Noise is off to a good start this season. On Tuesday 9/24 an intimate but highly entertaining show was put on at EVOS in Lowell. This is a fine venue with a bar at the back, some lounge chairs in addition to the benches and chairs and a really good quality sound system. The value of this was demonstrated by Sper Parts who opened the evening with some very attractive abstract turntablism. It had that dusty, airy quality I associate with the first Portishead album. Not bombastic or really driving you anywhere in particular, this is the kind of background music I would like to listen to in a cabaret lounge with dark red velvet furniture and low lighting with cocktails and friends while waiting for the first act — pleasant and sufficiently interesting to draw one in but not shrill enough to compel one to listen. Now, at this hypothetical cabaret lounge the first stage act would have been up Emil Beaulieu. He is, apart from being the world's greatest living noise artist (a claim I wouldn't want to dispute), a brilliant entertainer. His Tuesday set was a selection of intimate and wistfully deranged songs improvised on topics very close to hand; actually most were in the audience. For example, Ed and Heather, who were in the first row, clearly enjoyed the "Ed is the most annoying person in the world" song he dedicated to them. And the "My cock is Howie Stelzer" number was rousing indeed. As I said, intimate. Jon Whitney's R project continues to improve and his "Four strings for one note" was far and away the prettiest set of the evening. Not being as laid back as the first act this wouldn't quite make it as background music for my hypothetical lounge but it was plenty good enough to merit the attention it was demanding. I particularly liked the beginning, a truly massive but clean bass guitar drone (that sound system again), big enough to modulate the sound of punter's speech in your ear, enveloped and massaged light sort of crackling mid-to-high range noises. It was quite special for a moment there. Stelzer and Talbot did their thing which I find I'm enjoying more this season after which Sudden Infant hit the stage with the last cabaret set of the evening. Like Emil's set it was a collection of short pieces each dedicated to someone or -thing, many of them in the room. Their music is remarkably varied and inventive, witty and precisely controlled. Their impersonation of Stelzer and Talbot was adept both musically and visually. During this I was waiting for Howie's trademark "thank you" (the one he uses to delineate the end of each piece) and Joke Lanz delivered it with perfect tone and timing. It was, as they say, a hoot. Their lovable perversion of the Simpson's theme, played on a real live saxumaphone, was equally memorable.
Then on Friday 9/27, the show at the Berwick Research Institute in Boston just blew me away. Once again, Emil was there in the form of Due Process with Jason Lescalleet, as were Stelzer/Talbot and Sudden Infant, supplemented this time by Jessica Rylan and the remarkable new trio Heathen Shame. While the Tuesday show was comedic, intimate and laid back the Friday show was violent, overdriven and powerfully cathartic. Only Stelzer/Talbot came across at all thoughtful or abstract, the rest being highly expressionist, powerful and mostly very loud. The opener was Jessica's psychotic vocalising-with-microphone-and-feedback-dance but this time in front of tasteful Vainioesque backdrop of intermodulated tones. The result was rather theatrical and it set the tone for much of what followed by suggesting the yearning potential neurosis that lurks under one's hatred for our culture's received values. Due Process was excessive and intoxicating. Emil recokns they've never been louder. Perhaps half the audience moved to cover at some point or other. I was standing fairly close to one of the low grade but effective loudspeakers and the physiological and psychological effects were novel for me: I had an awareness of resonance in different internal parts of my head and body and at times there were interesting waves of panic. I was vaguely aware that I was being irresponsible with my hearing but I toughed it out anyway. When it was over, I was appalled at the extent of my hearing's distortion and loss and I commented on this to Joke Lanz who said "but it was really good," which was true. Huxley would have seen this as downward self transcendence but I don't care; I love it. Heathen Shame were spectacular, constructing an exquisite and enormous amorphous crystal of guitar distortion and feedback. I adore this kind of music and have done for years. Wayne was the guitar hero, lavishly spazzing-out in 60s a kind of way. Kate was the heathen guitar priestess striking fluid gothic poses and pagan gestures. Greg, the trio's trumpeter stampeded the audience sending chairs and people flying. Sudden Infant's set was one long piece and was masterful. Covering a tremendous amount of territory, it used the collagist's pallet to striking effect — violent, enthralling and thoroughly convincing.
So there we are: two first-rate noise shows in four days: mostly the same performers but totally different from each other in character. And all for a total of $12. What a fine thing our noise scene is.
