Live Performance Review: Bang On A Can All-Stars performing Field Recordings (Edinburgh International Festival (E.I.F.) 2013), Friday 23.08.2012 20:00 The Usher Hall, Edinburgh 

Not a can in sight...

Part of what drew me to this was that they were to be performing a world-premiere and E.I.F. commissioned piece by Laurie Anderson. This was not performed and the informing of this only happened upon arriving at the venue. Naughty... 

I have never done this before, though I took copious notes during the performance. The following is based on these notes which I am trying to decipher as best as I can - they were written in the dark. Some notes were just single words that sprang to mind and some of what is bellow is just me transferring these words as feel they capture my response quite well:

Track One: The sampling reminded me of two albums: Beyond Skin (1999) by Nitin Sawhney & Readymades (2002) by Chumbawamba. 

Track Two: The sampling reminded me of Nitin Sawhney's Prophesy (2001) album. Sadly the spoken word element of the sampling was drowned out by the music, so you could not make out what was being said and it became noise. There was also synchronizing of the sampling and live female vocal at the end of the piece which I did not feel to work.    

Track Three: This had edited together visuals along with the sounds. Many were film clips, so I found myself focusing on the visuals trying to recognise as many as I could, and I knew many. Being a film buff, I suspect this was an issue for me, though may not have been for others. I was aware of growing sense of disconnect between the music and the visuals. 

Track Four: I felt got better as it progressed. It sounded climactic and an uproarious rallying-cry. 

Track Five: Sedative, Calm, Transient, Auto-pilot, Hypnosis. Sound version of waiting in airport for flight. Then we have flight and this is then followed by senseless, buzzingly tiresome meandering. I feel with this piece it would have made sense to have finished it with takeoff. Up to that point this was a decent piece. 

Track Six: I have noted '???' + Boring.

Track Seven: 'Sounds of Somber Destruction'. Good though not in a Good Way. 

Track Eight: 'Turgid'. 

Track Nine: This sounded like someone having a mental breakdown. Literally painful to listen to, I was rubbing my forehead during this piece. It reminded of the work of Daniel Johnston (who I like) & the album 'Smile From The Streets You Hold' (1997), the second solo album by ex-red hot chili pepper John Frusciante. Although John is one of my musical heroes, this album I have only ever listened to once, it was made and released (for money to buy drugs) at his lowest ebb and is very difficult to sit through. A disturbed work. 

Track Ten: Sounded like a great improvement to begin with. Reminded of Circus/Fairground sounds & felt Zappaesque. Sadly this came to sound like a disjointed mess. It sounded as though the sounds were just being mashed together, and the separate sounds themselves were not convincing.        

Track Eleven: Sampled chanting and spoken word. The spoken word appeared to have purpose, though again it was drowned out by the other sampling and sounds, so was hard to be sure.  

Track Twelve: This appeared to visually (when paired with the sounds) be an attack on conventional senses of of beauty, which should be right up my street. This used somewhat dated footage of something called 'Real Beauty Turns' paired with very discordant and needlessly aggressive sounds. The whole thing appeared to attempt irony, though to me was posturing and posing with nothing to say.   

This was interesting, though I would not say I enjoyed it, I felt though who lasted to the end should have been given a badge or certificate to say that managed to get through it. It took me longer to write this up than the performance lasted. This is not music you (or anyone) could listen to for enjoyment or any sense of enrichment. Which begs the question, why bother making this din. For those making this, they must have enough resources from elsewhere to be able to spend there time creating this stuff. I don't see also how the musicians involved could enjoy producing this as it is not pleasant in anyway, I can only they assume they approach this as a technical exercise. This felt to be the very worst kind of pretentious.    

I would suggest the musicians familiarise themselves with the album PBX Funicular Intaglio Zone (2012) by John Frusciante. There is much they could learn in terms of sampling and melding discordant sounds in a way that audibly is interesting, surprising, rewarding and when considered as a whole is cohesive.     

There was a girl in front of me who could not have been older than 2 or 3, who was very well behaved and quiet. I felt sorry for her being taken to this. I have considered whether to say this as could easily be seen as overly dramatic, though I felt it was abusive for her to have have been taken to this when there is no way this could have been felt to have been accessible for her. 

There were walk outs after pretty much every piece and these appeared to increase as the performance went on. I also heard people outside after saying they were having to stifle laughter.   

This may surprise, though most of what I state above, I feel to be constructive. Despite most of the performance feeling like a challenge at no point did I consider walking out, though I also was not confused by those who were. 

Rating: 02/10.