Classical music and jazz: Review - London Sinfionetta's EXPERIMENT
Published: 6 May 2010
by SEBASTIAN TAYLOR
EVEN as the audience took their seats for the performance, the recorded wail of a distant fire-engine filled the concert hall at the Kings Place arts centre in King’s Cross on Saturday.
Then the rhythmic two-note wail was taken up by London Sinfonietta string and wind musicians playing in unison; then they too were joined by classically trained indie pop group Micachu and the Shapes.
The wail crescendoed until the sound of the fire-engine was overwhelmed by the combined musical forces.
This was the start of a thrilling concert demonstrating that experimental music doesn’t deserve its low reputation as a ghastly turn-off only enjoyed by a self-indulgent musical minority.
The concert, attended mostly by a youthful audience, was the high point of the London Sinfonietta’s EXPERIMENT mini-fest exploring contemporary music.
Micachu and the Shapes have a reputation for using novel sounds in their music, once including a vacuum cleaner. Regrettably, the cleaner did not make an appearance at the Kings Place concert. Rather, highly novel sounds came from home-made instruments including a 26-string zither tuned to one-quarter tones played by a violin bow and two “choppers” involving guitar-like instruments on their backs played by spikes protruding under a revolving wheel.
At one stage all the performers except the percussionist, bass clarinettist and bass flautist produced chords by blowing over the tops of wine and beer bottles.
While the wailing fire-engine set the scene for the concert, the collaborative forces made the most of the kind of noise you might expect from a door swinging on rusty hinges and from trotting/galloping horses.
Then, young songwriter-singer Micachu (real name Mica Levi) herself took charge singing several pieces in an odd nasal tone, sometimes almost a rasping wail held on one note – not the two note fire-engine wail and certainly not Schubert.