grouper’s music was made much better by the space surrounding it, both the cavernous quality it gave to her already-reverbed sounds, but also the immersive, multi-projected videos of Bruce Nauman’s MAPPING THE STUDIO II with color shift, flip, flop, & flip/flop (Fat Chance John Cage). While the projections were nearly static, almost “night-vision” shots, what you saw were the other beings who lived in the space: a black cat, mice, bugs. These beings would dart across the screen seemingly in all directions (“flip” is an editing term for turning a piece of footage upside down, while “flop” means to make the footage perspectivally backwards). These seven screens surrounded the audience, offering a different type of immersion, simultaneously providing a sharp visual counterpoint to the music.

There wasn’t any specific stage lighting (the illumination came from the Nauman images), meaning that Harris herself was enveloped in the same light (or non-light) as the audience. There was, however, an archaic light fixture that reached out from the desk, and its luminosity swelled with specific sonic moments. My friend said it looked like a firefly, and Grouper’s music certainly had the kind of meditative, but also slightly melancholic, character of the end of a summer’s day, as if those flashes of light represented by the bugs in Nauman’s studio were carefully drawn out and set to music. In the end, I’m not sure what might have been the objects or agents of sympathy in Grouper’s organizations of sonic matter. Flipping to another meaning of the word, and away from whatever intentions she might have had, the evening was more about sympathetic resonances (sonic and otherwise) between the evening’s multiple spaces—structural, sonic, and visual.

Photo by John Rogers

To spark discussion, the Walker invites local artists and critics to write overnight reviews of our performances. The ongoing Re:View series shares a diverse array of independent voices and opinions; it doesn’t reflect the views or opinions of the Walker or its curators. Today, musician and Making Music host James Everest shares his perspective on Friday night’s concert by Craig Taborn. Agree or disagree? Feel free to share your thoughts in comments!

Great performances can capture an audience, delivering us into the realm of pure presence – where an artist’s careful attention to their craft brings us deeply into their world – their choices and intention, moment to moment – where the sustained intensity of their artistry burns so bright that it can bring together and transport an entire hall full of people into a different place.

Minnesota native Craig Taborn’s concert in the Walker’s McGuire Theater on Friday night was titled “Heroic Frenzies,” referencing his myriad influences and his considerable performative versatility, qualities fully displayed on this great 3-part bill, which did just that – brought an entire room together, and ultimately, to its feet.   The packed house got a concert perfect for the McGuire space – primarily acoustic instruments, amplified just enough to fill the space, leaving ample room for the entire theater to reverberate with the sounds and spaces created on stage.

From the moment he stepped from the wings, Taborn commanded our attention – taking a brief bow, then quickly taking his seat at the grand piano, back to the house, pausing for a short breath before easing into the first of three solo pieces which opened the evening. The house was silent and attentive, and Taborn quietly set the tone with a mesmerizing, meditative opening section built upon a delicately repeated left hand figure that he deftly coaxed into subtle variations. Taborn’s penchant for blending classical and jazz sensibilities was immediately clear as melodies and rhythms would straighten then swing, with a constantly shifting harmonic arc.  Alternately stately and playful, with growing intensity, his first song shifted into a B section of cascading right hand runs, then slid back to the first section seamlessly.

When he ended this first piece, there was a pause, as he sat still at the piano, and the audience sat quietly, transfixed, not sure if it was over, waiting for whatever next note would come, and just as one person began to clap. Taborn began the second piece, a bluesy stomp that exhibited his hyper dexterous technique, crossing hands effortlessly, with the sharpest sense of groove and swing, head nodding.  When that second piece ended, there was less doubt, and the audience seized the chance to respond, bursting with applause and cheers.  Still intent and focused, Taborn dove right into the third solo piece, after which, he spun on his bench and accepted the thunderous cheers from the crowd, looking to the wings for his bandmates in Junk Magic to take the stage, triggering a spoken word sample that played as they took their places.

Dave King (drums) and Erik Fratzke (electric bass) are based in the Twin Cities and have played together for many years, most notably in legendary jazz group Happy Apple, and King grew up with Taborn in Golden Valley before Taborn left for college in Michigan. (They recently teamed with fellow GV native Reid Anderson from The Bad Plus to form an “Instrumental Pop” group Golden Valley Is Now.)  Junk Magic combines Taborn with King and Fratzke, plus NYC based Chris Speed on tenor sax and Matt Maneri on viola to play Taborn’s fusionist electro groove compositions. For this wide palette, all players but Speed electronically altered their instruments: Fratzke and Maneri each ran their strings through chains of effects pedals, King added electronic sampling drum triggers and pads, and Taborn played 3 different electric keyboard /synths, in addition to a collection of effects and sampler modules.

