November 2023
Hooray! Ian and I spent a fantastic and totally productive last week of November in Sage 2 working on our evening-length weirdo spectacular about Luciano Berio, Karl Adrian Wettach (better known as ‘King of Clowns’, Grock and their unlikely geographical and artistic relationship. If you don’t already know him, peep one of Grock’s amazing shows at, for example, here, though like most of his shows, this one predominantly in German).
The show, which is almost but not quite finished, has lots of fun things in it: a short film that documents a mad dash to the venue including backstage antics involving the mild destruction of Ian’s trombone (argh, sorry Ianni; I’m still breaking out in cold sweats over this blunder); a delightful story about endless private practice featuring a violently screeching art deco mirror; a roaring, rumbling bin, a state-of-the-art, wooden Hypobone, and a Pete Doherty-circa-2005 impression replete with smoke machines and the moodiest lighting; and an 18-minute musicological not-quite-spoof paper on Berio’s Sequenze, his broader contributions to electronic music, and the aesthetic overlaps of his brand of modern musicking and Grock’s approach to clowning. Oh, and Ian plays the original Berio like an utter don. Granted, I’m not impartial, but I’m also not lying: there are even Phat Beats. We almost video[graph]ed the work-in-progress showing on the Thursday evening, but decided it wasn’t quite as polished as we’d like it to be before presenting it to The Hordes of Internet, so for now here’s a photograph of the stage after soundcheck, just before being populated with theatrical amusements. Of course, better documentation will follow. Enormous thanks to all of the programmers, technicians, and Glasshouse staff for creating and facilitating the opportunity, and especially to Matthew Jones, who gave us the nudge we needed to apply. We’ll be back with the finished thing as soon as we have it done.
Some more fun news that seems to signal a general return to Business as it Was Before Everything Happened; at the invitation of Willapa Bay AiR, I’ll spend the month of June on a twenty-kilometer long spit in the Pacific Ocean in Washington state near the Oregon border (seriously, check it out), working on a piece I have mentioned on this page a few times; Noble Gases, an operatish exposition on lighter-than-air travel, obscure wartime legislation on US helium exports, and the sonico-historical resonances between New Jersey and German house and techno music, wrapped neatly in a backpack for the power-pairing of Nina Guo (your new favourite singer), and Edward Kass (my mother’s favourite double bass player), AKA Departure Duo, and probably some video and text bits. This piece has been in the works for a while now, and it’s very satisfying to see the individual moving parts for its realisation begin to come together. Many thanks to the panel at WBAiR for having me, and hello in advance to my fellow residents; I’m looking forward to meeting you all! Let’s have a ball among the waves and oysters of Oysterville…
This post feels a little bald without some sound, so above I’ve dropped a tiny, very rough, (but still quite nice?) snippet of a side project I’m working on with the multitalented Rob Hughes under the moniker Wire & Wood; a guitar & xylophone softcore duo through which we’re trying to focus on honing forms that do the musical most with the material minimum. This sketch isn’t really what we sound like, but it’s the season of giving, and it’s something kind of warm in which to briefly bathe your eardrums, though to me feels sort of bleak and grey also, a bit like the Pacific Northwest? Happy whichever festival of light you do or don’t celebrate!
joesna.pe 