The slowly evolving soundscape was trance-inducing, full of pulsing bass tones and rhythmic textures. The sounds expanded to fill the entirety of the performance space. Some resonances created the illusion of stereo panning, while other literally shook the walls.
The second installment of the “Actual Music Series” featured two different artist duos: English, composed of Bonnie Jones and Joe Foster; and GOD, composed of Leif Sundstrom and Bryan Eubanks. The concert was titled “Baltimore/New York/Portland/Seoul,” after the various residences of the performers.
English was the first act of the night and consisted of the performers sitting at opposite ends of a long table, as if playing a clandestine game of Battleship. The only illumination in the room came from two headlamps worn by the performers. English’s sound is that of dying machines. Both Jones and Foster used microphone feedback and circuit bent electronics to create a collage of different sounds, ranging from static clicks and pops to screaming walls of noise.
In the program notes, Bonnie writes: “Both Joe and I came from writing backgrounds….How this factored into our duet is still unclear, though I imagine a sense of atypical composition and irregular narratives…were in the mix.”
The structure of English’s music is anything but sequential. Tones and swells of noise often built gradually, only to reach peak intensity and disappear suddenly. This, together with the lack of ambient light, gave the performance a sense of uncertainty.
GOD performed on a fully-lit stage, as if to dispel any doubt that their moniker is due to mystical or egotistical posturing. GOD’s music can be described by one word: hypnotic. A sharp contrast to the music of English, they carefully constructed an environmental soundscape out of electronic noise. Sundstrom produced the sounds by a combination of microphone feedback, with homemade open circuit electronics by Eubanks. Eubanks’s instrument was merely a wooden box filled with wires and circuits, which hovered over him like a chessboard for the duration of the performance.
Open Circuit Electronics are a relatively-new phenomena in contemporary music. Also known as Circuit Bending, the process involves rewiring the circuitry of a sound processing or producing unit, so as to produce entirely new sounds. The objects that are “bent” range from keyboards to guitar pedals to calculators to children’s toys; English used a digital delay pedal that was bent by Eubanks. One of the most popular beginning circuit bending projects is a Speak & Spell, which, when bent, produces exorcist-like incantations instead of words. Both GOD and English’s use of Open Circuit Electronics are more delicate and specific than the average circuit bender.
The “Actual Music Series” continues with “Actual Music 3: Contingency” on Tuesday, Oct. 10 in the CFA Cinema at 8 p.m. Featured works will include pieces by Anthony Braxton, Christian Wolf, and Kyle Brenders.
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