The opening spoken poem sample gave the group a chance to add color and texture underneath, creeping in with layered ambience, easing our ears into this wider sonic spectrum from the solitary world of the grand piano. As the first tune began to take shape and the spoken sample ended, the viola and sax began making long, snaking lines together, often swerving into microtonal harmony, as King, Fratzke, and Taborn began to coax a groove into place, one accent at a time.

The Junk Magic set had an exuberant intensity that no doubt came partly from the fact that Junk Magic hadn’t played together in 3 years. They were all stepping out and listening carefully, an ensemble of 5 individuals who clearly loved the opportunity to create something brand new on stage, with much room to stretch out and improvise within the structures of Taborn’s songs. There was a palpable sense of anticipation as each song spontaneously came to life and each player added their voice, carefully layering harmonies and accents with an immediate, visceral joy.  In particular, the viola and sax often played with each other or directly off each other, a unique tonal hybrid – the breath and the bow – to deliver many of the melodies.  Urgent distortion on the viola, a slide on the electric bass, laid on Fratzke’s lap, the original Fisher Price Happy Apple joining the parade of King’s percussion toys – all provided textures, while Taborn carefully provided a glue with chords and tones from his affected keyboards.   But because of the intense focus of each player, each fresh moment of each song unfolded with the thrill of a collective discovery – new territory for players and audience alike – and continued to build the larger energy and focus in the room.

The final section of the night commenced after intermission when Craig Taborn’s Trio took the stage – Gerald Cleaver on drums, Thomas Morgan on upright bass, and Taborn back on the grand piano.  In contrast to Junk Magic, the Trio has been playing much more together, and more recently, as they’ve just released a new CD Chants, and it showed in their playing. The music stands from the Junk Magic set were gone. The trio wasn’t reading any charts. Where Junk Magic felt like 5 individuals playing together, the trio felt like a single entity, symbiotically connected to their songs and each other on a highly intuitive, intimate level.  Their set began with long pauses, dramatic waiting, suspense and suspended moments that made their connections clear when they would resolve them so masterfully – shifting emphasis from one player to the next, a single voice from three instruments.  It was clear in the space they gave each other, in the easy shifts between styles – heavy groove to Ellington-esque majesty – that they had total command of their material and their ensemble expression.

One particular highlight came when Taborn ended a solo piano section with a chord that he held extra long with the piano’s sustain pedal – and as the chord slowly faded away, ringing throughout the theater, we were all following its slow arc when Morgan entered with a gentle, brief bass note, allowing us to hear the last strains of the piano, then adding a few more plucks, and slowly building his own bass sequence, which, at its apex was joined suddenly yet assuredly by Cleaver’s light funky rim and high hat pattern, sending the groove into orbit for Taborn to jump back in.  So much space given, and yet so tight together!

You could feel the hometown pride in the audience grow as the evening progressed, culminating in the standing ovation that brought them out for a sweet, short encore. Through three diverse sets of music, Taborn and his cohorts held our attention and brought us to new places we were thrilled to have been.

Julia Holter. Photo: Sean Donovan

To spark discussion, the Walker invites local artists and critics to write overnight reviews of our performances. The ongoing Re:View series shares a diverse array of independent voices and opinions (it doesn’t reflect the opinions of the Walker or its curators). Today, Sean Donovan shares his perspective on Thursday night’s second Sound Horizon performance from LA musician Julia Holter. Agree or disagree? Feel free to share your thoughts in the comments!

Remember in the television show Twin Peaks when Julee Cruise sang that really sad song for Agent Cooper? In the scene, Cruise performs on the red-curtained stage, casting spell-binding sounds and and slowing time way down. Thursday night at the Walker (April 11), I felt a bit like Agent Cooper myself. LA musician Julia Holter drenched the museum walls with her dreamlike melodies and hypnotic storytelling.

Unassumingly shy to start, Holter gradually became more relaxed, and at one point mentioned to the audience how much she liked it there. Breaking the ice a few steps further, Holter sang an appropriate song for the moment, In the Same Room. As many us had braved the ridiculously snowy weather to get to the museum, it was comforting to hear lyrics like, “In this very room, we flew across the sea… I hope the ship will carry us there.” Housed in a wonderful setting (Bruce Nauman’s mulit-channel video installation), the dimly lit room offered a dynamic mood for Holter’s music. At the end of the song, I was left thinking, “Where will Julia carry us?”

