Skip to main content

Approximately Infinite Universe

CCA, Glasgow
4 stars
The parallel rise over the last couple of years of so-called free folk scenes in both America and Finland has thrown up a fantastically diverse array of acts, many of whom embrace 1960s hippy idealism alongside a primitive DIY aesthetic. Getting artists from both camps to collaborate is an inspired idea by the Contemporary Music Network in association with the low-level No-Fi and (No.Signal) organisations. While the first night of this short UK tour suggests compromises have been made as cultures don’t so much clash as tip-toe around each other, identities and influences nevertheless fuse in often unexpected ways.

Closest to folk in the conventional sense is the opening set by Es, aka film-maker and Fonal Records boss, Sami Sänpäkkilä, and Tara Burke’s Fursaxa project. Their fusion of wordless vocals with organ, guitar and FX creates a hauntingly spectral gush. Tampere based Jan Anderzen appears onstage twice. First up is his Kemialliset Ystavet band project, who are paired with Axolotl’s Karl Bauer on electronic percussion. Led by insistently repetitive bass and wigged-out guitars, the combination leans towards the rhythmic mantras of German Kosmische music.

Even more surprising is Helsinki diva Islaja, aka Merja Kokkonen. Aided by Blevin Blectum’s & Samara Lubelski, the trio take a beat-heavy foray into Teutonic gay disco. Finally, the lights are dimmed for Dream Triangle, in which Anderzen in his Tomutonttu guise joins Spencer Clark and James Ferraro’s Skaters duo for a blissed-out finale of insular chilled-out beauty. Overall, the spirit of a more themed version of the sadly lost Subcurrent festival, which ran in the CCA for a few years, is conjured up in a magical display of sonic alchemy.

The Herald, October 2008

ends
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Suzy Glass – Message from the Skies

Freedom of movement matters to Suzy Glass, the arts and events producer currently overseeing the second edition of Message from the Skies.This animated literary derive around the city forms part of this year’s Edinburgh’s Hogmanay programme, and runs right through till Burns’ Night. Glass’ concerns are inherent in the event itself, which has commissioned six writers from different disciplines and experiences to each pen a love letter to Europe. Each writer has then paired up with a composer and visual artist or film-maker, with the results of each collaboration projected in monumental fashion on the walls of one of half a dozen of the capital’s most iconic buildings.
With venues stretching from the south side of Edinburgh to Leith, and with one city centre stop requiring a walk up Calton Hill, there is considerable legwork required to complete the circuit. It shouldn’t be considered a race, however, and audiences are free to move between venues at their leisure, visiting each site on d…
Post a Comment
Read more

Kieran Hurley – Mouthpiece

Things have changed since Kieran Hurley first began writing the play that would become Mouthpiece, which opens at the Traverse Theatre in Edinburgh this weekend. At the time, Hurley was, in his own words, “quite new on the scene.” As a writer and performer, he had already scored hits with Beats and Chalk Farm, two pieces that put him on the map with a new generation of theatre-makers steeped in an equally new wave of grassroots opposition that drew from the iconography of revolutions past. Where Beats looked at the politicisation of 1990s club culture, Chalk Farm, co-written with AJ Taudevin, focused on a teenage boy caught up in the 2011 London riots.
More plays followed. Some, like Heads Up used the same solo story-telling aesthetic to look at an everyday apocalypse. More recently, Square Go, written with Gary McNair, dissected toxic masculinity through a school playground fight.
All the while as Hurley developed as a writer, from new kid on the block to established provocateur, this…
Post a Comment
Read more

Rob Drummond – The Mack

Rob Drummond was at home in England when he looked at the news feed on his phone, and saw a post about the fire at Glasgow School of Art. It was June 2018, and the writer and performer behind such hits as Grain in the Blood, Bullet Catch and Our Fathers initially presumed the post was to mark the fourth anniversary of the 2014 blaze in GSA’s Mackintosh Building, which was undergoing a major restoration after much of it was destroyed.
As it turned out, the news was far worse, as reports of a second fire were beamed across the world. As someone who had taken Charles Rennie Mackintosh’s iconic construction for granted while living in Glasgow, Drummond was as stunned as anyone else with even a passing relationship with the Mack.
While emotions continue to run high in response to the disaster, Drummond channelled his thoughts on all this into what he does best. The result is The Mack, a new play that forms part of Oran Mor’s A Play, A Pie and a Pint lunchtime theatre season in Glasgow prior …
Post a Comment
Read more