Three vastly different performances took place last night at Casa del popolo for the concert featuring Chik White, Ky Brook/Robyn Gray and Jessica Ackerley. Two of them plunged us into Noise with their screams and vocal outbursts, which were at times strange and disconcerting.
The first was the performance of Chik White, Darcy Spidle in civilian life, whom conservative ears (and even liberal ones) would describe as an oddball, or a schizophrenic in hallucinatory crisis. White plays the Jew’s harp and the guitar, but let’s just say that he violates them to bring out improbable sounds, which he accompanies with borborygms and improvised screams. Aunt Karen would have said he sounds like the animated character from La Linea (google that) drowning. Or vomiting. Or both at the same time. I’d like to say that I don’t have an aunt named Karen, that I have nothing against aunts, nor against anyone named Karen. It’s just to say that this kind of show is anything but mainstream. That said, the Nova Scotia-based artist’s candidness helped me enjoy watching (and hearing) him go, fascinated as I was by what he’d come up with the next second. Abnormal and astonishing. Long live Suoni!
The second performance was the slightly more “conventional” (don’t say that to aunt Karen) duo of vocalist and sound designer Ky Brooks and guitarist Robin Gray. These Montrealers are into drone-driven noise. They rip the drones to shreds and build up a construction that leads to a pulsating finale, on which Brooks lets loose with heartfelt but controlled cries of rage. Unforgettable, intense and downright cathartic. Your humble servant loved it.
The highlight of the evening was a completely different kind of performance. And that was a good thing. After the previous experiments that almost made Diamanda Galas look like a girl scout, Alberta guitarist Jessica Ackerley imposed a more soothing, purely instrumental energy, made up of soaring, cosmic impressionism and episodes of great digital finesse.
Occasional outbursts of hard, even metal-style playing, prove her ecumenical guitar skills. All in all, the young lady pursuing a doctorate in Honolulu has made her mark into our minds. Here’s a performer of the very highest level, as much in knowledge and academic refinement as in the art of improvisation and eclecticism. A wonderful discovery for those who didn’t know her before.
It’s this kind of evening that reassures us about the future of musical creativity, and demonstrates the essential nature of events like the Suoni per il popolo festival.