Julia Holter, Photo: Sean Donovan

Although Holter didn’t seem to physically engage on stage, her voice most certainly struck a chord, with both the room and the audience. When experiencing Holter’s music in person, it becomes very obvious how rewarding her voice sounds live; kind of a King’s College choir-boy meets Trish Keenan.

Grounding her melodies, synthesizer harmonies painted colorful backdrops and carried her songs in many wandering directions. In fact, most of her music included borrowed chords. Such exploratory harmonies captured my ears and my expectations. Although rhythmically simple, these supportive layers were extremely rich and emotional.

The five-song set covered a wide range of dynamics. At some points, we were all hushed to hear what she would do next. At others, she was launching echoed and passionate vocal ascensions and impassioned organ swells. Why Sad Song featured Wendy Carlos synth textures that builded and faded. Slowly looping layers into the mix, she then added a sensitive and humble vocal melody. This mantric repetition was touching and expansively cinematic.

Julia Holter, Photo: Sean Donovan

To finish, she first thanked her extended family, who were sitting in the audience, for coming and then started into her last song. I couldn’t help connecting her mention of her family to this version of Don’t Make me Over (originally by Dionne Warwick). With lyrics like, “accept me for the things that I do, accept me for what I am,” it implicitly felt like a nod to her family. This final song was a triumphant ending to a somewhat reserved beginning. With neo-baroque harpsichords and Nico-like chants, she ended her set with a maturely optimistic mood.

As her music seemed to exist in such a whimsical world, I can image enjoying her show (even more) at a planetarium, laying down and looking up at the stars. I’d be really interested to see her later in her career when her stage presence is further developed. I wasn’t fully convinced with her engagement or her urgency.

Overall, I was impressed with her compositional creativity (both with her own work and her interpretations of other songs). Although at times, my spirit felt a bit unmoved, my ears and my imagination were profoundly mesmerized. She expressed intricate and immersive songs which were stylistically enchanting.

In the words of Twin Peaks creator David Lynch, “Ideas are like fish. If you want to catch little fish, you can stay in the shallow water. But if you want to catch the big fish, you’ve got to go deeper. Down deep, the fish are more powerful and more pure. They’re huge and abstract. And they’re very beautiful.” From what I could tell, I’d say Julia Holter is searching for the big fish.

John Zorn at Jazz Middelheim 2012
Photo: Bruno Bollaert, Flickr, used under Creative Commons license

To spark discussion, the Walker invites local artists and critics to write overnight reviews of our performances. The ongoing Re:View series shares a diverse array of independent voices and opinions; it doesn’t reflect the views or opinions of the Walker or its curators. Today, filmmaker and writer Justin Schell shares his perspective on Tuesday’s concert by John Zorn. Agree or disagree? Feel free to share your thoughts in comments!

There’s something curious about having retrospectives for music and musicians, to commemorate or, perhaps worse, memorialize this music or that musician, especially since music is the ephemeral art form par excellence. This is especially true in the case of John Zorn, the subject of last weekend’s celebrations at the Walker, who has in many ways built his musical career on the most ephemeral of musics, that of improvisation in its various guises.

Herbert Marcuse once wrote that works of art can become “neutralized as a classic.” After an audience member asked him what he thought his greatest accomplishment was, he responded curtly, “I don’t think in those terms.” There is very little sense that Zorn is worried about his works becoming neutralized, if only because of his acerbic wit personality. (He launched more f-bombs in one performance at the Walker than I think I’ve heard in all the shows I’ve reviewed, combined.) And yet Zorn is well-known for celebrations of his “decade” birthdays, and the 60^th is no different, with events happening around the world.

Such a juxtaposition (at best, or at worst, a contradiction) is only one that was on display at the Walker. Zorn’s yellow-inflected camo pants with the Jewish tzitzit was perhaps the most visible, but there were deeper musical things happening on the McGuire’s stage. Having never seen Zorn live before, I was struck how the dynamics of improvisation and composition, freedom and control played out through the day’s concerts, which drew on music from his earliest game pieces (Hockey, Cobra) to more recent works (released by groups Nova Express and The Concealed).

There were only two pieces in the evening where Zorn wasn’t on stage: Marc Ribot’s performance of excerpts from The Book of Heads, where he used all manner of objects (including balloons!) on his frayed guitar that looks like it had seen many performances of this particular Zorn work, and Erik Friedlander’s gorgeous solo cello arrangements of pieces from Zorn’s Book of Angels series.

