Just like the title says kids, Alan Licht was at work last night, to discuss his new book (Sound Art, Rizzoli), “Ensemble” and the environmental elements affecting improvisational music. The talk culminated in a screening of Text of Light, an ongoing series of improv-music-meets-silent-film collaborations with Sonic Youth’s Lee Ranaldo. (This particular piece involved Stan Brakhage’s The Text of Light.) While the talk was a little on the dry side, the discussion of incidental sounds in performance gave me something to gnaw on for a couple hours.

Later, I caught Kinski at Johnny Brenda’s. While there was a small crowd (emphasis on small), a couple of the audience members took it upon themselves to document the performance with their cameras. I don’t object to people photographing shows at all, but the flashes were constant through the duration of the set. Some photogs only shoot for one song, others stretch it out to two or three — but that’s pretty generous. Consider putting down the camera if you can’t grab any good shots after a few songs! Anyway, while it may not have been incidental sound, it became an element of the performance nonetheless. But unlike Licht’s thought about external influences matching up to performance at hand, the non-stop flashes did little to enhance the action onstage. In fact, it detracted from the show overall. Way to ruin the fun, dudes.

Kinski were pretty great and their new record is a personal favorite (in a year where I’ve been pretty disappointed with music). The new songs hold up well live, but Kinski’s always been quite good at translating their records to the stage. It never really hit me until last night but “Dayroom At Narita Int’l” sounds more and more like an outtake from Watery Domestic, especially the frayed melodic structure of the guitar solos. I rarely listen to Pavement these days (sometimes I wonder if I actually ever liked them in the first place), but it’s funny how pervasive their influence is — creeping up when I least expect it.

(While it’s still fresh in my mind: Licht’s argument that improv can match up to the experience draws upon the concept of inverse presence, coincedentally.)

This entry was posted on Friday, November 30th, 2007 at 12:48 pm and is filed under music.