Ether 2009 Festival, Southbank Centre
Just about a third of the way through the year and only now have I managed my first gig – criminal. I do have five other concerts lined up throughout 2009 so can’t complain, I kicked proceedings off with an event centering on the more avant garde area of my musical tastes, a glitch festival called Ether 2009 which was held at London’s Southbank. The line-up for the evening was CM Von Hausswolff (who I’d never heard of), Rosy Parlane (who I’d never heard of) and perhaps the glitch scenes most high-profile act Christian Fennesz. As it was the most beautiful day of the year so far we actually missed the first act and most of the second act due to being distracted by sunshine, cold beer and a glorious view of the Thames from the Royal Festival Hall, we did manage to catch the Fennesz set and an encore of all three acts performing together.
I don’t have a great deal to say about this as, well, it’s honestly not an area of music I know anything about other than a gut reaction to the discs my friend has supplied me over the years, he’s the real fan. What I do like about this music live is that when you’ve got no lyrics to absorb, no bass chords to connect to, no drum rhythms to ‘centre’ the music then your frittering imagination expands to fill in the gaps, like some sort of group meditation session. Perhaps it’s the recent passing of JG Ballard being on my mind but I can recall thinking of how curious it is that a bunch of shaved monkeys works all day for another bunch of shaved monkeys in order to obtain some nice shiny things to exchange with other shaved monkeys to watch one monkey manipulate our monkey senses with machines invented by dead shaved monkeys. OK, OK, I’d had a couple of drinks, alright?
It’s either genius or one of the biggest con jobs in modern times. How do they know, when composing their pieces that they’ve got it right? The correct level of pitch, the right chord that harmonises with the other layers? Are these musicians even classically trained, can they read chords or do they take a mathematical approach to the material given that it all conjured up through top range imacs? Even the usual live performance conventions are subverted, no-one knows when to clap as you’re not actually sure when a piece has finished, there is no interaction with the audience from the musicians other than a courteous bow, all in all it’s quite a different live music experience and hey, like Woody Allen said, ‘I’ll try anything once, except incest…or Line-Dancing’. I enjoyed the evening and I’m sure it will serve as a amusing counterpoint to my next planned gig.
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