Zorn himself only played on two pieces, Hockey (an early game piece) and, one of the highlights of the entire festival, a blistering live score to Wallace Berman’s cut-up film Aleph. Zorn’s contribution was skronky-as-hell alto sax runs, Kenny Wollesen on drums (where he is equally impressive, though he spent most of the night on the vibes), and Greg Cohen. Given the applause afterwards, this was what many folks in the audience were waiting for (including one heckler who had earlier questioned Zorn as to where his sax was; the response he got from the sax’s owner was characteristically Zorn: “At home, motherfucker.”)

More often than not, though, Zorn was a conductor of the various ensembles that took the stage, even some that didn’t necessarily need a conductor. Conducting and leading for Zorn is just as much of an active role as the musicians making the sounds that make up the music. For perhaps his best-known work, Cobra, he was conductor, signal caller, and ringleader all rolled into one, holding up various cards and signaling to musicians what to play and when. Yet the musicians (which included Twin Cities improvisers Michelle Kinney on cello and Joey Schad on keyboards) could also choose who they wanted to play with (or sometimes against) and could even assume the role of conductor by donning a piece of headwear. As the musicians moved through four movements, sometimes cacophonous, sometimes luminescent, it seemed that Zorn struck an incredible melding of both the fun of the best sports moments with the intellectual exercise and reward of avant-garde improvised music.

Yet I think his presence for groups like the often-manic, Klezmer-influenced jams of the Masada Trio (comprised of Friedlander, violinist Marc Freedman, and bassist Greg Cohen), in which he sat on the ground in front of them calling out tempos and pointing at musicians for solos, backgrounds, and other musical sections, speaks more of a desire—or perhaps need—for control. Later in this same set, the larger band Bar Khokba took the stage, and again Zorn was just off to the side, sitting with score in front of him,  calling out tempos and solos much the same way he did with the Masada Trio. Yet here he was even more precise in his demands and gestures, at one point even telling what specific pattern the drummer Joey Baron should play.

In all of these instances, though, Zorn and the musicians playing his music look like they’re having the time of their life. Especially Joey Baron. The smile on Baron’s face was only eclipsed by the bulging neck muscles as his arms catapulted to the different parts of his set. One of my great joys in life is seeing really joyful musical collaboration and connection in live improvised music performance, and the relationship between Zorn, his musicians, and between the musicians themselves, was absolutely thrilling. And the person who seemed to be having the most fun on-stage was often Zorn himself.

Why do musicians like this arrangement? None of these musicians need a conductor or bandleader, at least not in any conventional sense. Perhaps it frees them to explore their own improvisational capacities without necessarily having to worry about the dynamics of the “piece,” i.e. doing this for this many bars, that for that many bars, etc. Or they can avoid deciding things like solo order, length, etc before the performance, meaning that each performance has a greater feel of spontaneity. There is also a deep sense of care from Zorn towards his musicians. At one point, Wollesen wanted one of the stage crew to get him a towel and, until that happened, Zorn kept checking on him until someone handed him that towel.

Despite so much emphasis on collaboration and creation with other people, the festival ended with Zorn having, in many ways, the ultimate exercise of musical power and control. Sitting at the organ console at St. Mark’s, an eerie blue-green light casting upwards from the music stand, he played towering block chords, Bach-like chorales, and pedal tones that barely registered as “notes” but shook the cathedral’s fixtures and pipe enclosures, making the entire building his rhythm section.

Ending the concert in a more traditionally sacred space seems to bring the juxtapositions and contradictions of the evening to a head. While what Zorn created on the organ was certainly keeping in his iconoclastic character, and most likely tones, clusters, and foundation-shaking pedal tones are not usually played on this particular organ, there still was a sense of reverence, if not for the space, than for what the music makes the space become. In conversation with curator Phillip Bither at the start of the festival, Zorn spoke of the ritual, magic, and purity of music that works—and works for—a higher plane of knowledge and truth, even if that truth might only be a fleeting moment, in a basement studio, a multimillion dollar stage, or a towering cathedral, and even after 60 years.

Photo by Murat Eyuboglu

To spark discussion, the Walker invites local artists and critics to write overnight reviews of our performances. The ongoing Re:View series shares a diverse array of independent voices and opinions; it doesn’t reflect the views or opinions of the Walker or its curators. Today, filmmaker and writer Justin Schell shares his perspective on Tuesday’s concert by Shara Worden. Agree or disagree? Feel free to share your thoughts in comments!

