Artscape/Exotic Hypnotic: Brian Sacawa

Brian Sacawa @ Artscape/Exotic Hypnotic, Langsdale Auditorium, July 20, 2007, Baltimore, MD

I've written about Brian Sacawa in concert and on CD in this blog. He is emerging as a great champion of new works for saxophone and he consistently engages the listener with unexpected sounds and territory for that instrument. In a marathon of experimental music his set is easily the most striking for its consistency and fine tuned musicianship.

With DJ Dubble8 manning the turntables, Sacawa featured some compositions and improvisations drawing upon electronica and beat-oriented influences. I suspect this will be a direction a lot of composers will be exploring in the years and decades ahead and the music on this program exposes some startling possibilities. I particularly liked the composition built upon spoken phrases by Billie Holiday.

Artscape/Exotic Hypnotic: Chris Pumphrey

Chris Pumphrey @ Artscape/Exotic Hypnotic, Langsdale Auditorium, July 20, 2007, Baltimore, MD

Chris Pumphrey played a short set for prepared electric piano and analog synthesizer. The bell-like percussive timbres and sharp dynamic contour of the Rhodes electric were offset by the sustained swells of the oscillators of the Roland synth. Pumphrey has a great ear for picking intervals that sound incredibly meaty while taking the electric piano into some unique territory. The pulsating, groove-heavy material had all the dance-like charm of John Cage's Sonatas and Interludes for prepared piano and his long, lyrical passages for pentatonic scales were particularly well suited for this timbral soundscape. His set seemed to be over far too soon for my taste.

Artscape/Exotic Hypnotic: Santa Dads

Santa Dads @ Artscape/Exotic Hypnotic, Langsdale Auditorium, July 20, 2007, Baltimore, MD

Some might say that you haven't lived until you've seen a beat-boxer wearing a home-made Tigger costume accompanied by a grown man in a red dress playing electric ukulele. If such a spectacle has escaped your experiences consider yourself fortunate. The "Next World Minstrels" known as Santa Dads are an acquired taste at best. The "theatrics," such as they are, do little to gloss over the lack of musical substance. The ability to make a spit-filled kick drum and high-hat into a microphone makes for a limited beat-box vocabulary, particularly when the tempo/groove is less than convincing. And it's a little puzzling how someone with a vocal range of less than an octave can still miss every single note.

Artscape/Exotic Hypnotic: Crown of Forks

Crown of Forks @ Artscape/Exotic Hypnotic, Langsdale Auditorium, July 20, 2007, Baltimore, MD

It took a long time for Crown of Forks to set up their equipment. And once I recognized the inherent danger of setting up a weed whacker in close proximity to an inflatable kiddie pool filled with ketchup I hastily made my way out of harm's way. This proved to be a wise move as the clean-up time would prove to be twice as long as the set-up. And the "performance" itself was completed in mere moments.

The stench of that most foul of condiments wasn't the only thing that stunk in this performance. As a listener, and as an audience member, I can tolerate a lot and have more patience than most. But this one goes into the hall of fame for worst concert experience ever. If a piece fails because of poor execution or lack of merit in the initial idea I'm okay with that. But this was not an idea or even a conceptually defensible work of art. This was a stunt hatched by juvenile idiots and a bad idea badly executed. It's crap like this that gives "experimental music" a bad reputation - and understandably so.

Artscape/Exotic Hypnotic: Walker and Jay

Walker and Jay @ Artscape/Exotic Hypnotic, Langsdale Auditorium, July 20, 2007, Baltimore, MD

Armed with a banjo, acoustic guitar, fiddle and voices, Walker and Jay play traditional Americana ballads and old time country music. And these old-time stories and melodic lines come to life with their considerable interpretive skills. Their vocal intonation was right on the money along with a steady sense of time. They played the an impressive set of the first day of Exotic Hypnotic that left me wanting to hear more.

Artscape/Exotic Hypnotic: The Electric Junk Band

The Electric Junk Band @ Artscape/Exotic Hypnotic, Langsdale Auditorium, July 20, 2007, Baltimore, MD

The Electric Junk Band is a trio of would-be one-man bands as each individual incorporates at least one drumming element. Trevor Choflet stomps with one foot on a tambourine as he plays the steel guitar and sings. Eric Franklin keeps at least one mallet in hand as he plays guitar, at times hitting a tom-tom with a cymbal on it or just drumming on the keyboard of a nasty old Realistic synthesizer. And Bob Wagner stands at a stripped down drum kit though he's just as likely to turn on a speaker with a loaded trash can lid sitting on top or play an ad-hoc bass made from a fingerboard and a kettle. Their music is the blues. And they play it with a lot of heart. The restless, "junky" quality of their sound combined with a laid back beat leaves one waiting for the wheels to come off at any moment. They're like an old, old car that leaves a trail of nuts and bolts in its wake and a small swimming pool of oil in the parking lot yet always has just enough to get where it's going.

Scale of the Day: A Sharp Pythagorean Locrian mapped to the Square-root-of-2

The A Sharp Pythagorean Locrian mapped to the Square-root-of-2 Scale. An all-utonal diatonic scale with the intervals cut in half to fit within the tritone.