Rival Consoles
When an evening is stamped with the hallmark of “Hark”, an umbrella under which the Norwich Arts Centre presents diverse and intriguing electronic music, a fun packed evening of laptops, synthesisers and patches is almost always assured. With Cosmic Pint Glass DJing in the bar and three acts in the main hall, the night felt more like a mini celebration of the form, than simply a Rival Consoles gig with support.
Squeezed into the corner of a stage packed with other people’s kit, Jonathan Krisp opened with a quirky set, producing a sound tricky to pin down. There were moments when the soaring cadences of Ulrich Schnauss came to mind, only for something akin to the minimalism of Graham Fitkin to then creep in. It was a sound that held my interest, but I felt he struggled to square the challenge of performing live that which is essentially the product of a laptop. Attempts to extemporise over predefined rhythms were not, to my mind, entirely successful with occasional discordant howlers derailing what could have been an intriguing half hour.
Krisp left stage left, to be replaced stage right by Sunda Arc who, with considerably more gear proved an even tighter fit - with Nick Smart’s keyboards tucked into the tiniest of nooks, brother Jordan’s various saxophones propped up centre stage, and pride of place given over to their self-built Max/MSP patches. I don’t know what a Max/MSP is, how it works, or the extent to which it contributed to the sound they make, but it’s a magnificent beast – all coils and wires and plugs – the operation of which lent their performance a considerable theatricality. It’s a stage presence that is only enhanced by the obvious fraternal comradely of the brothers playing together, swapping places, reaching over each other, and so clearly enjoying what they are doing. The combination of looping electronic rhythms and the organic expressiveness of “real” instruments (supported, it should be said, by superb sound engineering) made for an astonishing, bravado performance that cast my mind back to the best work of Terry Riley. When Jordan Smart started playing the alto sax I was also reminded of the brilliant, jazz tinged Mammal Hands, a pearl of wisdom I shared with him in the break.
“That’s because we are Mammal Hands,” he explained, to my evident embarrassment. “This is our other band.”
“Just how many bands are you in, exactly?” I asked.
“Well, there’s the folk band as well, I suppose,” he replied distractedly.
Guileless, friendly, and approachable, I got the sense that Jordan is only vaguely aware of the astonishing talent he and his brother possess, and how impressive their breadth of musical accomplishment is. They must surely be one of Norwich’s most talented duos - having seen their performance I’d have happily gone home, having witnessed what felt like a headlining set.
But there was more to come, of course, in the shape of official headliner Rival Consoles. Finally an uncluttered stage was given over to Ryan Lee West and his huge eponymous console, behind which he showcased his latest album ‘Persona’. Ably assisted by arresting visuals, superb sound reproduction and the perfect venue for the secular euphoria of his sound, his new material proved to be both varied and intricate.
Sitting somewhere between the cathedral grandeur of Fuck Buttons and the lush melodies of Jon Hopkins, this wasn’t really dance music – though many in the audience gamely wiggled and waved about as best they could – but it does have an emphatic, driving force that pounds away in syncopation with primeval internal rhythms locked somewhere deep inside us all. I’ve never seen so many nodding heads outside of a heavy metal gig, as West twiddled his knobs and hammered away on the pads and switches and whatnot available to him, frequently appearing to be lost in revelry of his own making.
The performance – and therefore presumably the album – was occasionally uneven, with some tunes stopping dead, while others morphed from one to the other, and the repeated changes of pace and mood could be jarring, moving from pounding beats to sombre refrain and back again, seemingly without great purpose. It meant the music rarely lapsed into the tedious repetition that can be the bane of electronic music, but I did struggle to find an arc to the music’s progression, so that when proceedings came to a close, it felt neither inevitable nor particularly satisfying. Nonetheless, if some of the music’s subtleties remained shrouded on the night, I suspect repeated listening would bear fruit - there was certainly enough promise here to invest time in doing so.
