WA#
our flagship intimate concert series,
for new music lovers and neophytes alike
the sonic assault that started it all: dystopic soundscapes of denatured instrumental sound, desiccated techno-abstractions, confessional poetry (by way of sexton) and primal, ear-busting shouting… the scene followed by microtonal celesta aftercare. we got a noise complaint from the purveyors of stupid music with candles.
a bizarre whiff of a strange childhood: janky toy pianos, curious wind-up toys, a scene from wonderland, percussive frying pans, indeterminate noises… tom johnson’s pedantic bedtime stories served as strange interludes.
who says we don’t play the classics? lachenmann’s seminal piece of “musique concrete instrumentale”, murail’s spectral gardens, terrifying night visions with americ goh’s piano trio and sciarrino’s cruel nocturnes, capped off with saunders’s weighty, imposing duo for violin and piano. this gig was also cursed: it was rescheduled twice (COVID) and ended up taking place after WA#4.
a portrait concert of british iconoclast adam de la cour, this including his epic The Real Imaginary Framed Existence of Ringhead and Loon, a 50-something page comic score covered in enigmatic graphics and abstract notation.
a little gig built on “vocal abstractions”: objectified voices, nonsense words, imaginary languages, post-instrumental whispers…
genre-busting psychedelia, austere dusty noisescapes, contrabass clarinet screamo, “cy twombly”-sound, haltingly beautiful song (melodic aposiopesis?), pensive contemplations… all in the warm comfort of a tattoo parlour (sabi tattoo sg).
our first pride month gig, in a pole dance studio. communal exercises in sounding and listening (oliveros), eastman’s polemical gay guerilla, and other fun fabulous stuff. (somehow britten snuck his way onto this program.)