Loop-Line, Tokyo, 10/22/06

Our second show seemed more promising as Brian and I performed at Loop-Line last year to a fairly full house (relative mind you, as I've mentioned most of the venues are tiny; last year somehow close to 50 people managed to cram themselves in) and we were hoping for another solid turnout.

That was mostly the case. Not quite a many attendees as 2005, but a respectable number (30 or so). Another factor that may have contributed was the variety of performers tonight: Fourcolor (one part of Minamo) who has releases on 12k, HUVA (Hiroyuki Ura and Shinjiro Yamaguchi), LSD (that’s us) and Vertonen (Blake).

The show started at 7pm with HUVA performing first. They had a solid set that tended towards the minimal with some thoughtful explorations of delicate tones, field recordings and unidentified cracklings and scrapings. It's hard to tell with these boys just how much of this is actually "improvised" in that the music is not gestural in nature. It's built around tones, loops and recordings so it's more of a question of triggering particular sounds rather than launching things into the ether much like one would do with an instrument. At least that is the aesthetic that Brian and I pursue. Obviously we use laptops and electronics (along with the odd object or two) but our methodology is to employ them more like traditional instruments in that we are interested in gestural expression. That is, if one uses a guitar and plucks a string, you hear a note as opposed to pressing play/triggering a sample that launches a rigid, "pre-determined" loop. It starts, it ends. One can certainly achieve some complex sequences and progressions that way but ultimately one is just presenting a collection of sounds.

I'm not saying that our particular methodology is better or superior than someone performing from a loop based perspective. Rather it is more conducive to my interpretation of what improvisation should be. Reacting to your partner(s) in an intelligent way, being flexible to adapt to a variety situations and, as Derek Bailey suggested, avoiding idioms. I don't particularly need to have thousands of sounds in my arsenal. In fact, limitations can be a relatively good to stay focused and play within one's means. Just as a guitarist will have a finite number of sounds (even with extended technique, a guitar is still a guitar), I have a particular "library" of sounds that I use regularly. It is simple augmented by some processes (analog and digital) that I can use to transform more "mundane" sounds into something wholly different.

Armchair philosophy aside, Fourcolor was up next. Normally this is just one individual but today he had a partner doing visuals along side. I didn't get a chance to really talk to them about how exactly they interacted together. The gentleman doing the visuals was using software he wrote/built himself, with the visual elements being heavily and rigidly geometric in nature (squares and spheres of varying sizes). These shapes would move about on the screen (the laptop was fed into a projector with the images being show on the back wall, behind the performers.

I was a little surprised by Fourcolor's set, not that he had a visual artist with him, but that his music was different than what I expected from him tonight, having heard all of his records (including the very recent 12k release). Fourcolor is one of the members of Minamo, a Japanese electroacoustic group that I like a lot. However, I was disappointed with Fourcolor's latest on 12k, a collection of pretty melodic tones, drones and the usual of rhythmic clicks and pops.

Blake was third and he began with some field recordings made earlier that morning before we left Hiroyuki's house. The bedroom we slept in faced the river and there was a small park next to it, not far from the house. Late morning we began hearing a progressively louder cacophony of cats (we saw them the day before, a large group of strays that were there frequently). Blake used his voice recorded to capture this nice little symphony of howls, screeches and other unnamable noise they were making. The cats recordings gave way to some heavier drones before another recording of felines was brought in. This one in particular was of his cat and was really well recorded, which was problematic in that it stood out very sharply from the rest of the mix and was instantly identifiable as a cat, cutting through the grittier portion of the sounds. After that however, he returned to the more menacing collection of tones, buzzes, grindings and metal jabberings he has been doing so well. This particular set had less of an assaultive edge to it, as we weren't performing with the out and out harsh noise musicians. The set progressed nicely, ending with a heavily pitched down vocal/melodic sample of Audrey Hepburn (not that one could tell who it was without being told). It worked nicely in this context as the tones were fading into the air, adding a very melancholy feel to the last portion of his set. It reminded of a lot of the ending of 2001, when Bowman is dismantling HAL9000 by taking him apart and he starts singing "Daisy Bell," which becomes progressively slower, more pitched down until it stops altogether.

Once again, LSD was last. We decided to incorporate a mic into the affair, as Brian had some small acoustic objects with him (bells and other trinkets). I started the set with some squid jerky I had bought the previous night, crinkling the plastic bag then shoveling the jerky in my mouth and chewing, crunching away right into the mic. And man did that jerky stink; I felt a little sorry for the people sitting in the first row as I think the pungency wafted out rather quickly. As I was eating, we both started bringing in quieter sounds to complement the plastic crackle. This set was more like our usual performances, tending toward the quieter and sparser with the rare burst of louder, sharper sounds. I also briefly incorporated some radio (mostly static) as well as trading some tones, low bass throbs and oscillations. I also used a few static loops, one of which was a piano loop we had recorded last year that sat nicely in the mix. The set probably went on a bit too long, as I sensed at one point Brian was ready to stop and what was likely a "natural" ending point but I pressed on for a bit more. But that was me being a little selfish; I think I was rather engrossed in the sounds and was enjoying the proceedings little much to stop just yet. Overall however, it was a fairly solid performance.

Loop-line, like many of these small venues, served alcohol, so by the end of the night there, Blake and I had 5 shots of vodka each between us (Wilkinson’s? could have been worse I guess), not to mention my 2 tall boys of Kirin prior to the performance. Perhaps you see where this is headed. I ended up having 3 Moscow Mules at izagaya after the show so by the end of the night I was rather hammered and passed out about 2 minutes after getting back to Hiro's house. Fortunately, we got a ride from one of his friends as by the time we left Loop-Line it was already raining hard and after izagaya, it was utterly pissing. I still got rather soaked.

And once again, no money. I'll spend less time bitching about it (the space is apparently fairly expensive to rent) but it seems like overall this year, things have been a little more slapdash in terms of promotion and overall "professionalism." Maybe courtesy is a better word? If one is taking on the responsibility of putting together an event and having out of towners play, it would seem that some sort of compensation would be in order. Certainly that's how I have approached this when I have the opportunity to put together events for people in Chicago. I may not have much money to offer but if I have to pay people out of my own pocket so be it. This is not the kind of music or "scene" where people make money hand over fist, perhaps with some notable exceptions, and supporting each other in whatever little way always helps. So picking up flyers (nice ones at that) 2 days before the show is probably not the most helpful of tactics. Like the previous night, things ended with a rather disappointing izakaya (listen to me, I'm a fucking Japanese food connoisseur all of a sudden).