This Friday June 19 at the Suoni Per Il Popolo, Jardin botanique played their album Isthmus (meaning land bridge) from its light melodic beginning to its somatic bassy ending. The intimacy and sweetness of the synthesizer has been explored countless times and this Montreal ambient synth duo knows how to control the fragile sweetness. Their instrumentation along with their name reminds us of the famous album that turned 50 this year, Mother nature’s phantasia but Isthmus takes the human angle.
The performance seems to invite worship of the little human things. The journey is one of carefully controlled attention. Kate Bundy, half of the synth duo, holds this attention with care, her performance puts listening before acting at the center and so she invites the same from us. Mostly standing at her synthesizers she creates washes of sound punctuated by intentional melodies as well as a long bell solo. Bundy leaves her synths to present us these bells in a venerative swaying dance that lets us know that in this moment the bells are the most important thing in the universe.
A video of cut out photographs was projected on the back wall. This video created by Jean-Guillaume Bastien, the second half of the duo, is made of memories shared by the musicians. First we see the objects that define these memories; the large sun flower, the inflatable flapping man, the perfectly manicured hedge. Then we are introduced to the background these objects were cut from; the sky, the mountain range, the corn field. As the concert progressed we heard pulses emerge from the washy background that has been slowly building complexity. Deeper bass synths become what holds you. This culminates in the final piece where a bright rhythmic arpeggiated melody meets a lightly distorted bass. Bringing the focused play between foreground and the background to our attention.
The duo gives us a narration of places coming from their pull between Athens, Georgia and Montreal and the spiritual isthmus that connects them. The specificity of their experience is what makes it such a touching work and connective experience. There is also an isthmus forming between the audience and Jardin Botanique.
