St Andrew’s in the
Square/City Halls/The Old Fruitmarket
Glasgow
9–11/5/2014
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| All photos courtesy of Alex Woodward (www.crimsonglow.co.uk) |
‘There is an option to fail, which is totally fine,’ says
curator Ilan Volkov at his introductory talk – and he means it. He and
Tectonics co-curator Alasdair Campbell have programmed more than 40 wildly
diverse performances over three days, including numerous vastly challenging
orchestral premieres. There are plenty of opportunities for disaster.
Improvisation and new contemporary composition are still at
the core, but there’s a stronger song-based current this year. Friday begins in
St Andrew’s church with a beautifully poignant song cycle from pianist Bill
Wells and vocalist/violist Aby Vuillamy, accompanied by a small BBC Scottish
Symphony Orchestra ensemble. Richard Youngs and Anakanak also offer songs – the
former, an a cappella declaration of love and trust that weaves in and out of
the rafters’ ecclesiastical acoustics; the latter, an innovative web of vocal
loops that hints at but mischievously frustrates dance music. More abstractly,
Collective Endeavours offer an interpretive invective against fracking, in
which Jer Reid stacks up harmonium loops while dancer Solene Weinachter endures
violent contortions, ending up shattered and broken. The sumptuous,
time-suspending drones of Klaus Lang, Catherine Lamb and Marcus Weiss, as well
as Kristín Þóra Haraldsdóttir’s
ultra-minimalist precipice-of-silence viola piece, offer deeply
meditative, engaging experiences.
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| Collective Endeavours |
Much of Saturday is given over to largely orchestral works
by the festival’s big hitters. As its name implies, Christian Wolff’s ‘Ordinary
Matter’ seems to evoke different physical states: liquid drones, fizzing
Brownian clouds, vast slabs of solid granite. John Oswald’s big, bold ‘I’d Love
to Turn’ is a brash repurposing of formative influences, in which the
Beatles, Ligeti and Riley are smooshed together into a cohesive whole. Fragile,
sparkling drones and jazz motifs characterise David Behrman’s ‘How We Got
Here’, the fantastically evocative climax of which reaches for the celestial
with suspended chords. Behrman and Wolff also present some small-scale
structured improvisations, replete with grunts and boings and scrapes. Best of
all is Behrman’s ‘Wavetrain’, in which a grand piano and pickups generate vast,
intersecting rushes of noise, reaching colossal volume, like an earthquake
wrestling a Branca guitar ensemble.
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| Wavetrain - David Behrman, Christian Wolff, Takehisa Kosugi and Ilan Volkov. |
This year’s strongest offerings revel in a playful sense of
curiosity, exploration and engagement. This is perhaps best embodied by Sarah
Kenchington and her wondrous, interactive installation of hand-built
sound-making machines, constructed from junkyard detritus – a bicycle,
tubas, foot pumps, plumbing, wine glasses, a vintage pram. Whether operated by
Kenchington and her friends or by delighted passing punters, her parping,
honking, creaking creations inspire considerable delight.
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| One of Sarah Kenchington's creations (the machine, not the man). |
Sunday’s afternoon performance
from Edinburgh’s Usurper and friends also capture this spirit, with an absurd
set that’s equal parts dinner party, slapstick routine, experimental
vocalisation and object-based improv. One of the weekend’s most instantly
appealing sets comes from Icelandic composers’ collective S.L.Á.T.U.R,
who produce complex, fascinating outcomes from simple techniques, via projected
graphic scores that make the compositional process open and accessible – and
funny, too. And then there’s Takehisa Kosugi – a man of advancing years
at play in a self-made world of lights and wires and boxes, making proto sci-fi
soundscapes and deliciously controlled chaos, his joyous, celebratory noise an
inspiring vision of creative contentment.
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| S.L.A.T.U.R. |
Much excitement surrounds Sunday’s finale – Richard Youngs’ 'Past Fragments of Distant Confrontation', his first-ever orchestral piece. He and Volkov take the orchestra out of the
concert hall, and install it in the more informal Old Fruitmarket, the
musicians placed around, amid and above the audience. Strings drone
incessantly, then horns blare in a discordant, warlike fashion, followed by a
brief cacophonous assault from BBC SSO percussionist Dave Lyons (playing the
unusual role of D-beat drummer), Youngs on guitar, and frequent collaborator
Andrew Paine on scathing electronics. These three elements cycle and repeat and
repeat and cycle, as Youngs toys with and disregards the narrative expectations
of orchestral music. Visceral, naïve, unkempt, surprising and a tad cheeky: a
massively enjoyable bit of a shambles.
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| Ilan Volkov conducting Richard Youngs |
Though still a young festival, Tectonics is rapidly carving
out a thrilling niche, in which the furthest fringes of the outer frontiers
seem less and less remote. While others may revel in their otherness in a way
that makes them appear prickly and aloof, Tectonics is pointedly welcoming and
inclusive – and all the more daring for that reason. The option to fail may be
there, but it hasn’t been exercised yet.
