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VIDA DE-sign by Michael Buckingham, aka Mick Muttley

Dear friends (yeah really, one of those) I have become a women's wear designer for VIDA! http://shopvida.com/collections/voices/ ...

Sunday 15 March 2015

SubVersion Stop 248: Audiograft Night 3 - [rout] ensemble feat. Jennifer Walshe, James Saunders, Felicity Ford @ Holywell Music Room, Oxford, 13.03.15

Nightshift prospective review 11: [rout] at AudioGraft night 3, Holywell Music Room, 13.03.15
 
Audiograft's third event of 2015, organised by the reliable Oxford Contemporary Music and featuring sonic art from Jennifer Walshe, James Saunders, Felicity Ford and others, proves to be a remarkable event even just three pieces in. The [rout] based collective on display tonight forge new paths out of the finish Trevor Wishart, a pioneer of the term 'sonic art', profligated since musique concrete made headway from humble origins in the 1930s jazz destructuring, later advanced by The Radiophonic Workshop.

Recorded by Wire mag types Resonance FM London, this gig makes an oblique statement early: is the room about to explode? Because here the pipe system of the Holywell has been modified to impression springing a multitude of audible leaks. It's engaging enough stuff on the surface - peppered with instrumental sprinklings - but it's the second piece for full group, a dilated worldview organism of a score, that strikes as a collapsing limb trying to admirably rebuild its core aesthetic.

After a segmented voice and movement piece at its best in choral/body matching tendencies, then a 10 minute interval, the amply attended gig takes on a tutorial pattern recognition exercise where chromatic scale is treated as a cornerstone to voice a dual idea from - "A, B, E" - "strum, strum, strum", combining the small acoustic guitar and extrapolative leanings in body direction. A gong-y double bass tone starts out a more moat-mouthed exponent of castle-like sound sculpture. The wailing violin sonar counterpointed with saxophone and Christopher Bissonnette-esque tribal gong sounds like the waves began to play their own tune. The prepared piano sidelines a melodic bridge in higher register, only to be a postcard sent from a forgotten land.

The last piece is testament to [rout] collective's vision - a fantastic old school drama with disharmonic piano and mournful strings, topped off by French vocals. Strangely, for all the craterous pacing, [rout] seem to have their roots in all adventurous places possible.

Mick Buckingham (www.kapsil.net/muttley / www.focisleft.bandcamp.com)

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