Bowerbird 1st anniversary at Powel House. (1st show review!)

We drank and sat in the historical recreation. Formed the waveform in the midst of ourselves and the baroque of the architecture.

Set #1

Tim Albro

He sat, motionless, toes pointed inward, transceiving and transmitting the frequency’s of this house filled with past. The soundscape environment flowed through the synth loops. Filling silence around the passing automobiles. We all heard the creaks and cracks of a hidden low range hi-fi speaker hidden under one of the chairs in the back. Later we realize it is but the imbalance of an audience member on the old floorboards, playing the building, yet for Mr. Albro it is simply part of his archestra. As well the translucent shining octopussy hanging from the ceiling emitting too much light. He plays the resonance of the building and its environs.

Postscript: he tuned his toes into the frequency of the building.

Set #2

Forbes Graham

(#1) long fingers over his breath laid into the disconnected metal topography of his dissembled (mini-trumpet?). Disconnected interface connection. He smokes the essence of the instrument, beat-boxing into its hollow form with whispers.

(#2) laying out a rainy broken echo percussion with micro notated trumpet work. Blowing out the spit valve becoming the coda for a Coltrane dream. L o o o ng fingers. “Choked jazz” she says. [It’s totally political. Don’t you hear it?! The tribal, the oppression? This becomes a joke. A true joke. The text of his music reads like generations of oppressed afrocentric, Afro-American, afro-has-to musicians not being heard—by each other, by white folk, not heard at all. In this space, surrounded by Listeners, those who paid penance for beer, listen to his sounds. Yet do they really hear?] He bombs himself with the synthetic sounds of video game destruction; it fills our dread with truth, but in missed direction, the 18^th Century girl in the painting facing screams in orgasmic fury. And the shells fall.

John Mueller & Jason Kahn

Begin with a clap. Wires, wires, wires, so many the count is lost. 3 drums, a pot lid, no a cymbal, 4 tape machines linked on top of one another? drum Theremins? Mysteries lead us into the waveform. The sound cascade builds with a pile of fabric draped on a snare drum. Gong break. Full carrier wave breaks the set mid-sentence. More wire fiddling. Faulted wire dropped on the array brings an unexpected wave-formation in the glasses of one. Big-time Waveform.