MySpace a place for friends

(Thanks guys!)

Bangor University’s Powis hall is an impressive space on a bad day, but had an extended feeling of humble grandeur tonight. A la Ronde, ensuring the focus is always the performance , octophonic sound created simply with 8 speakers circling the audience. The performance space itself no less intriguing with collections of guitars, drums, mics and the “ central control desk “ . Set up, initially, to afford composing student’s platform for their work and to show the work of local artists, the wealth of talent at Risk Of Shock was phenomenal this evening. Including Andrew John Hodges,(www.myspace.com/chaparralandrewhodges presenting an example of his current work with polyrhythms, which sounds technical, and is. However as a piece of music it stands beautifully, combining an ancient instrument with ambient electronics. The result is a feeling of an Egyptian ritual ceremony, hypnotic, meditative. I hadn’t read the programme note before the performance ( oops) and didn’t listen for the 18 polyrhythms used, which is apparently also good fun. Four undergraduate students presented works, Tom Jackson, Kim Shepherd, Harry Perry and Jack Corlett, all working with digitally sampled audio, yet each creating unique works, Harry’s bold and striking, Tom’s sampling bass guitar, Kim very gentle. I did wonder if it was a coincidence artistic director Ed Wright chose Jack Corlett’s “Railway Sleepers” to programme with Antti Sakari Saario’s “ Bullet Train Ballad No1” . The two pieces have no relation in aims or intentions, but there is in different ways a sense of Train in both. Nice juxtaposition I thought. As for something different, Ed Wright showed Harp Set his piece exploring fractural algorhythms. This time he used his natural surroundings to his precedence projecting onto the beamed ceiling to frame his visuals. Certain frames within which mirror the existing patterns. For those who are interested in the maths behind the piece he will be delivering a paper at the Sound Sight Space Play conference in Leicester next month. All in all a grand night out, delightfully informal for a genre which can get pompous if it puts its mind to it. And why not, the artists are exploring more than their own navel here, but whilst it would be easy to get caught up the math and science, what is demonstrated tonight is that is stands up as music and deserves to be heard a lot more.