Shara Worden has a voice that doesn’t seem like it should emanate from the body it’s housed in. Or perhaps it’s the other way around: her body can’t contain her voice. Worden and drummer Brian Wolfe played an hour long My Brightest Diamond set for a crowd gathered at the Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra’s music room, a crowd that expected to hear yMusic along with Worden. Due to the ongoing labor dispute between the SPCO and the orchestra’s management, however, yMusic was unable to perform because of union solidarity or union obstructionism, depending on your point of view.

Dressed in a white tuxedo coat, sequined black pants, and oversized bow tie, Worden cut an amalgamated figure: shades of Annie Lennox, Brian Setzer, Pee Wee Herman, and Stop Making Sense all were visible. There were so many different feels and characters to the songs, often played on different instruments (ranging from mbira to autoharp to ukulele), that it verged on performative, yet superficial, pastiche.  The best moments for me were when she was more personal than persona, such as in “I Have Never Loved Someone,” an intimate love song to her two-year old son played delicately on the SPCO’s organ.

Photo by Denny Renshaw

Beyond the songs, though, the “off-stage story,” the locked-out SPCO musicians  and their effect on the concert tonight, gave the evening an element of cognitive dissonance for me. “We Added It Up,” a song ostensibly about relationship opposites told through the zero-charge neutrino particle, rang a little hollow. Having her channel Cardew or Rzewski would’ve rang equally hollow, though. In the end, the concert was a somewhat rare instance when the labor involved in music-making is revealed, the financial and negotiated realities that get people to the stage placed front and center. Worden’s music often invoked transcendence, whether it be through her music, her words, or her other-worldly voice, effortlessly flicking to notes far above the staff, but tonight, that transcendent quality brought the issues of the musical world all the more sharply into focus.

Glenn Kotche. Photo: Ed Luna

To spark discussion, the Walker invites local artists and critics to write overnight reviews of our performances. The ongoing Re:View series shares a diverse array of independent voices and opinions; it doesn’t reflect the views or opinions of the Walker or its curators. Today, filmmaker and writer Justin Schell shares his perspective on Saturday’s concert by Glenn Kotche. Agree or disagree? Feel free to share your thoughts in comments!

In his introduction to Saturday night’s performance by Glenn Kotche at the McGuire, Philip Bither used language of sonic exploration to describe what the audience was about to see. Though he was mainly discussing ILIMAQ, the “drum kit opera” by John Luther Adams and peformed by Kotche that comprised the evening’s second half, both parts of the evening featured explorations of sonic and physical landscapes.

The first half of the show was a long collaborative composition between Kotche and multi-instrumentalist wizard Martin Dosh. Encircled by a full studio mixer, piano, marimba, drum kit, and a number of other keyboards, Dosh created, transformed, and reversed intricate live loops that revolved around, between, and within what Kotche played. For his part, the Wilco drummer also had a conventional drumset, a marimba, xylophone (which was bowed as often as it was struck with mallets), and a pair of bass drums that were never struck, but used only as a resonating surface for spinning, vibrating robot toys. The two artists seemed to be winding their way through the geography of their creation in perpetual motion, at times solidifying and coalescing around an understated piano melody played by Dosh that somehow tied everything together. And as the piece wound down, ending as it began with found sound conversational recordings and bowed xylophone, the robots in the back kept spinning, a lovely metaphor for the 20+ minutes of music the audience experienced.

John Luther Adams has made much of his music about and amidst the landscapes of Alaska, where he has resided since 1978, and Ilimaq is his most recent work. Written for Kotche, the piece is divided into roughly three sections, with Kotche playing on three different setups: first, a side-turned bass drum; second, a greatly-expanded drum set with multiple tuned toms; and finally a vast array of cymbals and gongs, also arranged in orders of tuning. Over the course of nearly an hour, Kotche displayed his virtuosity on all of the instruments, as his sounds were delayed and channeled by sound engineer Jody Elff though the McGuire’s speakers, creating the sense of being surrounded by drums in the middle of an icy, barren landscape. (Nearly imperceptible flickering lights in the McGuire’s ceiling even gave the impression of a starry night sky.)

Glenn Kotche. Photo: Ed Luna

For Adams, the extra-musical aspect of the piece is the “spirit journey” (the English translation of the piece’s title) of an Iñupiat, or Alaskan Inuit, shaman. Without wanting to make too reductive a characterization of the piece as new age-y romanticization of shamanism, Native or otherwise, the piece’s repetitions work to relieve the listener of the musical conventions and associations of a bass drum, ride cymbal, or a gong. I likened it to saying a word over and over until it becomes more sonic than semantic. However, in this case, the repetitions went on a bit too long, leaving me to unfortunately put this in the category of “appreciating” this music for what Adams and Kotche were going for, rather than really enjoying it.